Geek Scope uses the 25 years of otherwise useless Marvel Comics continuity stored in my brain to point out any elements that the non-geek viewer might miss in Marvel TV and movies.
This episode, titled "The Hub" kept me on my toes, so let's get right to it.
- Jasper Sitwell makes an appearance. Sitwell is a longtime SHIELD agent in the comics, but has already appeared in the cinematic universe in Thor, The Avengers, and maybe most notably in the Marvel One Shot, The Consultant. which was tacked on to the Thor Blu Ray. Nice to have a significant piece of movie SHIELD solidifying the connection to TV SHIELD. By the way, the Sitwell of comics has a full head of blonde hair.
- Simmons mentions the Triskelion which is the primary SHIELD headquarters in the Marvel "Ultimate Universe" continuity (not 616) and hasn't appeared (or even been mentioned as far as I know) in the movies. However, there is apparently a rumor that the Triskelion will appear in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
- Victoria Hand is the much cooler appearance of the night because she is only the second character that Agents of SHIELD has adapted straight from the comics to TV (the first being Dr. Franklin Hall), and I would argue the most significant. Hand is generally portrayed as a character who is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, crossing some lines that others might not and sometimes falling on the wrong side of the good/bad fence. Just something to keep in mind for down the road.
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| Pretty close, right? |
Writers continue to play with the notion of Phil being an LMD. Tonight the line came from Skye: "He's acting like a robot version of himself right now." Couldn't miss that one, could we? That's a bit much, guys and gals.
There was also a further sense that Tahiti being a "magical place" is a planted response for Coulson that he can't even fully control, as he slightly stutters over it. We also learned that Phil doesn't have clearance to see his own recovery report.
Best guess this week? I'm going to say that Coulson is not a full-on synthetic human like Life Model Decoys of the comics. I would guess that he has some new electronic/synthetic pieces a la cyborgs, the 6 Million Dollar Man, etc. It seems to be certain that there is something different about his physiology since Akela Amador viewed him with her "back-scatter" vision and basically said as much in the fourth episode.