In episode 17 of the Tuesday Night Comics podcast, Billy and Dave give their picks for the coolest new comics coming out on Wednesday, April 30, 2014, and review Justice League United #0 and The Flash #30.
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In the 19th episode of Agents of SHIELD, we finally meet the cellist that Phil Coulson mentioned he was dating in The Avengers. Unfortunately, she, like almost everyone he knew, thinks he’s still dead. The cellist is played by longtime Whedon alum Amy Acker. The way the episode ends leaves the possibility for a return of the cellist, which I’m all for, as I think Amy Acker is super.
I was really hoping for Coulson to revealhis rebirth to his former girlfriend, if only to see just how he would pull that off. He had a few opportunities, but cold feet held him up.
The theme of this episode could be “I just called to say I love you,” except that in almost every case, the person doing the calling chickens out at the last second. Besides Coulson, Fitz finally works up the nerve to tell Simmons how he feels about her…only to chicken out at the last minute. I have to say, I’m really enjoying the Fitz-Simmons-Triplett love triangle. It’s like Ron-Hermione-Krum all over again.
But the absolute best reveal of the episode? That’s when Simmons reveals herself to be a Whovian.
Simmons wants a TARDIS.
Marvel Comics fans were given a couple of cool nods this week. First Agent Triplett reveals that he’s the grandson of a Howling Commando. I’m guessing Gabe Jones. I’m really hoping for a Captain America appearance in a future episode, with half the episode involving Cap working with Triplett and the rest of Coulson’s team in the present and the other half involving Cap working with the Howling Commandos in the past. Season 2, please?
Second, the villain of the week, Marcus Daniels, is an escapee from SHIELD jail who taps into the dark force for his power. He’s the comic book villain Blackout, a mostly small time villain who plagued the likes of Spider-Man and Ghost Rider in the 1990s. He shoots beams of pure darkness from his hands. In the show, this dark force power makes all the lights go out, stopping electrical flow, including in the human brain. He’s much creepier on the show than he is in the comics.
The dark force itself goes back decades in Marvel Comics. It was huge in the 1980s, which many villains and heroes using it as the source of their darkness based powers.
Coulson, Triplett, Fitz and Simmons save the cellist from Blackout by zapping him with Ghostbusters-esque flood lights. I was really hoping for the cellist to play some Ray Parker Jr on her instrument during this scene.
Who ya gonna call? Phil Coulson!
As for the rest of the team, Skye finds out that Ward is a traitor when she finds Patton Oswalt’s dead body inside Providence. Unfortunately for Skye, Coulson has taken most of the team on a mission, leaving her with Ward and May…and May decides to quit the team and skeedaddle right before Skye figures Ward out. Uh-oh. When Coulson returns with the crew, May is AWOL and Ward has taken Skye and the Bus in attempt to crack Skye’s location-based-encrypted hard drive. As for May, she got a ride from her mom (no, really, she did) and is hunting Maria Hill(!). It’s hard to look bad ass when your mom picks you up, but May still pulls it off.
Welcome to the latest episode of the Tuesday Night Comics podcast. In this episode, Billy and Dave preview give you their top picks for comic book hitting comic book shops the week of Wednesday, April 23, 2014. The guys also review their favorite comics from the past week.
Game of Thrones even makes into the podcast, with the 20th issue of the Game of Thrones series from Dynamite coming out this week. The guys discuss how it compares to the books and TV show show in terms of quality.
Plus, Dave gets a new nickname, Roy Harper gets brought up a lot and Dave has a special request for the listeners! Help a brother out!
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Welcome to another SPOILER FILLED recap of Game of Thrones! As I’ve mentioned in past weeks, I have a hard time keeping track of everyone’s name on the show, and I don’t want to Google people’s names and risk seeing spoilers, so bear with me and my use of nicknames. I haven’t read the books, so I’ll only be talking about what’s on the show. If you have read the books, please be cool and don’t spoil future events in the show.
There are plenty of SPOILERS in this recap of episode 3 of season 4 of Game of Thrones. If you’d like to go in fresh, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND not reading past the photo below of Iron Man lounging on the Iron Throne.
During the opening credits, I noticed that George RR Martin did not write this episode. Hear that, main characters? You’re safe this week!*
Remember when Jaime returned to King’s Landing last season, and that moment when his and Cersei’s eyes met? If you’re like me, you thought, “Awwwwwwwww, wait, wait, gross. Gross!” That happened again to me this episode, when Jaime entered the Sept and saw Cercei standing quietly over the body of their dead son. “Man, can’t these two ever catch a break? Wait, wait, they’re still brother and sister! Gross!” It gets worse, as Jaime proceeds to rape his sister/lover next to the body of his son/nephew. I swear, if these Lannisters weren’t filthy rich and good looking, they’d be the swamp people of Westeros.
Left to right: Tyrion, Jaime and Cersei
Oh, before Jaime raped her, Cersei tried to get him to promise to kill Tyrion, their little-person brother, whom Cersei thinks killed their son. Swamp people, I tell ya.
Besties!
Speaking of Tyrion, he’s locked in a dungeon. His squire, Pod, comes to visit him. The guards catch Pod’s bottle of wine, but miss everything else from the kitchen pantry that he’s hidden on himself. Pod’s tunic is like Jerry’s trench coat in Parker Lewis Can’t Lose.
Is there any item that is not in the pockets of that magical trench coat?
I hoped that the title Breaker of Chains referred to Tyrion escaping prison, maybe even Bronn breaking him out by having himself thrown in jail with a map of the dungeon tattooed on his body. No such luck. Things aren’t looking good for Tyrion. His sister wants him dead, and the tribunal hearing his case seems like a stacked deck against him. Realizing his own goose is cooked, Tyrion advises Pod to do whatever he can to save himself, even if it means publicly turning on Tyrion. He does ask Pod to bring him Jaime. Um, Tyrion, that might not be the best idea…
The jester helps Sansa flee King’s Landing and takes her to a g-g-ghost ship! Oh wait, it’s only Littlefinger’s boat. Littlefinger’s men put a couple of crossbow bolts into the jester as a thank you for his hard work once Sansa is safely on board. It turns out that the jester has been working for Littlefinger for the past few episodes. For a guy on a boat pretty far from land, Littlefinger sure knows a lot about Joffrey’s death, enough to implicate himself in the crime. If he’s not behind Joffrey’s death, he has to at least know who is. On a completely separate note, I’m currently watching The Wire for the first time ever and now when Littlefinger comes onscreen, all I see is Tommy Carcetti.
Littlefinger, by way of Baltimore.
In another part of Westeros, Arya and The Hound are taken in for the night by a widower farmer and his daughter. In case either the audience or Arya was starting to like The Hound over the past few episodes, he’s roundly depicted as an asshole here, first by being a dick to the farmer who feeds him and puts him up for the night, and then by robbing said farmer. I was kind of hoping Arya would take a stab at the back of The Hound’s knee with Needle as he was walking away with the farmer’s silver.
Back to King’s Landing, and Queen Low Cut is trying to figure out one of the things my friends and I were trying to figure out after the end of the last episode, namely is she the queen? Grandma says she is, but advises her granddaughter not to press the issue. Queen Low Cut wonders if she’s cursed, looking back on her last two husbands. Grandma flips that coin on its head and suggests that Margaery might be blessed, considering how she’s come out on top in both relationships. Are we headed for a pairing of Queen Low Cut and Joffrey’s younger brother, the future king? It certainly seems that way.
Speaking of Joffrey’s younger brother, he’s being groomed by grandfather to become king. Pop-Pop Tywin asks him questions similar to those asked by the Bridge Keeper in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Tywin asks King Newbie what is the most important quality for a king to possess. Tywin walks King Newbie to the answer being wisdom, which Tywin is happy to point out, he’s full of, so listen to Pop-Pop.
Up in the north, Sam decides that Gilly would be safer in a whorehouse than in Castle Black, because she might get raped at Castle Black. But who could ever get raped at a whorehouse? Samwell Tarly, brains of The Wall, people. The whore who talks to Gilly looked like she stepped right off the stage of Les Miz. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the people in the whorehouse had broken out into Lovely Ladies as soon as Sam left.
Also up in the north, the Wildlings are raiding a village. In my recap of Two Swords, I referred to the Wildling with the scars on his face as White Omar, but I won’t be doing that any longer, because when do you know Omar to ever take the life of a citizen? Omar only goes after players in the game. White Omar has no such code, and will now be referred to as Scarface.
The episode ends with Dany and company attempting to grow their army by freeing the slaves of another city. Has it only been one full episode since we last saw her? I think I was going through Khalesi withdrawal. Game of Thrones producers: Danaerys every episode, please! The city’s champion challenges Dany’s champion. In a funny display, the city’s champion shows off his manhood and takes a piss on the ground, really sticking it to the eunuchs in Dany’s army. Dany has to figure out who she wants to be her champion. She rules out a few people, including Friend Zone, as being too valuable, and really cements Friend Zone’s place in her world when she describes him as her most trusted adviser and best friend.
Tough break, Friend Zone.
McDreamy points out that Dany can barely stand him, so he should be her champion. The fight that ensues was almost straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I half-expected McDreamy to pull out a pistol.
Dany launches catapults over the city walls. They don’t do much damage…at least, not physically. The catapults launch barrels filled the collars of the freed slaves of Dany’s army. A slave picks one up, and you can tell that his owner in the background is about to have a very bad day.
*Just kidding. Martin didn’t write the teleplay for The Rains of Castamere,aka The Red Wedding, so main characters, you can go at any time! That said, whenever I see Martin get the writing credit for an episode, my first thought is, “Shit’s about to go down.”
Hey! Do you like Orphan Black? Well, if so, we’re now recapping Orphan Black starting with season 2! Check out the first episode of season two’s recap here!
I am super excited to start recapping my household’s second favorite show about clones* for Tuesday Night Movies. So without further ado, let’s get started.
We start off with the hardest working Canadian in show business, Tatiana Maslany, playing main clone Sarah, who has just found out that her daughter Kira and foster mother Mrs. S. are missing. Sarah sits in a diner where, using her special pink clone phone, she realizes that Alison and Cosima’s phones have been disconnected. She dials dreamboat monitor Paul, but only gets his voicemail. At this point, two people enter the diner: an extra from Mad Men and another from Dallas.
Sarah and the two crossover goons. All photos courtesy of BBC America.
Dallas gets into the discussion with the diner owner about whether his eggs are free-range or not. Eventually the two goons corner Sarah, leading diner owner to pull a gun on them. Unfortunately, organic food freak Dallas shoots the diner owner, and the diner owner gets in a kill shot, too. This gives Sarah enough time to head to Canada’s grossest diner bathroom before Mad Men goes in after her. Luckily, Sarah’s badass bionic clone leg lets her kick her way out of the bathroom’s wall before she inhales too much fecal matter and also before Mad Men can get in.
It’s definitely time for some comic relief, so Sarah makes her way to Felix who is—of course—at a gay nightclub in his favorite assless chaps (our first glimpse of pasty man thigh in this episode). Sarah fills Felix in on Kira’s kidnapping. Meanwhile, we see Cosima and Delphine together in another location. Delphine is taking Cosima’s blood and we learn Cosima is planning to start gathering her own lab results.
Straight from the nightclub, Felix visits the clone most likely to have a gun (and a velour tracksuit): soccer mom Alison. We find out that Alison has been laying off the prescription meds, trying to get her life back on track, and is even “doing a musical.” (“Oh my God, not Cats!” Felix prays.) However, she still knows an exotically-monikered person named Ramon who should be able to get them an unregistered gun. This scene is also where we get our second look at pasty man thigh, courtesy of Alison’s husband/monitor who makes an appearance in his tiny, tiny briefs.
The next day, Sarah manages to get a message to Paul and outsmart a sinister Men in Black dude by finding a non-clone who still looks the same from the back as Tatiana Maslany. We also see Delphine hand over what we assume is Cosima’s blood to Dr. Leekey, keeping us unsure as to whose side she’s really on. And we meet the mysterious Ramon who—as it turns out—is a floppy-haired Walmart (sorry, “Econo-mart”) employee in a blue vest, and also Alison’s friendly neighborhood prescription pill/gun dealer.
Afterward, Alison attends her community theater rehearsal for, as it turns out, not Cats but close, where she discovers that being a second-degree murderer does a thespian good. Now that nosy neighbor Aynsley is out of the way, Alison has snagged the lead role of Sheila.
Our clone MVP: Alison.
Beth’s former cop partner Art makes an appearance at the rehearsal, and tells new partner Angela what he saw before they run into Sarah. Angela handcuffs Sarah and gets her into the car. Sarah tries to tell Art what’s going on with Kira and about the two guys at the diner, but Angela is not buying it. Angela goes to check out the diner and finds dead diner owner and dead Dallas. When Angela gets back, Art makes it clear that he thinks they should let Sarah go. Once Sarah leaves, Art tells Angela that Sarah almost trusts her.
Paul is still with Rachel Duncan, a.k.a. business suit clone who’s in cohorts with Dr. Leekie, and gets told by her that they leave for Taiwan on Tuesday. Meanwhile Leekie approaches Rachel, and we discover that he isn’t sure whether Rachel is behind Kira’s kidnapping or not. Rachel reassures him that it’s better if he stays out of it. Their goal is to get Sarah to meet with them and she’ll make sure that happens.
Meanwhile, Econo-mart Ramon delivers the gun with a floral arrangement and a glittery, handmade card by Alison to Felix’s loft where Felix, Cosima and Sarah are planning how they’re going to get into the DYAD the next day. Sarah is convinced that’s where they are keeping Kira and she plans on going in with a gun and getting her back from Rachel. Meanwhile, Cosima suggests going in herself, since she’s on the guest list for an event the DYAD is having. Sarah calls Paul, and ends up talking to Men in Black. She tells him they’ll be meeting at 9 PM and that she’ll be driving the red minivan. This of course leads Men in Black to inadvertently attack Alison, who does not go down without a fight—and by fight, we mean a lot of mace and a bejeweled rape whistle.
Meanwhile we see Cosima enter the DYAD party. She acts awkwardly when Delphine comes up and kisses her, then gives Leekie an even more awkward hug in order to steal his keycard. Of course, it then becomes clear that this isn’t Cosima at all, but Sarah in braids, securing Delphine the Worst Girlfriend Award since she can’t seem to tell the difference between years-cultivated dreadlocks and a couple of fresh plaits.
Seriously, Delphine. Worst Possibly Double-Crossing Girlfriend Ever.
Rachel is telling some Taiwanese businessmen about her plans for the future of her clone patents. Once they leave, Sarah and her gun enter the room. Rachel reveals that she actually wasn’t the one responsible for Kira’s kidnapping. We see some clone-on-clone fighting before Paul comes in with a gun and tells Sarah to back off. Sarah knocks Rachel out, and there’s a charged moment between Paul and Sarah, before Sarah slaps him with the gun also. Paul, and half the audience, is pretty upset that she might have messed up his soap opera face. Then he lets her go and tells her he’ll come up with a story once Rachel comes to.
This is one way to work out your self-loathing.
Sarah goes to Art’s and tells him that somebody else took Kira. “I know,” Art says before explaining that they found out that the Dallas extra from the diner was a religious extremist. “Helena’s people,” Sarah says. Art asks her to tell him the whole story.
Cut to a hospital where we find out that Helena, though badly wounded by Sarah’s gun in the previous season finale, is still alive and seeking medical attention. She collapses in front of the hospital front desk, but not before she sees that the Mad Men extra has come in, now also dressed like a cowboy. He has Helena’s religious fish symbol on his belt.
In the final scene, we get a glimpse of Kira, who is getting her picture taken by an unknown male.
This Episode’s Clone MVP: Alison, obvs, who managed to procure an unregistered gun, perform a number from not-Cats, make a beribboned and glittered homemade card, and blow a bedazzled rape whistle in one episode.
Best Line Delivered by Felix: “Oh, my God. Not Cats.”
Best Line Delivered by a Character Other Than Felix: “Can I touch your boob?” – boy on train in response to Sarah asking him if she can use his phone.
*My husband loooooves Clone High. He is also, I think, one of three people in America who remembers Clone High.
It was interesting watching this episode to see how much posturing SHIELD agent turned traitor Grant Ward was doing. Was this just overacting on Brett Dalton’s part? Is Ward really as callous as he was acting here? Or is Ward overdoing it in front of Hydra on purpose, in order to sell his betrayal of SHIELD to them when he’s actually playing Hydra?
Part of me wants Ward’s betrayal to be a long con to infiltrate Centipede and Hydra set up by Coulson and Victoria Hand that would make Danny Ocean proud. But I just can’t figure out a way that makes logical sense for that to be the case.
Here’s why I think Ward might still be on the side of the angels. Rewatching last week’s episode, Turn, Turn, Turn, I noticed that Ward shoots Hand in the gut on his first shot. His second and third shots into her are while she’s on the ground off-camera. Could these have been non-fatal shots too? That, combined with how over the top he was trying to prove himself as not a nice guy this week, made me think that maybe he’s still SHIELD.
My Ward still being a good guy theory is completely blown apart by a few things. One, I’m pretty sure that before he shoots Victoria Hand, he shoots the two other agents of SHIELD on the plane in the face. And once inside the Fridge, Ward goes out of his way to unearth the hidden gravitonium, which even Garrett didn’t know was there.
It was interesting listening to Ward explain how deliberately he conned everyone. Pretty much everything he did this season he claims was to further infiltrate SHIELD and keep suspicion off himself, going back to his recruitment by Coulson. Even his sexual relationship with May was a way to keep May, who his considered the most dangerous member of the team (with good reason), from suspicious of him. Ward told people what they wanted to hear from him, whether they realized that’s what they wanted to hear or not. Clearly, thinking of Ward as just the guns and muscle of Coulson’s crew has been a mistake. He’s a serpent. And to drive it home, he even carries a new expression on his face now that he’s a villain.
Evil Ward, complete with bad guy scar.
The other most interesting part of this week’s episode for me was seeing Raina’s reaction to meeting The Clairvoyant and finding out that he wasn’t the mystic she thought he was. Garrett seemed to revel in having tricked her. Ward too. There was just something so classic movie villain about the way Garrett and Ward acted this episode that it slightly irked me. I half expected them to say “Mwa-ha-ha” after each of their lines.
Garrett gets the whole gang back together. This is the SHIELD equivalent of the Iron Sheikh, Nicholai Volkoff and Ted Dibiase teaming up.
I really liked seeing Patton Oswalt as Agent Eric Koenig, the head of Fury’s secret base, in this episode. As he was giving the tour of his very isolated base, I couldn’t help but think that he was the Desmond of Agents of SHIELD. I kind of wish his first scene showed him working out to the sweet sounds of Mama Cass’s “Make Your Kind of Music.”
“Lanyards for everyone!”
The past few episodes of Agents of SHIELD have been great. I’m really enjoying this series, and really like how the creators of the show intertwined it with the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I can’t wait to see how this season turns out, especially now that Ward is reunited with Coulson’s team, and they have no idea who they’re dealing with.
In the newest episode of the Tuesday Night Comics podcast, Billy and Dave discuss the coolest looking new comic books being released on Wednesday, April 16, 2014, and review their favorite comics of the previous week. They also discuss the huge news of Comixology being bought by Amazon and what this means for the future of digital comics.
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Wow. Seriously, Wow. Well, I definitely did not see that one coming. But I’m getting ahead of myself. As I mentioned last week, I have a hard time keeping track of everyone’s name on the show, and I don’t want to Google people’s names and risk seeing spoilers, so bear with me and my use of nicknames. I haven’t read the books, so I’ll only be talking about what’s on the show. If you have read the books, please be cool and don’t spoil future events in the show. Spoilers after this cool picture of Walter White sitting on the iron throne. The episode starts out in the woods of Bolton country. Matchbox 20’s Robb Thomas is leading a hunting party after a blonde girl named Tansy. The hunting party is a brunette girl, Theon and two dogs trained by Michael Vick. Apparently they’re hunting Tansy because the brunette girl was jealous of her. It’s like Veronica’s sick fantasy about what do about Betty in an Archie comic. Betty/Tansy doesn’t make it. Pro tip: when being chased by hunting hounds, do not stop running. We cut to Tyrion and Jaime brunching together. Tyrion gives Cersei the best nickname, “The Mother of Madness.” Jaime laments that he can’t fight anymore, and can’t trust anyone to train him to fight left handed without someone blabbing. Tyrion says knows just the guy. Of course, we immediately cut to Best-Line Bronn, who is leading Jaime to a secluded platform by the cliffs to train him. And of course, Bronn lives up to his nickname when he explains to Jaime why he’s sure that no one will hear them while they’re training. Basically, this is where Bronn takes some big dude’s wife to have sex with her. She’s a loud one, and if no one can hear them banging each other, no one will hear a couple of swords banging together. Tyrion is the best, but Bronn might be my favorite character on the show. 
Back in the land of the Boltons, Robb Thomas welcomes his father (who I will now be calling Michael Bolton) home from killing Robb Stark. The guy who took Jaime’s hand is with the dad too. This guy really looks like Count Tyrone Rugen, the six fingered man from The Princess Bride. He even talks like him. I really hope he has six fingers, and that he’s giving Christopher Guest a kickback for this performance. I also really hope that Mandy Patankin is cast in an upcoming episode to dispatch this guy. Michael Bolton is not happy that Robb Thomas tortured Theon into his current state. Poor Theon. One day you’re fingering your sister on horseback, the next day you’re the gimp from Pulp Fiction. Theon/Reek admits to Michael Bolton that he didn’t kill the Stark boys. Michael Bolton sends the six fingered man after the Stark kids. Question time. Is the last name Snow is Westoros similar to the last name Doe? Robb Thomas’s last name is Snow and he’s a bastard, just like John Snow. Is Snow just a way to denote someone as a bastard? Or are John and this guy possibly related? Varys tells Tyrion that Cersei knows about him and Shae, and that Cersei told their father, Tywin. If Tyrion doesn’t get Shae out of the country, she’s dead. This leads to Tyrion White Fanging Shae. Cold, Tyrion. Stone cold.
Joffrey is having a breakfast party. Is it his birthday? No, wait, it’s his bachelor party. Tyrion gives him an oversized book delineating the history of four past kings. Joffrey thanks him while making a face that says, “Joffrey don’t read.” Tywin presents Joffrey with the second of the two swords he forged from the Stark’s sword last episode. Joffrey tests it out by chopping his new book in two. Fucking Joffrey. I’m convinced George R. R. Martin was bullied by a guy named Geoffrey growing up. Oh great, Smoky Vajayjay is back. I hate that red headed witch. She’s quite possibly my least favorite character on the whole show. Yeah, Joffrey’s awful, but lady is awful and pretentious. But really, she’s the worst. Every time she comes on screen, I’m thinking, “Here we go again.” She’s like that one friend you had back in the ’90s who was just a little too into Wicca.
In case you don’t get her nickname…
Up north, Bran is still hanging in the woods with the kid from Love, Actually, Hodor, and that girl who kind of looks like a tall Bran. Bran tells Hodor to take him to the tree from the Wizard of Oz, the one with the face in it. Bran touches it and has a vision. And it is a werid-ass vision. A voice says “Look for me, beneath the tree. North,” while sees a bunch of images, including Ned Stark in jail, a zombie horse, the back of a man who looks like John Snow, snow falling on the Iron Throne (see what they did there?), Bran himself falling out of the tower and some other weird stuff. Royal wedding time! Joffrey marries Princess Low Cut. She’s now Queen Low Cut. Crazy love triangles between Cersei, Jaime and Brianne, and then again with Jaime, Cersei and Loras. That dude who kinda looks Will Wheaton dressed as J. Lo, his girlfriend Slave Leia and Loras even have a love triangle going on, though this is the only love triangle in the episode that all three people look like they’re really into and have no problem with. Joffrey needs to be Joffrey at the wedding, so he holds a five way midget joust. Joffrey is officially that douchey frat guy you met in college whose parents had too much money. It’s Lil’ Joffey, Lil’ Robb Stark, Lil’ Renley, Lil’ Stannis and Lil’ Balon Greyjoy in a battle royal. This wedding is turning into who can Joffrey irk more, Sansa or Tyrion. After Lil’ Joffrey stands victorious, Joffrey order Tyrion to fight Lil’ Joffrey. Tyrion declines, saying Joffrey should show off those legendary fighting skills that has kept King’s Landing safe. Tyrion is smooth like Don Draper in this scene. Joffrey, being the annoying, overprivileged frat boy that he is, then pours his wine on Tyrion’s head, and has the balls to command Tyrion to refill his goblet. Joffrey wants a reaction out of Tyrion. Tyrion doesn’t give it to him. So Joffrey chucks his wine glass under the table and commands Tyrion to fetch it. Sansa bends down under the table and hands Tyrion the goblet. Just when it seems like it’s going to come to head between Joffrey and Tyrion, Queen Low Cut announces it’s time for pie. Joffrey cuts the pie with his sword. Doves come flying out. A few of the dove didn’t make it. I ain’t eating that dead dove pie. Sansa wants to bounce. Tyrion too. They try to exit, stage right. Joffrey has other ideas and wants Uncle Tyrion to bring him more wine. Tyrion retrieves Joffrey’s goblet from Grandma’s table. Man, grandma is really looking intently at that wine goblet.
And that’s when shit gets real! Joffrey starts coughing and drops dead! Ho. Lee. Shit. Did that just happen? The baddest bad guy in Westeros is dead? Wow! Oh crap, does this mean more scenes with Smokey Vajayjay? Ugh… 
Who killed Mr. Burns Joffrey??? Obviously, it wasn’t Tyrion. He looked as surprised as anyone, and come on, we’ve all seen enough episodes of Law & Order to know it’s never the first suspect. I’ve got four leading candidates for the identity of the murderer.
Wil Wheaton – Red Viper
Out of the four, I’m leaning towards Grandma and/or Tywin being behind Joffrey’s death. Don’t trust anyone over 30, kids.
If you’ve read the books, and know who killed Joffrey, please keep that information to yourself! Comments and theories are welcome below, but please avoid spoilers of future events on the show.
Unlike The Well, which dealt with the fallout of Thor: The Dark World in a very ancillary way, Turn, Turn, Turn is directly impacted by the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW for Agents of SHIELD and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. If you haven’t seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier yet, you might want to see that first. But if you’d like to just read about how Captain America: The Winter Soldier affected Agents of SHIELD heading into this episode, I wrote up a handy guide here. But seriously, SPOILERS start after this Hydra logo.
Hydra really is everywhere. They’ve even taken over the SHIELD Academy, which I lovingly refer to as SHIELDwarts. I’m hoping we get a special Red Dawn-esque webisode of the loyal SHIELDwarts students and staff standing off against the Hydra students and staff.
Before the real traitor was revealed, I was convinced it would be Triplett (aka Ward 2.0). I thought his flirting with Simmons might have been a ploy for getting info on her research into the drug that helped resurrect Coulson. Plus, he’s the agent we knew the least about. When he took out his knife and flashed it at Simmons, I was completely fooled. But Ward 2.0 is on the up and up, or so it seems. I hope he’s not a traitor. After this episode, he seems pretty cool.
I also liked Victoria Hand’s reverse psychology for trying to figure out if Triplett and Simmons were Hydra agents. Besides being a nice swerve about Hand’s allegiance, it was a great, tension filled stand-off and cool action sequence.
Now, onto the real traitor…
WARD!!!! NOOOOOOOOOO! On the one hand, I can’t believe that Ward is Hydra. On the other hand, I have to hand it to the writers of Agents of SHIELD, and Brett Dalton (who plays Grant Ward) for making me care about Ward. After watching the pilot, he was my least favorite character on the show. I felt that way for a few episodes, but then slowly started caring about him. It got to the point, where as of last week, I didn’t want any of Coulson’s crew to be a traitor. But man, now I’m totally back to hating Ward.
Marvel.com has a really good interview with Brett Dalton about Ward’s turn to the dark side.
BILL PAXTON!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Paxton is just so cool as Agent Garrett. But now…he’s not only a traitor, HE’S THE ACTUAL CLAIRVOYANT! WTF?!? Paxton’s been pulling the strings all along! You know what, Paxton? It’s stuff like this that makes everyone like Bill Pullman more than they like you!
You know who would never betray SHIELD?
President Thomas. J. Whitmore, that’s who.
I’m really interested to see where Agents of SHIELD goes from here. Ward revealed his true allegiance mid-air, so his betrayal won’t be immediately known to his team. Other than Agent Garrett, there were other people on that flight who Coulson might think freed Garrett. Or maybe Coulson’s team will think Garrett’s plane was rerouted remotely, the way The Bus was last episode. They might think they’re headed on a rescue and recovery mission, only to find themselves trapped in a den of vipers…or Hydras as the case may be.
Marvel is releasing a series of limited edition prints called “The Art of Level 7.” The different prints will each be based on an episode of Agents of SHIELD between now and the end of the season, and each one will be released a few days before that episode’s air date. If you’re interested in purchasing the prints, you can find them here: Art of Level 7. The first in the series, pictured above, was for this week’s episode, with art by Mike Del Mundo. I love this image. It’s very Steranko.
Looking at this print, I feel like I should have noticed a rather major clue into the identity of The Clairvoyant based on who is listed in this in the description for the print: Agent Phil Coulson, Agent Melinda May, Skye, Agent Grant Ward, Agent Jemma Simmons, Agent Leo Fitz, Agent Antoine Triplett. Who’s missing? That’s right? Bill Paxton’s Agent Garrett. Then again, so is Victoria Hand. And that traitor, Ward, did make it on the print, so maybe it’s not the best clue after all…
Marvel has also put on sale the print for next week’s episode, Providence, with art by Paolo Rivera.
Such a cool image. I’m tempted to buy it.
Both Samuel L. Jackson and Colbie Smulders are confirmed for upcoming Agents of SHIELD episodes. It will be great to have a face to face confrontation between Fury and Coulson regarding Coulson’s death and resurrection. It will be interesting to see where in the timeline of the Winter Soldier movie these episodes take place. Will Hill already be at Stark when she sees Coulson again? Or will it be before SHIELD’s official disbandment? I like the idea of SHIELD shrinking in size and going deep cover, if that’s an option going forward.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW. If you haven’t seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier yet, see it first and come back. And if you’re an Agents of SHIELD fan, make sure you watch Winter Soldier BEFORE you watch the tonight’s episode! But if you don’t plan on watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier before tonight’s episode, this post should catch you up with everything you need to know.
I feel more than it affects any of the other Marvel movies, Captain America: The Winter Soldier dramatically affects the Agents of SHIELD TV show. In the most recent episode of Agents of SHIELD, Coulson figures out that the villain The Clairvoyant is a SHIELD agent or has SHIELD agents in his employ. In Winter Soldier, it’s revealed that SHIELD is even more deeply compromised than Coulson suspected. Hydra has secretly taken over huge parts of SHIELD (and the government) from the top down, including the senator played by Garry Shandling in Iron Man 2 and long time SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell!
The Doctor and Rose reenact the pivotal scene between Senator Stern and Jasper Sitwell from Captain America: Winter Soldier.
Sitwell appeared briefly onscreen in Thor and Avengers, but has seen the majority of his screen time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the Agents of SHIELD TV series, including in last week’s episode, where he was still thought to be a loyal SHIELD agent. The revelation that Sitwell is in fact an agent of Hydra is a huge bombshell. Before Winter Soldier, there was no reason to think Sitwell was a traitor. Now, unless he’s revealed to be a triple-agent, Sitwell will be remembered as a traitor. I doubt he survived being thrown into oncoming traffic by the Winter Soldier on a busy DC highway. That said, he may be in part of tonight’s episode, as he was still alive in last week’s episode, and we don’t know yet how much of tonight’s episode takes before or during the events of Captain America: Winter Soldier.
We also don’t know how much of last week’s episode took place during or after Winter Soldier. Remember how hard a time Coulson was having trying to get in touch with Nick Fury last week? Could the reason for Coulson’s difficulty be the assassination attempt on Fury’s life in Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Coulson’s crew has been isolated and on their own recently. Unless they hear something from Victoria Hand or Agent Garrett (Bill Paxton), there’s a good chance they won’t hear it. And it was revealed last week that Hand has her own agenda counter to Coulson.
Could The Clarivoyant from Agents of SHIELD be part of Hydra? The tagline “Everything is Connected” that ABC has been running in their advertising for Agents of SHIELD certainly makes it seem so. In the most recent episode of SHIELD, Coulson deduces that the Clairvoyant isn’t actually a psychic, but it rather someone with deep access to information, who uses that information to predict the future.
Could the Clarvoyant be the now computerized Arnim Zola? It fits, as Zola was using everything from Facebook and Gmail to predict how people would act and who needed to be taken out. The main thorn in this theory is that I feel we’ve seen the Clairvoyant in silhouette already, unless that was just the man in the wheelchair who Ward killed in last week’s episode.
I’m guessing that one of Coulson’s team will be revealed as a Hydra agent. But I can’t think who I would want that traitor to be. I’ve grown to like every member of Coulson’s crew this season and will be devastated if any of them are traitors. Right now, I’m hoping it ends up being Garrett or Triplett if it has to be anyone. I do not think Agent May is a Hydra agent. I think her suspicious behavior is a red herring and that her secret phone line is a direct connection to Fury. And I don’t know what to make of Hand. Is she a Hydra agent? Or is she operating her own agenda?
Tonight’s episode of Agents of SHIELD is going to be huge! Do not miss this episode!