Back to the Beginning

Agents of SHIELD, Season One

By Suzette Chan
August 13, 2018

When Marvel's Agents of SHIELD debuted on ABC in 2013, it disappointed a lot of people, including me. In fact, I bailed after the pilot episode. So five years later, how did AoS become one of my favourite shows?

Agents of SHIELD promised to be a television show like no other. Not only was it Marvel Studios' first live-action television series (1978's The Incredible Hulk was an NBC Universal property), AoS was going to tie into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The MCU was itself a novelty. Instead of a franchise that began with a singular blockbuster, then continued with sequels and prequels, the MCU would be more like a comics cross-over event. Characters and stories from the individual series -- Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and The Guardians of the Galaxy -- would cross over in the Avengers movies.

Television's AoS featured SHIELD agent Philip Coulson, a made-for-MCU character whose appearances, along with Nick Fury's, threaded Phase 1 of the MCU roll-out. In Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, and The Avengers, Coulson was deployed as an antagonist or as an abettor as the plot demanded. He was also shown carrying out his own agenda, hinting at the wider, more interconnected MCU. Solidifying the integration between the MCU and TV stories, AoS's Coulson would be played Clark Gregg, who played the character in the movies. (In the past, TV adaptations of movies were separate entities and often starred entirely different casts for the same characters: M.A.S.H. and Logan's Run are examples from my childhood.)

Agents of SHIELD was co-created for television by Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, who wrote and directed The Avengers, and the show's triumvirate of showrunners, Jed Whedon (brother of Joss), Maurissa Tancharoen (who is married to Jed), and Jeffrey Bell. Bell, the veteran of the bunch, worked on The X-Files, Angel, and Spartacus. Additionally, Jed and Maurissa had made uncredited contributions to the screenplay for The Avengers.

So far, so good.

Unfortunately, AoS debuted with less of an MCU feature vibe and more of an ABC Family tone. Missing from Coulson's team were the hip, smart-talking characters of the Iron Man and The Avengers. (Lady Sif from Thor eventually appears in episode 15, but her story introduced a supernatural element that felt out of place in the sci-fi action and espionage genre that the show seemed to be settling into.

Airing at 9 p.m., Coulson's team was a rag-tag "family" featuring a Whedonesque quirky girl (Skye), two annoying Hogwarts wanna-bes (Fitz and Simmons), an inscrutable Asian-American operative (May), and a generic family-hour hunk (Ward). No one seemed capable of standing their ground with Coulson. I hated the pilot and never saw another episode of season one -- until this spring.

What changed for me? Well, during season three, a friend moved in, bringing with her cable TV (I was a total cord-cutter by then) and a love of Agents of SHIELD. I said I wasn't watching the show, so I would be doing other things in the apartment. Every now and then, a scene would interest me and I would pay attention. Soon, I would watch entire episodes if I "happened" to be there. Eventually, I eagerly anticipated new episodes. By season four, I was fully on board. After the surprise announcement that the show would be renewed for a sixth season, my roommate decided to re-watch season one, and I decided to join her.

Season one didn't magically become brilliant while I wasn't looking. The stock characterizations from the pilot plague the first episodes of season one. The first four or five episodes also suffer from a villain-of-the-week approach with stories that end tidily, often dressed with a sentimental message of how it's better to act as a family. These episodes would have tried my patience had I been watching the show week-to-week, but with the gift of hindsight, I could trace back story threads from the latest season to their beginnings.

AoS becomes much more interesting when begins to treat the five leads as a team, and not only as a dysfunctional family, particularly as it begins to deal with the question of how Coulson is even alive. In MCU canon, AoS takes place after the first The Avengers movie, in which Loki stabs Coulson, who suffers an agonizing death.

The show could have handwaved Coulson's death with the all-purpose "he got better!" line that superhero and supernatural shows can get away with. However, the first episode of AoS hints at much more to the story. SHIELD agent Maria Hill, who also appeared in The Avengers, takes Ward to a darkened room and asks if he would like to meet Coulson. Ward is surprised; he, like the rest of the world, had heard that Coulson was dead. Then, on cue, Coulson literally steps out of the shadows. "That corner is really dark and I couldn't help myself," he says, normalizing his presence with humour. "I think there's a bulb out."

As Coulson and Hill briefs Ward, we learn that the official record had shown that Coulson had died for eight seconds and was revived by Nick Fury, who then sent Coulson to a healing facility in Tahiti. However, Coulson believes he was dead for at least 40 seconds. "It gets longer every time you tell it," Hill says, casting doubt on the story. During this episode, Coulson jokes about Tahiti being "a magical place" more than once. When I first saw the pilot, I did not realize the significance of this line. I assumed that the show would either forego an explanation for Coulson's return, or that it would take forever for the story to emerge. If I had been watching week-to-week, I might have been frustrated by the continued forestalling. However, knowing how things ended in season five, I noticed that Coulson repeats the Tahiti line in subsequent episodes with decreasing gusto. It takes some time, but various events over the first half of the season shake Coulson's confidence in his own story. A phrase that he shot off to defuse others' confusion and consternation about his return becomes confusing and disconcerting to Coulson himself.

The truth is revealed in episode 14, "T.A.H.I.T.I." From this point on, the show is officially less like it's trying to recreate the feel-good family hour legacy left by The Incredible Hulk and more like it belongs in the MCU. Their concerns grow from the local to the global, from how they work together as a team within SHIELD, to the fundamental purpose of the team. Ultimately, they find themselves questioning the goals of SHIELD itself.

Other characters became more interesting as the show turned to larger themes. By the end of season one, quirky, authority-questioning Skye is on her way to being the most SHIELD-connected and powerful of the young new members; Fitz and Simmons display unique expertise and independent personalities; the curtain on May's rich history is drawn back a bit; and good-soldier Ward is revealed to harbour a dark side that comments on authoritarianism.

As the show's scope widened, AoS viewers were delighted by guest appearances by Cobie Smoulders as Hill, Jane Alexander as Sif, and Samuel L. Jackson as Fury, the latter more known for movies than TV. Those same viewers would have been excited -- and shocked to see SHIELD agent Sitwell from TV be revealed as an agent of HYDRA in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. That movie, which takes place after AoS episode. 1.16, ends with the destruction of SHIELD. Episode 1.17 of AoS picks up where the movie left off, with Coulson's team acknowledging Sitwell's fate. Subsequent episodes focus on how the team deals the reality that they have been working for a corrupt organization, and that they can trust no one, not even each other.

Transmedia storytelling redeemed season one of Agents of SHIELD, but the show went on to stand on its own. The team's adventures have spanned dimensions, time, and space. Its stories refer to, but don't depend on, MCU movies. From seeds planted in season one, season five of AoS explored the world of the Kree, who have only been glanced in the MCU (specifically in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies).

Season five ended on a strong note, with another major reference to "Tahiti". It would have been a satisfying series ending, but ABC somewhat surprisingly renewed the show for a sixth season, which will presumably pick up from where the second part of Avengers: Infinity War will leave off. (Digital Spy reports that the next Avengers movie is scheduled for May 3, 2019, while ABC has announced a summer 2019 return for AoS).

There has been some speculation about which characters will be back for season six and how the show might tie into the aftermath of Infinity War. Whatever happens, I won't bail on Agents of SHIELD this time.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD — Official ABC Webpage