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Finished Agents of Shield Season 6 and the series finale for Happy Endings.

Happy Endings needed at least one more season. It wasn't a good show, and I don't miss it, but it very much feels unresolved.

Agents of Shield Season 6 was...decent. I sped through it far too fast, but it was also only 13 episodes. Season 6 didn't reach the high that seasons past had, and the villains, while different, weren't that interesting IMO. What Season 5 & 6 did do well is make the show feel like a comic book. Each season has (mostly) had the characters face wildly different issues, and it feels far more fun and like what SHIELD would most likely end up facing in the comics. I mean, sure, they'd have to clean up after superheroes too; but those are more like "Lower Decks" issues than "Agents of Shield" issues.

I did have some annoyances on how they treated non-named POC in some of the scenes, but that's nothing new. Deke is probably my new favorite character, and it's almost a shame that he's always the punchline of the joke. Almost. (His breakdown and rant in The Sign was really well done and very justified.) Mack is still the best character, inching out May by a couple of hairs this season. Simmons had some great moments this season, and her attitude change by the end of it all has me excited for Season 7.

Skye is solid as always. I've been a little torn on her character for most of the series. She's far from a Mary Sue - she makes mistakes that get people killed, she's emotional and sometimes lets those emotions rule her, and she's a terrible leader at this point in time. But she also feels weirdly close to that line at the same time. Like she's the best of the best, and is always the best. I guess part of that feeling comes from the fact that she's usually on a pedestal that doesn't feel earned yet.* The other part of it comes from how much character shilling she had during the first season. It was eventually earned, but I'm not entirely sure I ever got over it. THAT BEING SAID, I've really grown to like her as the seasons have gone on. Skye has come a long way from the character shill she was in Season One to the awesome field agent she is now.

I'm looking forward to Season 7, but I'm also not looking forward to the end of the show...despite it really needing to end. Seasons 2 & 4 were easily the best seasons. It's definitely premature, but I feel like at the end of Season 7 I'm going to say something along the lines of "Agents of Shield was a show that had many problems, not all of them were its fault. Some are forgivable, others less so. But at the end of the day, I'm happy to have gone on all these adventures with these characters."


*This may also be my own bias acting up, and I need to check that at the door.

 

In a move that I haven't done in a couple of years, I finished the entirety of Agents of Shield Season 7 in one 24 hour period. Granted, I skipped over a lot of stuff, so it may be more accurate to say I skimmed a fair bit, but I finished it!

And what a season it was! This may have some of my personal favorite episodes in the entire series ("The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and The D" was a riot). This season was marked by sacrifice, and many characters had to make some incredibly tough calls. I'd say this is the darkest season to date. And a certain character's absence was well noted, but well executed. Throughout this show's run I've had problems with Skye being The Chosen One but Season 7 completely changed that, making sure every character had their moment to shine. And the new addition to the team was a nice reward for longtime fans (and MCU junkies as a whole).

I'll also say that having smaller seasons allowed the show to do spend more time on the adventure and the plot, since we've met a majority of the main characters by that point.

The main gimmick of this season is the same one we've been dealing with for a couple of seasons, and is far from my favorite story gimmick - time travel. Time travel can be a great and fun thing, but it can also be an annoying and confusing thing. This season, Agents of Shield left us with both. On one hand, the time travel was really fun. It reminded me of Legends of Tomorrow, but far more constrained. (For better and for worse.) On the other hand, it created a lot of problems and the rules weren't really clear all of the time. They explained it in the series finale, but immediately went and mucked it up! Not to mention by that point it was too little, too late.

Which brings me to the next point, the antagonists. The Big Bad for the past two seasons wants to take over Earth and use it as their new planet...which always confused me. Surely such immortal beings could use another planet that doesn't contain sentient life and meets their needs. Why use Earth exactly? It makes no sense and it always annoyed me. Maybe I skipped that part, but alas.

We had smaller and more threatening antagonists, but I didn't feel any real feelings about them. They were just annoyances that had too much power and we were glad to see gone. Like, there was no catharsis factor in them losing. You just wanted them gone.

The show also took some of the more interesting ideas that time travel allows and used them for emotional shock and tragedy instead of character growth in many cases. Not all of the cases, since there were some really interesting things thrown in as well, but a lot of them.

The final scenes were very bittersweet. But it made sense for where the characters had been and where they were. They ended in the best place for them. I'd just love to see them pop up on the big screen again someday. ...at least Skye, Mack, and May.

Before I said that I'd probably feel like "AoS had many problems, some of them their own fault, others not so much. But at the end of the day I was happy to go on that adventure with them." And after finishing the show, I 100% stand by that. It was a good show with good characters that had a good run. But in many ways, the MCU has outgrown the need for SHIELD, and with it the show must go as well. New shows will pop up on Disney+. Maybe in those some of our old favorites will return.

I'd easily recommend it to Marvel, MCU, or superhero fans. Season 2 & 4 are THAT good, and while the show rarely reaches those heights again, they do a good job of maintaining their momentum and having some really great moments. That being said, it does break the Three Episode Rule for television shows.


Lastly, my main character ranking, in tiers:

Tier 1 aka my favorite characters: Deke, Enoch, Mack, May, TRIPLETT (my favorite character in the show), Bobby, Hunter, and "Leopold."

Tier 2 aka they grew on and I really like them: Coulson, Skye (Post Season 1), FitzSimmons, Ward (Between Season 2 and the first half of Season 3), Yo-Yo, Piper (we needed more of her.)

Tier 3 aka they're plain but not bad: Ward (Season 1), Davis (they really could have made his character pop more had they combined him with Triplett).

Tier 4 aka they annoy me: Skye (Season 1), Lincoln.




(Also Skye's best haircuts were her in Season 3 and at the beginning of Season 5)

 

Between a socially distanced outdoor brunch, making curry for a friend in record time, a nap, and finishing up multiple group projects, I started Stargirl this evening and I like it so far! The production value is still television level, but it's definitely a higher quality than what CW superhero shows usually have. Or maybe they have more money now. Or maybe they just know how to use the money they do have better. Or maybe it's the directing - it feels more...cinematic, for lack of a better word.

The setting of the show is modern, but the atmosphere is closer to the 1960s & '70s so it's more in line with the Silver Age of comics. This is fitting for two reasons. First is that the Golden Age has passed in-world, so now it's time for the Silver Age. Second is that the Silver Age "ended" in the 1980s with Crisis On Infinity Earths. But this time around, the CW's own Crisis On Infinite Earth's storyline starts the Silver Age.

I'm really liking where the story is going too. Stargirl is recruiting her allies at this point, and it sort of reminds me of certain Power Rangers season, but a slower burn. The tone of the show so far is more like Shazam and MCU Spider-Man, and Into the Spider-Verse in a lot of ways. The main character, Courtney Whitmore, is a girl who knows she has powers and is so sure of status as a legacy character. She's up for the adventure, even if her allies aren't as sure. I'm sure this will be subverted later on...in fact, I'm almost positive it will be, because I may have spoiled myself on certain aspects of that. But for now, I'm enjoying the ride.

I do wonder if this will cross over with other DC-CW shows, but I sort of doubt it. Keeping them separate for the time being is probably for the best. Supergirl is ending, Batwoman needs to refind its footing, I'm pretty sure Flash and Legends are on their last legs, and I have no idea what's happening in Black Lightning right now. (And Black Lightning's crossover with the rest of the DC-CW shows was honestly a bit of a letdown. Jefferson Pierce should have talked with Oliver Queen and Joe West about the nature of fatherhood, and how scary it is not only being a dad, but being the father of vigilantes/superheroes. (Barry may be able to weigh in on this topic, but I'd rather he not right now.))

Overall is another fun DC show that reminds me more of Shazam than what CW shows usually are (no love triangle, better - but still bad - graphics, and semi-decent acting!). If you like those things, go for it.

(Also I had a silly thought that PS4/PS5 Spider-Man's Miles Morales and Courtney somehow end up dating for a time, and it just becomes this running gag that like how nearly every version of Peter falls in love with Mary Jane, every version of Miles falls in love with a Blonde (be it dyed or natural). Spider-Verse Miles and Gwen, PS5 Miles and Courtney...yeah, it's silly, but it was fun.)

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I used to put movie reviews on my Facebook and even tried a blog at some point. But telling my friends and posting these sorts of thoughts in the appropriate thread(s) here work just as well.

EDIT: Also, I was mistaken before. Stargirl was created for the DC Universe streaming app and only aired on CW afterwards. It's NOT specifically a CW show...or at least it wasn't. I believe they will air Season 2 exclusively on CW now. (Terrible move btw.)

 

I meant more in the fact that they've aired it on a paid subscription service originally; and unless that subscriptions service is shutting down (which it very well might be - DC Comics has not had a good year), airing the show exclusively on a free platform feels like a stab in the back.

That being said, yeah I worry about the overall quality dip due to CW's tropes too...