Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: White Man’s Redemption at the Woman of Color’s Expense

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s second season wrapped up a couple weeks ago, and despite all its very numerous problems, I am still in love with the show. And it’s thanks to characters like Skye that I can say that. She’s resourceful, smart, and after gaining the ability to control the vibrations in everything around her, she is now both an earthbender and a waterbender.

My little baby is all grown up and mastering the elements. (via x)

And if her character keeps going the way she is, like her comic counterpart, she’ll be the director of S.H.I.E.L.D someday. But while Skye is hardly the only good thing about S.H.I.E.L.D., I feel completely different about her parents. Cal’s and Jiaying’s storylines were interesting and fun to watch at first, but by the time the season ended, S.H.I.E.L.D. did such a poor job with them that I wonder what was going through the writers’ heads.

Spoilers for all of the current S.H.I.E.L.D. episodes after the jump.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 Review

Well, this was going to be a Once Upon A Time review, but I’m still not caught up in that, so I’m turning my tender attentions to the polarizing first season of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first foray into television: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was so hyped by fans and Marvel alike that, in retrospect, I’m not surprised we were initially disappointed. Coming off the success of both The Avengers and Iron Man 3, I suppose we were in a place where the MCU delivering a terrible story seemed even less likely than DC casting a Wonder Woman. Oh, how times have changed.

Now that I’ve watched the whole season, I wouldn’t consider it irredeemably bad, although I was certainly tempted to drop it several times midseason. I just wish it had been shorter and tighter, and had gotten more interesting more quickly.

Basically, I’m not mad, S.H.I.E.L.D. I’m just disappointed.

Spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier and AoS’s Season 1 below the jump.

In Defense of Skye from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been getting a lot of mixed reviews. There are people who love it, but there are also plenty of people out there who find that the show is not up to their standards, including people on this blog. Despite Stinekey’s very well-articulated opinion on the matter, I am actually in love with the show and the characters. That said, I’m not going to delude myself into thinking Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is perfect. It has numerous problems; for one thing, just about all of its antagonists are people of color.

However, this post is not about whether or not it is a good show. But there is one argument against Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that always crops up, and I do take issue with that. It didn’t take long after the show first aired for the hatred and bashing of the character Skye to commence, and though I don’t mind that some people find her character bland and unrelatable, I feel as if some of this dislike for her is based on her gender.