Week 91: Self Control, Snow Gives Way

Self-Control: Until I looked it up after watching it, I had no idea that this was considered one of the best episodes of the series, but I have to concur with that common opinion. The wrenching scene of Jemma Simmons murdering Leo Fitz's LMD was one of the hardest things to watch that the MCU has yet produced, and I give a lot of credit to the actors, especially Iain De Caestecker who apparently improvised the LMD alternating between pleading for mercy and robotically trying to kill her back. Daisy Johnson's fight scenes were very impressive, particularly the fire-lit battle against Jeffrey Mace, although I could have done without the episode stripping her down to her underwear for no apparent narrative reason. (Aida can mass produce dozens of identical-clone Quake LMDs but can't find clothes for them to wear?) And the closing montage of life inside the Framework for each character was a giant leap forward for the series, promising a lot of very interesting material in the episodes to come; I can't decide which character's subplot I'm most excited to see because they all have so much potential. The Moody Blues song that was chosen for the montage was another excellent needle drop for the series, a great match tonally and lyrically. Even the parts of the episode that were less interesting, like Daisy hiding in a room full of copies of herself (it's been done plenty of times) and Anton Ivanov discovering the horror that his head & brain are alive in a jar while he experiences the world remotely (ditto) were still very well executed. I don't know where the show is going with Ivanov, but Aida trapping him resentfully in a robot body and unleashing him in the world seems like it won't end well, just as with the Melinda May LMD, who got a satisfying ending. Holden Radcliffe being killed by Aida felt obvious and inevitable; the only surprise is that it took this long. (9/10)

Team Thor: Part 2: Meh. The passage of time didn't help the first Team Thor, and this one suffers even more for it. This was made in the same improvised mockumentary style lifted from Christopher Guest that has completely taken over sitcoms for the last couple of decades, and I can't be the only viewer who is sick and tired of that style by now; enough already with it. Chris Hemsworth's timing and delivery remain spot-on, but the material just isn't as funny. Was this edited together out of leftover unused footage from the first short? (5/10)

Snow Gives Way: Here we go. I've seen the first season of this series already, and I cannot discuss my feelings about this rewatch without giving away my overall opinion about it the first time: Not good, not good at all. I'll spare most of my specific comments for later episodes, but the first ten minutes of this premiere demonstrate a lot of the problem. We open on a barefoot guy walking around New York and it quickly raises a number of interesting questions: Who is this guy? Is he the real "Danny Rand" or is he nuts? What will happen when he gets inside his building? How did he learn kung fu skills like that? It's a dynamite opening designed to hook us, but it's immediately doused by cold water when Danny (I'm just going to call him that) finally reaches the executive offices of Joy and Ward Meachum. They're hostile to his claims without an ounce of compassion or curiosity, and he's incredibly dense for not realizing that his wild claim would require some kind of proof. All three of them come off quite badly in a way that makes you want to turn off the show, and on top of that, the scene just drags on for twice as long as it should, with no imagination or wit or specificity. If this scene frustrated you too, get used to that feeling.

Danny comes off worse by breaking into Joy's house (which is clearly no longer his home and he has no right to enter it, come on man) and then telling her openly about his illegal entry, to which of course she'll react badly, taxi-jumping stunts aside. And then, he comes off really badly in the scene where he returns to Colleen Wing's dojo to ask again for a job, after she already refused him on the street. Five times she tells him to leave, even having to threaten violence, before he finally does as she asks, which is a huge red flag. We're supposed to like and root for this guy, right? Good TV shows can pull off leads who have very unlikable personality traits, but they usually have some personal charisma to make up for it -- off the top of my head: Tony Soprano, Hannah Horvath, Michael Scott, "Jerry Seinfeld," Piper Chapman, BoJack Horseman, Walter White -- and Danny does not possess this charisma.

Still, there's enough good material here that the hour is not a waste. The mystery of Danny's identity and how it will be resolved is a great hook for the start of the series. The character of Big Al was sympathetic and interesting and I would have enjoyed hearing more of his ideas. The little references to Danny's past that were sprinkled into the episode with a humorous matter-of-fact quality ("What's your purpose?" "To protect K'un-Lun from all oppression & honor the sacrifice of Shou-Lao the undying.") feel like the right small dose to pique our interest without overdoing it with too much expository backstory right away. The scene with Howard Meachum in his hidden penthouse, while underwritten, was at least unexpected, and the set decorator Stephanie Bowen deserves praise for adding little details to that penthouse that hold our interest visually. The same goes for the foot chase in Chinatown, which leans on a cliche (why is every Chinatown in movies and television always throwing a parade with fireworks and dragon costumes?) but at least there's some visual flair to the sequence. I also liked the surprise of Joy drugging Danny's tea, it got me even though I should have seen it coming. (6/10)

I gotta ask: What is it with the Defenders gaining their abilities as a result of vehicular accidents as children? Matt Murdock was blinded when a truck carrying radioactive goo crashed in front of him. Jessica Jones was experimented on after being the sole survivor of her family's car wreck. Now we learn that Danny Rand gained some mysterious kung-fu abilities after a plane crash in the Himalayas. Are we sure that Luke Cage didn't get incarcerated at Seagate as a result of a boat sinking or a train derailing or something?

And I’m back!

This was one of the best episodes of AOS that I’ve seen. Why can’t they make more like this? I’m actually invested in where the series is going from here. Right before we get to what has been rumored to be the worst series in the MCU.

Thanks, cinematic timeline for dropping that giant turd right when I’m finally getting back into this project.

Please tell me there’s no more Team Thor. This was a mistake and I hope they’ve learned their lesson.

Snow Gives Way:

Scott, I know that your view of the remainder of the season (and probably the series) has been tainted by your previous exposure to it. I think I must have seen part of this first episode before, myself, because I was getting some serious déjà vu.

At this point, I don't have the same feelings for the show that you do, Scott. I found it to be mostly enjoyable, but with so many questions.

And not in a "ooh...I have so many questions! I can't wait to see how they resolve them!" way.

How did he get back to New York? What is his aversion to shoes? How does nobody notice he's in the room? He has to stink. Joy didn't notice that Danny was in her house until he told her about it later? Is his actual super power his ability to modulate his own body odor?

Mostly, what this episode falls into is the old trope of a situation being able to resolve itself if just one of the people involved would act like a functioning human being. Instead, it relies on Ward and Joy being obstinate in the face of Danny giving them some pretty compelling facts about his identity... enough to at least warrant further investigation. But Danny isn't innocent, either, with his severe lack of awareness of social cues, which I partially attribute to what I'm going to assume has been 15 years of home schooling with Tibetan monks or some other bullshit.

We already established that he had $2 in his pocket. How did he pay for that mask at the parade? It looked like he paid for it, and I can't imagine that his moral code would allow for him to steal it.

But yes, I thought it was, on the whole, a decent first episode, albeit one that could have used for a little less ham-fisted exposition, and a little more nuanced writing.

I'm so glad you're back! :-D I'm minimally active in this at the moment for the same reason as the rest of Funeratic, which is that I overcommitted myself to a series of projects (including our game marathon) without anticipating how few spoons I'd have on an ongoing basis, so I'm devoting myself to finishing those projects one at a time before I return my full attention here, "schedule" be damned. But I'm eager to get back to watching and writing, and now also to seeing what you think as you catch up to me and overtake me. :-)

I don't know why, but Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. always seems to fire on all cylinders when the team turns against itself in one form or another, and that's what "Self-Control" is all about. (Ok, I have a guess as to why: The show's heroes, despite sometimes being underdeveloped, are far more compelling than its stock villains.) I agree that this episode is really good. It feels like the writers finally harvesting some of the seeds that they've been patiently planting for a good long time now.

This is not the end of Team Thor. I haven't seen beyond this point, so I have no idea whether it turned out to be wise to continue.

Yes, I think you nailed it in your criticism of "Snow Gives Way," that these people don't act like people but instead like characters in precisely this kind of genre show. That makes it hard to care about them, hard to take them seriously, and hard to enjoy their stories because we know they're going to do exactly what the plot needs them to do. Danny's lack of social understanding is especially hard to swallow: He was ten years old when he left, which is very much old enough to understand and remember concepts like "Western people don't like breaking and entering." If he were sufficiently charismatic, he might be able to pull of this kind of naivety, but he's not. Instead, he just comes across as stupid in a way that's kind of obnoxious. But that's just me; you don't seem to mind him as much as I did (at least not yet).

Ham-Fist might have been a better title.

There’s something about not being able to tell who is or isn’t an LMD that gives me some nostalgic desire to go back and watch the Stargate series.