13 Big Questions For The Future of ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has now finished its freshman season on ABC and while the series started on the wrong foot and met harsh criticisms, the tie-ins to Captain America: The Winter Soldier and resulting game-changing events righted the ship. As a result, Agents of S.H.I.EL.D. finished relatively strong (read our review), earned back a lot of respect from fans, and better yet, won itself a second season order.
With the final stretch of the season running with the tagline “it’s all connected,” did the series deliver on that notion? Let’s take a look at some critical questions raised throughout the 22 episodes and ask a few more that remain unanswered as we say goodbye for now to Agent Phil Coulson and his team.
1. Who or what is the Blue Alien?
In episode 14 (“T.A.H.I.T.I.”) Coulson discovers some shocking truths about his miraculous recovery from death at the hands of Loki in The Avengers. He should have died and he wanted to, but Fury made sure that he didn’t. Coulson learns that he was injected with the GH 325 serum, taken from an unidentified blue alien, and that his memories were altered to turn what was essentially torture, into a nice vacation at a “magical place.” We learn by the end of the season that Coulson was actually a part of this Avengers-last-resort-miracle-cure project but that he warned against it because of the negative it’ll-make-you-crazy side effects. This is why Fury assigned Agent May to keep an eye on Coulson throughout the first season.
From the markings on the alien body matching designs seen on aliens in Guardians of the Galaxy (mostly seen from the toy lines), along with a name drop from Chloe Bennet (Skye) herself (see here), we’re running under the safe assumption that the alien is a Kree, a species we’re going to meet in Guardians of the Galaxy when it hits theaters this August.
As for who this particular Kree could be, check out point #2. It was a head-scratcher that Coulson failed to ask Nick Fury in the finale about the alien, but again, we did learn earlier that pre-memory wipe, Coulson was a lead on that project so perhaps he knows. The audience however, still does not. In the end, that major plot point which may tie to the next Phase 2 film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was swept under the rug… or at least an underground bunker’s worth of debris.
2. So, why is Agent Coulson special?
Nick Fury moved “Heaven and Earth” to keep Coulson alive, special treatment that according to S.H.I.E.L.D. officer Victoria Hand, (moment of silence, please) no ordinary officer in S.H.I.E.L.D. would receive. Drawing from comic stories for theories and hints from the writers, cast and executives behind the show, there was something epic and mysterious about Coulson’s return to life and the reason why he was brought back, but as we learned, he’s alive because simply because Nick Fury trusts him. That’s all, folks. He’s loyal, not alien or super-powered (read our old Coulson theories here). But it’s the how that’s more interesting…
The twist is that Coulson wasn’t special before, but he clearly is now. The end of the finale reveals that the memory wipe didn’t quite work as planned on Coulson and he’s begun to jot down alien text or markings on the wall, the same way crazy John Garrett (Bill Paxton) did after being injected with a variant of the GH 325 serum as well. We’ll explain why Skye doesn’t do this later (see point #3) but Garrett was right in saying he and Coulson were cut from the same cloth. They are (or at least, were) connected. How?
What is this?
The blue Kree juice they took did something to them, whether that be transferring bits of memory or consciousness from the alien to them, or if the alien truly is Kree (and we think it is), it could have connected them to what Marvel Comics readers may know as the Kree Supreme Intelligence – a massive super-computer of sorts helping lead the Kree empire on their homeworld, built from the greatest minds of their people. Recall: Raina says to Ward that Garrett is “connected now” after he goes full-on crazy in the finale.
All of that is way too over-the-top for the MCU as we currently know it, especially for casual ABC television viewers, but after Guardians of the Galaxy welcomes fans to the cosmos, then the series may begin taking advantage of its clearly alien plot threads. So, to go back to question #1, our theory about the blue alien (and possibly in effect, Coulson) being or becoming the character Geheneris HalaSon from Marvel Comics aka Captain Marvel (Mahr Vehl) could still be true and come true, so to speak. Coulson is special. More on that here.
3. Who or what is Skye?
One of the major blessings with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that also happens to be its greatest problem is that the the creative team behind it is making a lot stuff up. They have to since its characters are all original and for the most part, are not from the comics. Even Agent Coulson was made up for Iron Man but has since found his way into an animated cartoon, a video game and even the books.
While Coulson is the lead of the series, the character the audience is meant to latch onto is Skye, the young outsider who had to earn her spot on the team from the get-go. She’s a hacker with a good heart who happens to have a mysterious and dark past. She also took a few bullets to the chest in episode 12 (“T.R.A.C.K.S.”) and nearly died until, like Coulson and Garrett, she had a dose of Kree GH 325 Koolaid and made a speedy recovery. For her recovery however, there were no negative side effects. She’s not crazy or dangerous, nor is she scribbling on the walls with a knife. Why?
Skye’s story and importance is one of the more frustratingly drawn out elements of the series, but it’s clearly part of a much larger plan. In episode 12 (“Seeds”) we learned that when Skye was a baby, many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents died trying to protect her and that she was classified by the organization as a 0-8-4 (an object of unknown origin). Skye’s not human and her no-consequence recovery from using the GH 425 had Fitz and Simmons secretly researching her seemingly normal DNA for a while. Combine this knowledge with the fact that Kree blood sustained her and there must be a connection.
The additional hint we learn in the first season’s final episodes is that Skye’s unidentified parents were the “monsters” responsible for the deaths of the agents in the Chinese village where she was recovered as a baby. Her parents are super-powered monsters, and her physiology works with Kree blood… Is she an Inhuman (see point #4 for more on this)? There are other alien possibilities (like the Majesdanians who left a child on Earth named Karolina Dean who joined the Runaways – a Marvel comic Joss Whedon wrote a few issues for) but the Kree blood might be the key hint, assuming of course, it is actually a Kree alien that we saw those many episodes ago.
Note: In chatting about Skye, Raina says to Ward that “her true nature will reveal itself” and described Skye as a monster. We’ll save the Ms. Marvel theories for another day.
4. Who or what is Raina?
Another made-up character for the show helping make it very difficult to surmise if this stuff is actually truly “connected,” Raina was introduced in episode 5 (Girl in the Flower Dress”) as an antagonist with an obsession for people with special gifts. It’s what made her loyal to the Clairvoyant, what drew her to China to capture Scorch (dude with fire powers), what had her interested in the Extremis virus and the Centipede program, and what has her involved in the happenings of the season’s last few episodes.
What is that thing?
As we learn in the final two episodes, she – like Skye – is not normal either. She says in episode 21 (“Ragtag”) she has something in common with Skye so if Skye is an Inhuman, Raina could be too. For a crash course on Inhumans, they’re people who share ancestry with early humans who were experimented on by the Kree millions of years ago. When they come of age, coming in contact with the Terrigen Mists (this may be a big plot point in future Marvel movies) mutates them and can grant them super powers or monstrous growths. It sounds strange but Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige really wants to make an Inhumans movie and Marvel has been beefing up the Inhumans comics lately. That is all very intentional. Check out Marvel’s recent official guide to Inhumans and Terrigenesis to see for yourself here.
Fun fact and interesting connection: While writing for Marvel’s Runaways comics, Joss Whedon created a character named Klara Prast, who also sports the nicknames “Rose Red” and “Tower of Flower.” Her power is to control plants and in her mind, she “talks” to roses. Is Raina inspired from that character? It’s his character and his show, written by his brother and sister-in-law.
5. Who is Skye’s Father?
Skye’s father & Raina
At the end of the finale we see Raina meet up with Skye’s father, someone she knows but hasn’t seen in a long time. Was she exiled? We can’t see his face, but it appears he’s covered in blood. Is he an Inhuman, some other powered individual or another alien species? Is that a real character from the comics or another plot point made up for the show?
Skye’s dad has bloody hands
Does any of this truly “connect” to what we see in the mid-credits scene of Captain America: The Winter Soldier where we meet the super-powered “twins” known as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch? Will these latest mysteries pay off in the films (a la Inhumans) or is this thread relegated to just the show?
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has now finished its freshman season on ABC and while the series started on the wrong foot and met harsh criticisms, the tie-ins to Captain America: The Winter Soldier and resulting game-changing events righted the ship. As a result, Agents of S.H.I.EL.D. finished relatively strong (read our review), earned back a lot of respect from fans, and better yet, won itself a second season order.
With the final stretch of the season running with the tagline “it’s all connected,” did the series deliver on that notion? Let’s take a look at some critical questions raised throughout the 22 episodes and ask a few more that remain unanswered as we say goodbye for now to Agent Phil Coulson and his team.
*Warning: This post contains major spoilers for the entirety of Agents of SHIELD season 1 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier*
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1. Who or what is the Blue Alien?
In episode 14 (“T.A.H.I.T.I.”) Coulson discovers some shocking truths about his miraculous recovery from death at the hands of Loki in The Avengers. He should have died and he wanted to, but Fury made sure that he didn’t. Coulson learns that he was injected with the GH 325 serum, taken from an unidentified blue alien, and that his memories were altered to turn what was essentially torture, into a nice vacation at a “magical place.” We learn by the end of the season that Coulson was actually a part of this Avengers-last-resort-miracle-cure project but that he warned against it because of the negative it’ll-make-you-crazy side effects. This is why Fury assigned Agent May to keep an eye on Coulson throughout the first season.
From the markings on the alien body matching designs seen on aliens in Guardians of the Galaxy (mostly seen from the toy lines), along with a name drop from Chloe Bennet (Skye) herself (see here), we’re running under the safe assumption that the alien is a Kree, a species we’re going to meet in Guardians of the Galaxy when it hits theaters this August.
As for who this particular Kree could be, check out point #2. It was a head-scratcher that Coulson failed to ask Nick Fury in the finale about the alien, but again, we did learn earlier that pre-memory wipe, Coulson was a lead on that project so perhaps he knows. The audience however, still does not. In the end, that major plot point which may tie to the next Phase 2 film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was swept under the rug… or at least an underground bunker’s worth of debris.
-
2. So, why is Agent Coulson special?
Nick Fury moved “Heaven and Earth” to keep Coulson alive, special treatment that according to S.H.I.E.L.D. officer Victoria Hand, (moment of silence, please) no ordinary officer in S.H.I.E.L.D. would receive. Drawing from comic stories for theories and hints from the writers, cast and executives behind the show, there was something epic and mysterious about Coulson’s return to life and the reason why he was brought back, but as we learned, he’s alive because simply because Nick Fury trusts him. That’s all, folks. He’s loyal, not alien or super-powered (read our old Coulson theories here). But it’s the how that’s more interesting…
The twist is that Coulson wasn’t special before, but he clearly is now. The end of the finale reveals that the memory wipe didn’t quite work as planned on Coulson and he’s begun to jot down alien text or markings on the wall, the same way crazy John Garrett (Bill Paxton) did after being injected with a variant of the GH 325 serum as well. We’ll explain why Skye doesn’t do this later (see point #3) but Garrett was right in saying he and Coulson were cut from the same cloth. They are (or at least, were) connected. How?
What is this?The blue Kree juice they took did something to them, whether that be transferring bits of memory or consciousness from the alien to them, or if the alien truly is Kree (and we think it is), it could have connected them to what Marvel Comics readers may know as the Kree Supreme Intelligence – a massive super-computer of sorts helping lead the Kree empire on their homeworld, built from the greatest minds of their people. Recall: Raina says to Ward that Garrett is “connected now” after he goes full-on crazy in the finale.
All of that is way too over-the-top for the MCU as we currently know it, especially for casual ABC television viewers, but after Guardians of the Galaxy welcomes fans to the cosmos, then the series may begin taking advantage of its clearly alien plot threads. So, to go back to question #1, our theory about the blue alien (and possibly in effect, Coulson) being or becoming the character Geheneris HalaSon from Marvel Comics aka Captain Marvel (Mahr Vehl) could still be true and come true, so to speak. Coulson is special. More on that here.
-
3. Who or what is Skye?
One of the major blessings with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that also happens to be its greatest problem is that the the creative team behind it is making a lot stuff up. They have to since its characters are all original and for the most part, are not from the comics. Even Agent Coulson was made up for Iron Man but has since found his way into an animated cartoon, a video game and even the books.
While Coulson is the lead of the series, the character the audience is meant to latch onto is Skye, the young outsider who had to earn her spot on the team from the get-go. She’s a hacker with a good heart who happens to have a mysterious and dark past. She also took a few bullets to the chest in episode 12 (“T.R.A.C.K.S.”) and nearly died until, like Coulson and Garrett, she had a dose of Kree GH 325 Koolaid and made a speedy recovery. For her recovery however, there were no negative side effects. She’s not crazy or dangerous, nor is she scribbling on the walls with a knife. Why?
Skye’s story and importance is one of the more frustratingly drawn out elements of the series, but it’s clearly part of a much larger plan. In episode 12 (“Seeds”) we learned that when Skye was a baby, many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents died trying to protect her and that she was classified by the organization as a 0-8-4 (an object of unknown origin). Skye’s not human and her no-consequence recovery from using the GH 425 had Fitz and Simmons secretly researching her seemingly normal DNA for a while. Combine this knowledge with the fact that Kree blood sustained her and there must be a connection.
The additional hint we learn in the first season’s final episodes is that Skye’s unidentified parents were the “monsters” responsible for the deaths of the agents in the Chinese village where she was recovered as a baby. Her parents are super-powered monsters, and her physiology works with Kree blood… Is she an Inhuman (see point #4 for more on this)? There are other alien possibilities (like the Majesdanians who left a child on Earth named Karolina Dean who joined the Runaways – a Marvel comic Joss Whedon wrote a few issues for) but the Kree blood might be the key hint, assuming of course, it is actually a Kree alien that we saw those many episodes ago.
Note: In chatting about Skye, Raina says to Ward that “her true nature will reveal itself” and described Skye as a monster. We’ll save the Ms. Marvel theories for another day.
-
4. Who or what is Raina?
Another made-up character for the show helping make it very difficult to surmise if this stuff is actually truly “connected,” Raina was introduced in episode 5 (Girl in the Flower Dress”) as an antagonist with an obsession for people with special gifts. It’s what made her loyal to the Clairvoyant, what drew her to China to capture Scorch (dude with fire powers), what had her interested in the Extremis virus and the Centipede program, and what has her involved in the happenings of the season’s last few episodes.
What is that thing?As we learn in the final two episodes, she – like Skye – is not normal either. She says in episode 21 (“Ragtag”) she has something in common with Skye so if Skye is an Inhuman, Raina could be too. For a crash course on Inhumans, they’re people who share ancestry with early humans who were experimented on by the Kree millions of years ago. When they come of age, coming in contact with the Terrigen Mists (this may be a big plot point in future Marvel movies) mutates them and can grant them super powers or monstrous growths. It sounds strange but Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige really wants to make an Inhumans movie and Marvel has been beefing up the Inhumans comics lately. That is all very intentional. Check out Marvel’s recent official guide to Inhumans and Terrigenesis to see for yourself here.
Fun fact and interesting connection: While writing for Marvel’s Runaways comics, Joss Whedon created a character named Klara Prast, who also sports the nicknames “Rose Red” and “Tower of Flower.” Her power is to control plants and in her mind, she “talks” to roses. Is Raina inspired from that character? It’s his character and his show, written by his brother and sister-in-law.
-
5. Who is Skye’s Father?
Skye’s father & RainaAt the end of the finale we see Raina meet up with Skye’s father, someone she knows but hasn’t seen in a long time. Was she exiled? We can’t see his face, but it appears he’s covered in blood. Is he an Inhuman, some other powered individual or another alien species? Is that a real character from the comics or another plot point made up for the show?
Skye’s dad has bloody handsDoes any of this truly “connect” to what we see in the mid-credits scene of Captain America: The Winter Soldier where we meet the super-powered “twins” known as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch? Will these latest mysteries pay off in the films (a la Inhumans) or is this thread relegated to just the show?
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