The OFFICIAL Marvel's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Season 2 thread.

[satam55]

WHY WE'RE EXCITED FOR MARVEL'S AGENTS OF SHIELD: SEASON 2

Awesome guest stars, big Marvel characters, and more all point to Agents of SHIELD Season 2 being bigger, better.

21 SEP 2014 BY MATT FOWLER

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD returns for its second season this coming Tuesday, September 23rd at 9/8c on ABC. And while last year, Marvel crossing its cinematic universe over onto TV seemed like a huge deal, Agents of SHIELD is now returning into a Fall TV season that's crazily crowded with comic book-based TV shows.

With DC making a huge play for TV (Gotham, The Flash, Constantine, and eventually Supergirl), SHIELD can no longer afford to be the show that's "okay, but could be so much more." Orientation is over and the series must now realize its full potential. But that kind of pressure has us excited. As does a lot of the storyline and character news that's come out regarding Season 2 over the past few months.

So here's what we're looking forward to in Season 2 of Agents of SHIELD.

Sink or Swim

There are no Marvel movies being released during Season 2 that can drastically affect the SHIELD TV storyline. Avengers 2 will pop up right toward the end of the season, so there could be some shuffling done around that giant all-hands blockbuster, but overall Season 2 won't be able to rely on the same sort of show-changing swerve that Captain America: The Winter Solider provided with its huge Hydra infiltration plot.

And that's a good thing. Sure, SHIELD got a lot better when things turned Hydra, and the show/movie synergy was a lot of fun, but now the series has to be great on its own terms. Besides, not every Marvel movie paid dividends during Season 1. There may have been a Lady Sif guest spot in the second half of the season, but the Thor: The Dark World movie itself did little to alter things. All we saw was Coulson and his team cleaning up the rubble at Greenwich University. That's Damage Control work, yo.

Better, Stronger, Faster

So, following up on item number one, storylines can now move at (hopefully) an accelerated pace. Without having to wait for a big movie so that things line up just right. Hydra may have spruced things up considerably in Season 1, but let's not forget that things needed sprucing up. The Coulson/Tahiti mystery dragged on for too long, as did Skye's origins. And when we finally did get answers about certain things, the payoff wasn't worth the wait. Like with Tahiti, and - specifically - the "Clairvoyant" - a puzzle that had fans making wish lists of cool super-powered Marvel villains who could fill the spot.

Now that we know that Kyle MacLachlan is a part of Season 2 as Skye's father, all signs point to the show giving us some quick answers to lingering Season 1 threads. That, plus the fact that the producers now seem keenly aware of Season 1's speed bumps and are looking to remedy them.

Guest Stars

I mentioned Kyle MacLachlan just now, so let's keep going with that. Yes, Agent Cooper is about to meet Agent Coulson. But the guest spots don't stop there. Lucy Lawless, looking to return to her Comic-Con roots, has joined the Marvel-verse as SHIELD loyalist Isabelle "Izzy" Hartley, and Adrianne Palicki s going all-in as Mockingbird. Plus, Adrian Pasdar returns as General Talbot and Patton Oswalt still hovers about as Agent Koenig(s).

Oh, and the first episode, at least, has Hayley Atwell in a flashback as Peggy Carter. Along with Neal McDonough and Kenneth Choi as Dum Dum Dugan and Morita. So the stunt casting seems superb at this point.

Expanding the MCU

There's no specific news at this point about Marvel heroes from the movies - like Fury and Sif last year - making appearances on the show. But we do know that the show itself will be introducing some pretty big comic book names in its own right - specifically Mockingbird (who's an actual Avenger) and The Absorbing Man, Carl Creel.

In fact, with no second MCU Hulk movie planned, SHIELD has always seemed like an opportune place to use Hulk villains. Which is why so many thought Season 1's "Clairvoyant" might have been The Leader. But, as it is, Mockingbird and Absorbing Man are big names who we can't wait to see. Also, Season 2 now has the opportunity to bring back the villains that Season 1 set up - like Graviton and Blizzard. And yes, we do know that Dylan Minnette will return as Donnie Gill - hopefully acting and looking a bit more Blizzard-y this time around.

Agent Carter

I know. It seems weird to be listing a separate TV show as a reason to be excited for another, but Agent Carter (a series we're already stoked for on its own) is being scheduled like a placeholder - taking over SHIELD's primetime slot during their winter hiatus. Which, in turn, works to separate SHIELD into two distinct halves. Giving the show an opportunity to do a lot more with its midseason finale.

Also, with no movies to share stars and stories with, maybe we can look forward to some more distinct shared SHIELD storylines. As Peggy works to start SHIELD in the wake of WWII, maybe well see Hydra's initial infiltration. And as Coulson, decades later, works to rebuild SHIELD, in both resources and reputation, perhaps his cases overlap with earlier Peggy-related business.


http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09/21/why-were-excited-for-marvels-agents-of-shield-season-2

 

[AkaDemiK]

my body is ready.......hop on skye

 

[Jello Biafra]

AOS is going to have to live up to the hype they have been selling all summer because I am not sitting through another 22 episode season where only 5 episodes are worth a damn. They better come out the gate lighting it up or I am removing it from the DVR.

 

[JerseyBoy23]

AOS is going to have to live up to the hype they have been selling all summer because I am not sitting through another 22 episode season where only 5 episodes are worth a damn. They better come out the gate lighting it up or I am removing it from the DVR.

They don't have to deal with the handicap of Winter Soldier so I expect the season to be better. This season will lead into Avengers 2 so they have to make sure it's on point this ime.

 

[satam55]

BOARDWALK EMPIRE STAR JOINS MARVEL'S AGENT CARTER

Nucky's treacherous brother is set to oversee Peggy Carter

22 SEP 2014 BY MATT FOWLER


Boardwalk Empire's Shea Whigham is now a part of the Marvel universe - joining the ranks of ABC's Marvel's Agent Carter, which is set to premiere this winter.

Per Deadline, Whigham, who's played Eli Thompson on HBO's Boardwalk Empire for the past five years, will be co-starring with Hayley Atwell on the series.

Shea Whigham on Boardwalk Empire.

Whigham will play "tough but fair-minded SSR Chief Roger Dooley, the man who will oversee agents Carter (Atwell), Thompson (Chad Michael Murray), and Sousa (Enver Gjokaj)."


http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09/23/boardwalk-empire-star-joins-marvels-agent-carter

 

[satam55]

LUCY LAWLESS TALKS RETURNING TO HER ROOTS ON MARVEL'S AGENTS OF SHIELD

IGN talks to Lucy Lawless about her new "tough as nuts" Agents of SHIELD role and why it was important for her to join the Marvel universe.

23 SEP 2014 BY MATT FOWLER

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD returns for its second season this Tuesday, September 23rd, with the action-packed episode, "Shadows" - which features Lucy Lawless guest starring as SHIELD field operative Isabelle "Izzy" Hartley.

But after everything that happened to Coulson's team, and SHIELD in general, last season, can she be trusted? I had the chance to talk to Lawless about her role, her character's loyalties, and why it means so much to her to officially join the Marvel universe.

"She's tough as nuts," Lawless remarked about Izzy. "So don't get in her way. She's not a shrinking violet," she laughed.

And of course thanks to Xena and other action roles, Lawless herself didn't need any additional knife training for a character who's lethal with blades. "She's very handy with a knife," she said, "and I'm already quite proficient myself."

Lawless as Agent Hartley on Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.

Obviously, Izzy wasn't a part of the series during the first season, so why is she being called into the mix now? "After the treachery of Ward and the smashing of SHIELD, Coulson's in a bind," Lawless explained. "And so the more he thinks about it, the more he knows that he's gotta call in Isabelle Harley. Because she's the one person he knows is never going to betray him. Everybody else might but not her. Whatever side Coulson's on, she's on."

Lawless herself was thrilled to get the call from SHIELD EPs Jed Whedon andMaurissa Tancharoen (who both worked with her on Starz' Spartacus) asking her to join the show. "I was delighted when I got the call from them. Because I've been doing other things for a while. Political thrillers and musicals and all sorts of stuff. And I just wanted to come back and touch home base, and that is the slightly culty world of Comic-Con."

"The machine behind it all is quite remarkable," Lawless continued. "It's pretty incredible. Just Marvel as a whole is so massive and I kind of wanted to be part of that. See what that was like. As a nod to my Comic-Con fan base. And we need to believe in these sorts of heroes. We need some modern mythology to help us cope with the ghastliness on the news. It's a little escapist, yeah, but it also feels like we're trouncing evil."

So how much can we expect to see Lawless this season? "That's all up to Maurissa and Jed. I'm entirely at the disposal of the writers, you know. Whatever they write. Of course, they also have other stuff to focus on. They can't just do my character. They have to keep some sort of a super arc going. But it's up to them and their imaginations."

As of right now, Lawless is only slated for the Season 2 premiere, but that didn't stop her from geeking out about sharing the screen with one of her favorite Marvel characters. "I was so excited to meet one of the anti-heroes from my childhood which is the Absorbing Man (played by Brian Patrick Wade)," she said. "I remembering being a kid and being fascinated by a man who can transform his skin into whatever he touches. It was really epic. Even as a kid, I remembered this clearly. So that was one of the big thrills of this first episode. And it also shows off the awesome power of Hydra. Just one of their mutants. So the human beings are going to have to be extremely wily to get by this guy."

Given Lawless iconic roles on Xena, Battlestar Galactica, and Spartacus, it makes sense that she'd be a comic book fan. "Being from New Zealand, I would just go on up to the comic store, or the second-hand store, and we'd buy a box of them. And there would be all kinds of stuff in the box. None of them were ever in sequence though. You'd rarely get two with the same connecting story in row. So I would know things piecemeal. But I would read all sorts of comics. But the Absorbing Man I remember so clearly because it was such an epic concept."


http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09...ning-to-her-roots-on-marvels-agents-of-shield

 

[satam55]

Recaps to remind folks what happened last season:

 

[satam55]

New promo:


I'm getting hyped for this new season.

 

[MikelArteta]

When Doges agent boobies start

 

[satam55]

The season premiere about to come on in less than 5 minutes.

When Doges agent boobies start

The show now airs at 9ET/8CT

 

[nieman]

Dum Dum and Morita

 

[dabestkeptsecret]

First time watching the show. Why do they have some guy looking like hitler

 

[MikelArteta]

shaw still garbage

 

[Optimus Prime]

great start

 

[Norrin Radd]

Thought that black dude was gonna be Luke Cage for a minute