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Category Archives: Marvel Television Shows
Loki Finds New Purpose in the Man behind the Mischief
What would you do if you went through life convinced that you were “burdened with glorious purpose” when you were, in fact, just another cog in the machine? What would you do if you found out the artifacts of power you so desired were mere trinkets that other folks used as paper weights? What would you do if you believed you were in control of your own destiny, only to discover that you are the plaything of greater beings whose life story has already been written? And what would you do if you thought you were the protagonist, only to realize that you are a mere springboard to help others become their best selves?
It would probably drive you to do some soul searching. What I like about Loki in its opening stanza is that the show is equal parts meta, goofy, and existentialist in the shadow of these big questions. There’s not a lot of action in the series’s debut. Instead, there’s a lot of table-setting, throat-clearing, and conversation. But this first episode, aptly titled “Glorious Purpose”, ably sets the tone for Marvel Studios’ new villain-fronted series. The vibe is irreverent to be sure — as befits the “mischievous scamp” at its center — but also willing to delve into personal pain and deeper self-examination that feels just as true to the MCU’s trickster god.
Posted in Marvel Television Shows, Television
Tagged Episode Reviews, Loki, mad men, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Owen Wilson, Tom Hiddleston
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The WandaVision Finale Helps Us See the Rocky Road to Healing
The world is on fire. We are still very much in the throes of a pandemic that has cost untold human lives and inflicted even more misery. In the midst of all of this, many of us have retreated to the warmth of T.V.’s comfort food, where laughs are plentiful and problems are solved in thirty minutes or less. It’s a preferable alternative, albeit a temporary one, to the hurts and horrors of the real world, providing a little spiritual getaway in tumultuous times to soothe our pains or block them out entirely.
That’s part of why WandaVision has been so resonant and so successful. It certainly helps that the series was one of the very few big releases at a time when the entertainment industry has been collectively holding its breath. And it also doesn’t hurt that the show represents the first big MCU project in eighteen months.
“On a Very Special Episode” and the Painful Truth at the Heart of WandaVision
Caution: This review contains MAJOR SPOILERS for S01E05 of WandaVision
There’s so much to buzz over at WandaVision’s halfway mark. Quicksilver from the X-Men as Quicksilver from the Avengers! Scarlet Witch’s stand-off with Sword! Pitch-perfect 1980s TV spoofs! Bulletproof hot pants!
But here’s the thing that grabbed me the most while watching this “Very Special Episode” — the sequence where Vision confronts Wanda over what’s happening to both of them. That harrowing scene has some extra oomph because of the special effects at play. There’s something eerie about the two of them arguing over the end credits until they stop. And there’s something scary about the couple rising into the air at the same time they’re raising their voices to one another.
Saying Farewell to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D
It might surprise you to know that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is still on the air. The show (which ends its seven-season run this week) debuted in 2013, one of the first new releases from the Marvel Cinematic Universe following the 2012 megahit The Avengers. Superhero fans, and the public writ large, were champing at the bit to spend more time in that world. They also wanted to spend more time with Phil Coulson, the workaday agent who’d become the connective tissue for Phase 1 of the MCU.
Behold the Awfulness of Showrunner Scott Buck in “Behold…The Inhumans!”
In one of Family Guy’s notorious cutaway gags, a character declares that he “hasn’t been this confused since he watched the film No Way Out.” The scene them flashes back to him exiting a movie theater and declaring, “How does Kevin Costner keep getting work?”
It’s hard not to feel the same bafflement about Inhumans showrunner Scott Buck. The biggest mystery left in the wake of “Behold…The Inhumans!”, the show’s first episode, is not how the titular heroes will cope with a budding coup, or what a seer’s prophecies mean, or even the vaguely-defined superpowers of the protagonists. Instead, it’s how and why studio executives keep handing Buck the keys to the kingdom after how many meh-to-ugh seasons of television have been unleashed on an unsuspecting public under his watch.
Does Buck have compromising pictures of someone important? Are television moguls simply content with the fact that he makes the trains run on time? Or is he just a really nice person?
Posted in Marvel Television Shows, Television
Tagged Episode Reviews, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Scott Buck
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The First Episode of Iron Fist Can’t Get Past its Uninteresting Lead in “Snow Gives Way”
Not every main character has to be likable, or stay likable for that matter. Plenty of great works in all genres and mediums feature less-than-admirable individuals at their center. But even if the audience doesn’t like the protagonist, he or she still needs to be someone the viewer wants to spend time with. Especially in the early going, your lead has to be someone the audience wants to get to know better, that they want to see face whatever obstacles are in the offing, whether we’re rooting for them to leap over those obstacles or stumble.
That’s Iron Fist’s biggest problem out of the gate. Main character Danny Rand doesn’t do anything so terrible in the show’s first episode. His knocking out security guards and breaking into someone’s home (which, in fairness, used to be his home) is questionable, but fairly par for the course when it comes to superhero stories, especially those involving long-missing orphans (of which there are a surprising number). But after an hour with him — in an episode that runs 56 minutes and would have been better with half that — there’s no good reason to want to hang out with Danny for another twelve.
Posted in Marvel Television Shows, Television
Tagged Danny Rand, Iron Fist, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Netflix, Superheroes, The Defenders
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How Daredevil’s Season 2 Finale Dragged the Whole Season Down
What is it, to be a cheesy voiceover montage in the last moments of a season finale? Do you have to try to sum up an entire season’s worth of themes using vague doublespeak and an army of cliches? Will you narrate over clips of our heroes looking vaguely sad or frustrated in the vain hope of wringing some pathos out of this big hunk of corn pone? Must you include strange or cryptic teases for future seasons or series? Or can you just speak in platitudes about heroism and strength and hope that somewhere in that stew of hokum you stumble onto some mild profundity?
Ranking: Every Marvel Cinematic Universe Hero and Villain
Ahead of the release of Captain America: Civil War, Andrew Bloom and Allison Shoemaker rank every Marvel Cinematic Universe hero and villain–both in film and on T.V.–and decide who would win in a hypothetical fight between each good guy and bad guy.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Hive, Daisy, and the Show Itself Are Beautiful Accidents in “Failed Experiments”
Once they’ve been on the air long enough, most television shows start to become a little more reflective, a little more aware of their own histories, a little more apt to try to look back and tie everything together. With the release of Captain America: Civil War around the corner, and the increased viewership Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is likely to attract because of it, the folks behind the show are more inclined to try to make a statement, pull out all the stops, and demonstrate that their work stands equal with its cinematic brethren. So “Failed Experiments” presents the audience with a referendum on its protagonist, a referendum on S.H.I.E.L.D., and in some ways, a referendum on the series itself.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Unsatisfying Farewell in “Parting Shot”
If you want to sell the audience on the kind of “sacrifice” that “Parting Shot” puts forward, you need to do two simple things that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. absolutely failed to do.
Posted in Marvel Television Shows, Television
Tagged Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Bobbi Morse, Episode Reviews, Lance Hunter, Marvel
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