Agents of Shield Season 5 Reactions

Okay, first off, someone please give Daisy a hug!!! How did we not have a single instance of someone showing affection and concern for Daisy after what she went through at Fitz’ hands? Honestly, the one person who constantly checked up on her was Deke and how messed up is that? The guy who sold her into slavery is a also the only person who is concerned about her. Now I know, he had ulterior motives, he liked her romantically but still.

This season is a little hard figure out in terms of whether I liked or not. I’m still not sure. There were some problematic elements like that fact that Deke sold Daisy into slavery and we never really explored that. Or that Fitz took out her inhibitor, never asked Daisy and essentially chose the most sadistic way to go about it and we never explored that either.

Also, I hate that Simmons just completely shut out what Daisy suffered. I get it, she loves Fitz but Daisy is also her friend, right?! Who was just ripped open and was betrayed by someone she deeply trusted. Yet, she never seems to consider that. Instead, getting really hopped up on the theory that she, Fitz and Yo-Yo are somehow invincible and that nothing could hurt them. Collectively, the three of them deserved to get smacked on their heads. I actually found Simmons even more frustrating that Yo-yo. Fitz attacking Daisy and forcibly restoring her powers, no problem. But using Jiaying’s DNA, from her corpse, that has moral implications?! Wow, double standards much!

That entire scene where Fitz abducted Daisy and then tore into her was pretty hard to watch. Kudos to both Chloe Bennet and Iain De Caestecker on their respective performances, they were both excellent. But what really bothered me after that was that no one else really addressed that. Like we were just expected to move on.

I liked that May and Daisy, at least, were a united front. For both of them, Coulson was more than a team-mate/leader. He was family. We’ve known for a while that both Coulson and May have deeper feelings for each other and it surprises absolutely no one that Daisy and Coulson were like father and daughter. May lost Andrew and Daisy lost everyone, so it’s understandable that they would fight tooth and nail to save him. Someone who never gave up on them and was always there, who never left them behind.

I initially really disliked Deke earlier in the season but he kind of grew on me as the season progressed. Also, he and Fitz have more in common as far as their more grey decisions are concerned. Another thing that I was really grateful for that the show didn’t force Daisy and Deke into a romantic relationship. And that ALL the characters knew exactly how Daisy felt about him and never encouraged him (except for laughs)

I also liked the way Daisy handed over the reins over to Mack. She recognised that she wasn’t objective enough to make the tough calls but Mack, being more experienced than her, does have that. I liked that we had a few moments of Mack and Daisy being there for each other, I wish we had more of those moments.

One of my biggest complaints of the season is the fact that a ship seems to have gotten bigger than the rest of show and that the show-runners are running with that. That I feel is detrimental to the over-all plot. The writers know how big the Fitz-Simmons ship is and they constantly play to that corner. And they’re doing it at the expense of other characters.

Going forward, Season 6 has a shortened number of episodes. This is a good thing, fewer episodes means that the plot will be tighter and the no filler episodes. I know that Fitz will be found, even when he died, there was no tension because I knew that there is no way that he would let him die. I knew that the team will be getting him back. I don’t know how I feel about the possibility of no Coulson. And does that mean that May is done as well or did she take that break to be with Coulson during his last days? I’m confused.

Season 5 is a mix of things that worked really well and others that didn’t, I’m hoping that season 6 is more balanced in that regard. And that they treat Daisy better. She’s a badass but more importantly she’s a multi-faceted character and deserves to be treated as such. I’d like her to have agency going forward and for the other characters not steam-rolling all over it. I hope the writing, plot and character development are more balanced.

The Tiger’s Daughter (Their Bright Ascendency #1) by K. Arsenault Rivera Review

DNF

There really needs to be a negative ratings system because if there were I would have used it for this book.. I could not even bring myself to finish it. It was so damn tedious!! The pseudo-Japanese names coupled with some of the dullest text I’ve come across in a while did the book no favours.

Sorry, I have better things to do than trying to muddle through this mess.

The Hundredth Queen (The Hundredth Queen #1) by Emily R. King Review

This book made me want to beat my head against the wall. It reads as a mish-mash of various cultures including but not limited to ancient Sumerian and Indian.

The thing that really ticks me off are the names. I can only speak for names that are Indian but there’s almost always a cringe-worthy element. For example, Deven’s mother’s name is Mathura. Mathura is the name of a town in India. As an author who’s neither Indian origin nor familiar with Indian names, please do the least minimum and at least google the names you plan to give your characters. This kind of writing reeks of laziness and immediately pulls me out of the story.

The main plot was also mediocre at best. Kalinda and Deven almost immediately fall in love and seem to have no self-control and have the survival instinct of a dodo. Their characters were inconsistent and seemed to sway back and forth with no real convictions.

Of the secondary characters, Yatin, Jaya, Mathura were okay. The rest didn’t really make an impression. The king, our chief antagonist was also written so poorly that it was difficult to take him seriously. King wanted him to exude menace but failed.

I did originally plan to read books 2 and 3, now, I’d much rather focus on something that better written and has characters that I care about. I am also going back to my original weeding process and avoiding debuts.

Avengers 4 – Theories and Speculation

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

So, I saw Avengers: Infinity War and I’ve been a mess ever since. The film really guts you in a way that previous MCU films don’t. I’ve always had a problem with Marvel films, in that the stakes never felt high enough, you knew that the protagonists would make it through the end because there was another film in the franchise.

Avengers: IW threw all the out the window. The film starts with 2 deaths and from then on, the Mighty Avengers are playing catch up. They really never had a chance (save for one, but I’m not going there) So who’s gonna come back and who’s dead for sure? Well, I have some ideas, so here we go:

Who’s dead for sure:

Loki, Heimdall and Vision. I’m pretty sure that they’re dead for sure. For one, Idris Elba is done with his Marvel contract and he’s been pretty vocal of late of being done with the MCU as well. Tom Hiddleston as well, as far as I know has also finished the contracted number of films (Avengers 4 being the final one, so we may see him in some capacity) Vision died when Thanos ripped out the stone from his head. Now, I think that this Vision is dead. We may see another version of him assuming Shuri managed to save his mind, the part independent of the Stone. So there is the possibility of White Vision.

Who’s Coming back:

Pretty much everyone who got dusted. There is no way that Black Panther and The Guardians aren’t coming back. For one, BP was one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed film in the MCU, there is no way that Marvel is permanently killing him off after just one film. Similarly, we know that there is a Guardians 3 film happening and we know it’s going to feature Adam Warlock. So Peter, Drax, Groot and Mantis are coming back. But what about Gamora, you ask? Well, recently the Russo Brothers confirmed a theory quite a few of us had; that Gamora is alive inside the Soul Stone. I think she’s alive because she was Thanos’ sacrifice to obtain it. In effect, she is its first inhabitant, the 1st person put in there because of Thanos.

Now there are some people who are speculating that she may not come back till Guardians 3, I disagree. Her arc, what happened to her is tied to Thanos. She was pretty much the first person to defy him, it makes no sense to keep her absent from Avengers 4 when Thanos is eventually brought down. It would be poetic for her to be there when Thanos meets his end. To see him look at her, someone he loved most (albeit his version of love is twisted as fuck) standing over him. I didn’t know how much I needed that till I wrote it down. As for why Thanos saw her in her child’s form, that’s easy enough. He saw her as he wanted to see her, as a child, when she needed him and likely didn’t question him. When she didn’t look at him with loathing because she didn’t know what he had done.

As for the others who got dusted: Wanda, Peter Parker, Dr. Strange, Bucky, Sam Wilson, Maria Hill and Nick Fury, do you seriously expect me to believe that they’re gone for good? I’m not buying. For one, We need Dr. Strange to wield the Time Stone, for second we know that Homecoming 2 is in the works and Bucky is tipped to take over the Captain America mantle from Steve and Sebastian Stan has a 9 film contract with Marvel so he’s certainly not done. In which case, it doesn’t make sense why some of the characters would come back while others don’t when eventually they had all suffered the same fate. It does not compute.

Also, I can’t wait to see Okoye, Black Widow, Wanda, Gamora, Nebula, Wasp and Captain Marvel collectively kick Thanos’s ass.

We know that Avengers 4 has to undo Thanos’ genocide otherwise it was all for naught, half of the entire universe’s population stays dead and how is that a good end for this phase.

Speculation:

Now, how will we get people back from the dead? There are a few ways that it could come to pass… For one, it is entirely possible that the remaining avengers manage to get their hands on the stones after Thanos’ gauntlet disintegrates. I also don’t think any one Avenger will wield all the stones, more like a collective wielding. Strange will definitely wield the Time Stone, the rest are up in the air.

I have a feeling that the events in Ant-man and the Wasp take place slightly before the events in Avengers: IW or they’re running very close to parallel. Which is why, it still has the light-hearted tone that we usually associate Marvel films with. It’s only at the end that we’ll see the ramifications of Thanos’s finger snap affect the characters in Ant-man and the Wasp. It would be a pretty neat lead-in to Avengers 4.

As for Captain Marvel, I think it’s going to be a flash-back film. Marvel will need to tell us why she was missing for so long/ where she went. The reason I think it will be a flashback because it doesn’t make sense to a regular prequel/origin film just before Avengers 4. The tone will likely not match, not to mention that the time difference would be jarring (CM is set in the 90s).

What about Iron-Man and Captain America:

These guys are the first avengers and in many ways the fabric that holds the team together which is why the Avengers fell apart when Tony and Steve had a falling-out. The events in IW in many ways foreshadow what might happen to these guys.

While many speculate that Steve will die in the A4, I think it’s going to be Tony. Why? Let me elaborate: we see Tony and Pepper in IW, Tony wants to start a family but he can’t stop being Iron Man. It’s in his DNA. He loved Pepper, but even she can’t keep him from being Iron Man. He can’t stop, his identity as Iron Man is deeply tied in to who he is deep inside.

Steve, on the other hand, joined the military because he wanted to do the right thing. He became Captain America, not for glory but because, he felt it was the only way he could contribute. At his core, he’s a peace-maker. He doesn’t like conflict and only engages when he has no other alternative. He would want a quiet life, heck, he would want to get a chance to live his life, without being constantly on the run or fighting.

Also, Steve already died once, I refuse to believe that Marvel would do that again.

I need Steve to walk away, I will NOT be able to deal with his death! Don’t do it Marvel!

I think A4 will end with Tony’s death and Steve stepping down from the Avengers and handing over his mantle to Bucky.  It would be a good way to end Phase 3 and kick off Phase 4.