X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

Oh, now they’re just trolling us.

Coulson: You forget – I saw plenty of action with the Avengers. [walks away]
May: And you died.

Followed up later by…

Coulson: Should just be muscle memory.

Totally trolling us with what really happened on the Helicarrier. It screams Life Model Decoy, but would that be too obvious? But what other option is there? In theory, it shouldn’t be long before we find out.

As for the rest of the episode, this show has started to gain a dual personality much like fellow ABC series Once Upon A Time. The stuff with Ward and Skye is pretty lame, obvious, harsh on the dialogue. The stuff with Coulson…  OMG, freaking brilliant!

Every moment in the Ward/Skye/Training story line you could see the next piece in line. It was laid out like a high school drama play and predictable at every step. There was the occasional cute comment, but for the most part, it was where the episode dragged the most. The writers continue to flux with Skye’s seemingly questionable loyalties but it’s nothing new, nothing fresh, and it was predictable. No way she was going to turn on the team this quickly and not for that reason. Still no chemistry between Ward and Skye as well.

But then we get to Coulson’s plot arc. Only Coulson would just wear a suit to an infiltration like that. I mean, he doesn’t put on a flack vest, he doesn’t even strip to a t-shirt. Nope, just wearing the suit cause he’s classy like that. Then when he confronts the scientist, Dr. Hall, the whole scene with the rotating gravity was spectacularly well done for a tv-budget.  And his decision at the end, to sacrifice the man who was sacrificing himself. It was cold, it was calculating, and was probably the right thing to do. I literally sat up and said a few choice unrepeatable words.  This is the kind of thing we want to see more of in this show. The soft underbelly, the moralist existentialism. Basically, the stuff we’ve come to know from Whedon. I hope this is just the beginning.

Speaking of beginnings… yeah, way to go creating a super-villain there Coulson… couldn’t be more proud.

I’m pretty sure that raft would have gotten sucked through the hole.

Convenient physics aside, this was your typical ‘now that the team is together, they have to learn how to work together’ episode. It was pretty straight forward plot and predictable with the double cross. The dialogue was at times very blunt, do we really need to be told they have a common enemy now? It was kinda obvious. Not to mention the show is really pushing the relationship between Ward and Sky and that’s given us some unfortunately dialogue, not to mention the two have no chemistry.

That being said, there was definitely an air of adventure to the series. They find an old Hydra weapon in an Incan temple, then fight people for control over it. It’s very old-school comics and that’s awesome to see here. Once the show gets into its groove it will be literally like watching a comic book in action. The dialogue and plotting needs work but it’s early days yet, and the show has several bright moments of snappy dialogue and genuine character feels.

My only worry is that the moment with Sky at the end was just a bit too obvious.  Everyone calls her a risk, blah blah, Coulson sticks up for her, blah blah, oh, guess what, she’s probably still working for Rising Tide. Unless there is a major twist somewhere, which is totally possible, this is going to have very little payoff. No surprises here.  But hey, two episodes in and it’s already a zillion times better than Arrow.

Lastly, FURY! Already we get a cameo from an MCU main character and it’s none other than Nick Fury himself telling Coulson off for the damage done to the plane. It was a great touch and very well done. I honestly thought Clark Gregg was going to crack up at one point, but then he delivers that obvious but fantastic “Cancel the fish tank” line. The whole scene is a beautiful touch that elevates the entire episode. Obviously they can’t have cameos like this in every episode, but the fact we get one early like this is a good sign for a lot of things to come.