Agents of SHIELD

[DiveMilw]

I can't believe no one, including myself, has started a thread about this show yet.  I finally had to start one because I just finished the last episode of this season (I'm assuming there are only 22 episodes this year). 

Discuss previous, current and future seasons here.

[Chris L]

I think the show finally found its groove a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, it took them about four seasons to do it. I liked this last season, with its two-part future/present construction where the SHIELD team basically had to unravel the destruction of the earth in reverse order. It sometimes became a little too complicated for its own good and I couldn't remember who people were (Where the hell did Piper come from?), especially if they were returning from season's past. And the future section was way too familiar a dystopia. But one of the things I love about the show is that it can mock itself whenever it becomes pretentious. (One of the characters, Clark Gregg's Phil Coulson, actually makes a comment at one point about how tritely dystopian it is.)

I was surprised by the emotional impact the season finale had on me. They pull a fake-out at the end where it looks like they've killed off one of their most beloved characters, until the realization hits that they'd planted a way to bring him back during the first half of the season that made extremely satisfying, if science fictional, sense. But they retired another even more beloved character and the way they did it was beautiful, resolving a romantic tension line that's run through the entire series and leaving you with a clutch in your throat when you realized that by next season, said character would be dead.

The show returns for a shortened season in the summer of 2019, to get it out of the way of the Marvel-universe-spanning events of the two-year Infinity Wars timeline happening in the movies (which is alluded to in the background of this season, but only before those events come to their climax).

(p.s. I edited the thread title to correctly spell "SHIELD." )

[DiveMilw]

(p.s. I edited the thread title to correctly spell "SHIELD." )

Thanks, Chris!!  I was in a hurry when I typed this. I actually hadn't quite finished the episode and was rushing to get back.  But they quoted from "Merrily" and I wanted to post something.  Upon further research the quote, although in Merrily, isn't from Merrily so I deleted it.  But "Here's to us. Who's like us? Damn few." will always be associated with MWRA in my mind and nothing else.

[Chris L]

(p.s. I edited the thread title to correctly spell "SHIELD." )

Thanks, Chris!!  I was in a hurry when I typed this. I actually hadn't quite finished the episode and was rushing to get back.  But they quoted from "Merrily" and I wanted to post something.  Upon further research the quote, although in Merrily, isn't from Merrily so I deleted it.  But "Here's to us. Who's like us? Damn few." will always be associated with MWRA in my mind and nothing else.

AVClub's review commented on the Merrily reference and even linked to a YouTube recording of the song. Sondheim was actually citing an older toast that goes, "Here's to us. Who's like us? Damn few and they're all dead," but the fact that SHIELD left out the last part suggests it really is a Merrily reference. (Joss Whedon, at least, is a huge Sondheim fan.)

So why do you say it isn't from Merrily?

[DiveMilw]

Because it's part of an older, longer toast.....which you quoted.  

[Chris L]

Well, I'm going with it being a Sondheim reference.