Shadows (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

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"Shadows"
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode
The Agent Carter tie-in sequence, featuring actors (L-R) Kenneth Choi, Hayley Atwell, and Neal McDonough, was a major talking point both before and after the episode aired.
Episode no.Season 2
Episode 1
Directed byVincent Misiano
Written by
Produced by
Cinematography byFeliks Parnell
Editing byJoshua Charson
Original air dateSeptember 23, 2014 (2014-09-23)
Running time43 minutes
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
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"Beginning of the End"
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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season 2)
List of episodes

"Shadows" is the first episode of the

Hydra for a powerful artifact in the possession of the U.S. military. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and acknowledges the franchise's films. The episode was written by Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, and was directed by Vincent Misiano
.

Clark Gregg reprises his role as Coulson from the film series, and is joined by principal cast members Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, and Nick Blood. The series was renewed for a second season in May 2014, and production began that July. That month, guest star Lucy Lawless's role was revealed, building hype for her appearance, although her character was always intended to be killed off at the end of the episode. Other guest stars include Hayley Atwell, Neal McDonough, and Kenneth Choi, reprising their roles from previous MCU projects in a sequence that ties-in with another MCU television series, Agent Carter. Series composer Bear McCreary used Christopher Lennertz's Agent Carter theme when writing the music for this sequence.

"Shadows" originally aired on

Carl Creel and Atwell's Peggy Carter
were particularly praised.

Plot

In 1945, Agents

Obelisk
.

In the present day, former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Roger Browning is attempting to sell information about the Obelisk to Agent

Carl Creel
, who can "absorb" the properties of any substance he touches.

At the Playground, the former SSR base that now serves as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters, Director

Glenn Talbot as leverage to find the Obelisk. Agent Melinda May, Skye, Hunter, and Hartley help Talbot fight off Creel, before abducting Talbot and deceiving him into giving them access codes for a U.S. military base near Washington, D.C.
that contains numerous confiscated S.H.I.E.L.D. assets.

All available S.H.I.E.L.D. field operatives infiltrate the base, and Hartley finds the Obelisk, which begins to kill her. Hunter and Idaho flee with Hartley, desperate to save her life, while the other agents carry out Coulson's orders to steal a S.H.I.E.L.D.

Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie questions why Coulson would risk lives just to steal a quinjet, but Coulson explains that they need its ability to literally disappear, something they currently cannot do themselves following the injuries engineer Agent Leo Fitz recently suffered at the hands of Ward; he now struggles with technology and hallucinates the presence of Agent Jemma Simmons
, who left S.H.I.E.L.D. some time earlier because of Fitz's condition.

Creel turns himself into tarmac in front of the vehicle that Idaho, Hartley, and Hunter are in, causing it to flip. Hartley and Idaho are killed, and Creel retrieves the Obelisk for his employer,

Sunil Bakshi
. In an end tag, Bakshi is shown to be working for Reinhardt, now going by the name Daniel Whitehall, who does not appear to have aged since 1945.

Production

Development and writing

The series was renewed for a second season on May 8, 2014,[1] and production began in late July 2014.[2] In September 2014, Marvel announced that the premiere episode of the season would be titled "Shadows", to be written by executive producers Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, with Vincent Misiano directing.[3]

In July 2014, Gregg stated that the season resumes "months later" from the end of season one, adding, "The monumental nature of [rebuilding] is made very clear almost immediately, because you realize everyone – US government, US military and other wise – wants to arrest us. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s illegal. We have very few resources. Everything we're going to do involves dealing with, still, finding out who's Hydra and who's not amongst our friends. To rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D., we're going to need some old friends to prove themselves, some new friends, and we're going to have to do it in a way that's very back alley, old school."[4]

Speaking about the reveal that Fitz was just imagining the presence of Simmons due to the injuries he sustained at the end of the first season, Tancharoen said, "We didn't want him to come out of that experience unscathed. He clearly suffered major trauma to his body. The lack of oxygen to his brain has to have consequences because that's how it is in real life. We wanted there to be a price. Basically, he in his own Fitz way had professed his love for her, and then he came out of that. How do you come out of that experience without any physical damage, there would still be probably a change to their relationship because the feelings are out in the open. But, of course, being the people that we are, we wanted to make it even more painful and compound it."[5] Costume designer Ann Foley dressed Simmons in the same costume she wore in "FZZT" because that was a significant memory of Simmons for Fitz.[6]

On whether the episode was ever going to explore the relationship between Hartley and

Victoria Hand, a character featured in the first season of the series and whose comic book-counterpart was in a relationship with a character called Isabelle, Tancharoen said "There were versions, but it started to be irresponsible if we addressed it to not address it with more weight and time and energy."[5]

Casting

The casting of guest star Lucy Lawless built a lot of hype for the episode.

In July 2014,

Isabelle Hartley, a longtime S.H.I.E.L.D. veteran.[8] About the decision to cast Lawless as Hartley, who was always intended to be killed off at the end of the episode, Whedon said "We wanted you to invest in the character and feel like this person was a real equal to Coulson. She definitely fit the bill on that front. Lucy has such a strength to her. We didn't want people to know what was going to happen. We wanted it to feel like a big deal."[5]

At the 2014

Sunil Bakshi.[3] Britt, Oswalt, and Pasdar reprise their roles from the first season.[9][10][11] George Stephanopoulos makes a cameo appearance as himself.[3]

It was also revealed in September that

Jim Morita, respectively, from Captain America: The First Avenger.[12] McDonough also previously portrayed Dugan in the One-Shot Agent Carter.[13]

Music

Composer Bear McCreary changed his synth programming for the series from "warm, round tones" to a "mangled under heavy distortion" sound. He began the episode without any synths, describing his music for the episode's opening scene as "among the most shamelessly orchestral I've ever done for this series ... I wanted the score to feel like it belonged in the 1940s, with a retro, adventurous attitude." Then, "just as the audience begins to get used to" the orchestral sound, the episode cuts to "modern day and suddenly I bring in the new synths, with distorted basses blazing over the nastiest groove I've ever written for the show. The transition is hopefully as jarring as I intended—jumping from soaring orchestra to blasting electronica, as we leap forward in time seventy years."[14]

With the appearance of Carter, McCreary decided to quote the Agent Carter theme composed by Christopher Lennertz for the Agent Carter One-Shot. On using Lennertz's theme, McCreary said, "I was excited for the opportunity to incorporate his music into my S.H.I.E.L.D. score, because it further cements the Marvel [Cinematic] Universe together as a coherent whole ... Chris was thrilled and sent me his scores for reference." On his use of the theme, McCreary stated, as Carter "storms in, the first violins state an elongated version of her theme soaring above an aggressive, orchestral ostinato". McCreary also introduced a new Hydra theme in the episode that represents Daniel Whitehall, and is used in scenes featuring the Obelisk and Carl Creel. About the theme, McCreary said "In true bad-guy-theme fashion, the theme is constructed from distantly related minor chords, and contains lots of close intervals. I build a theme like this so it can easily [move] into increasingly dissonant variations. For example, the E in the C minor chord will clash against the E minor, as will the B in the G minor chord. Building the theme in this way means that, in the future, I can put this theme over any pedal tone bass note and it will always sound dissonant."[14]

Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-ins

In September 2014, executive producer

Howard Stark, who is mentioned in the scene, as well as Carter's belief in the need for "a permanent unit during peacetime", which will lead to the creation of S.H.I.E.L.D.[16]

Release

Broadcast

"Shadows" was first aired in the United States on ABC on September 23, 2014.[17] It was aired alongside the U.S. broadcast in Canada on CTV.[18]

Home media

The episode began streaming on Netflix on June 11, 2015,[19] and was released along with the rest of the second season on September 18, 2015, on Blu-ray and DVD.[20]

Reception

Ratings

In the United States the episode received a 2.1/6 percent share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49, meaning that it was seen by 2.1 percent of all households, and 6 percent of all of those watching television at the time of the broadcast. It was watched by 5.98 million viewers.[17] The Canadian broadcast gained 2.62 million viewers, the third highest for that day and the sixth highest for the week.[18]

Critical response

Eric Goldman of

ScreenCrush called the premiere "unexpectedly good", noting that the series "remains as serialized a show as it can over 22 episodes", introducing interesting ideas for the rest of the season, while also setting a high standard for subsequent episodes to meet. He concluded that the series "definitely seems to have hit a major groove".[24]

Alan Sepinwall at HitFix called the episode a promising and lively start to the season despite a lot of exposition, "helped by some good casting and smart creative choices". He was positive about both the changes to the existing characters and the introduction of the new ones, especially Creel, and though he noted that the opening sequence was "itself a piece of brand extension—early promotion for Agent Carter," he felt that "links to the rest of the Marvel [Cinematic] Universe are always welcome when they're in service to the story the show is telling".[25] Oliver Sava of The A.V. Club graded the episode a 'B−', feeling that "With a clearly defined villain and mission statement, this show's second season is already off to a better start than its first year, but there's still plenty of room for the series to grow. The scripts could use more energy, the action could be better choreographed, and it could use a huge injection of style for both the visual and audio elements. There's so much potential in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. ... but the show's creators aren't fully exploring it yet."[26] Kathrine Siegel of Paste gave a negative review of the episode, calling it "pretty flat, and very disappointing as season premieres go", feeling that the character development and plot were limited, lamenting the decision to kill off Lawless' character, and stating that the episode continued a trend of the series having "amazing individual parts [that] never come together to create a solid whole."[27]

Multiple critics positively compared the character of Grant Ward, and his new position as a traitor and prisoner, to the character of Hannibal Lecter, though it was acknowledged that the situation would likely change in upcoming episodes.[21][24][25] Also, the plot twist that the character of Fitz had been hallucinating the presence of Simmons all along was compared to the works of M. Night Shyamalan.[25]

Notes

References

  1. ^ Hibberd, James (May 8, 2014). "ABC renews 'SHIELD' plus orders 'Captain America' spin-off". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on May 9, 2014. Retrieved May 8, 2014.
  2. ^ Schwartz, Terri (July 16, 2014). "'Agents of SHIELD' showrunners tease 'Agent Carter,' 'Guardians of the Galaxy' crossovers". Zap2it. Archived from the original on July 20, 2014. Retrieved July 18, 2014.
  3. ^
    Marvel.com. September 8, 2014. Archived from the original
    on September 8, 2014. Retrieved September 8, 2014.
  4. ^ Ching, Albert (August 19, 2014). ""Agents of SHIELD" Looks To Rebuild In Season Two". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on August 21, 2014. Retrieved August 19, 2014.
  5. ^ a b c Abrams, Natalie (September 24, 2014). "'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' postmortem: Bosses answer burning season 2 questions". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on September 28, 2014. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  6. ^ Henstridge, Elizabeth (September 20, 2020). ep104 Live with Lil! Agents of SHIELD. Event occurs at 49:05. Retrieved September 25, 2020 – via YouTube.
  7. ^ Abrams, Natalie (July 21, 2014). "Exclusive: Lucy Lawless Heading to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." TV Guide. Archived from the original on July 23, 2014. Retrieved July 21, 2014.
  8. ^ a b Abrams, Natalie (July 25, 2014). "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Reveals New Characters, Carter Adds Captain Directors". TV Guide. Archived from the original on August 3, 2014. Retrieved July 25, 2014.
  9. ^ Mitovich, Matt Webb (February 20, 2014). "Matt's Inside Line: Scoop on S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Parenthood, H50, Once, Castle, Banshee & More!". TVLine. Archived from the original on July 27, 2014. Retrieved February 20, 2014.
  10. Marvel.com. March 20, 2014. Archived from the original
    on March 21, 2014. Retrieved March 20, 2014.
  11. from the original on August 9, 2014. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
  12. ^ a b c Logan, Michael (September 10, 2014). "First Look: Haley Atwell's Agent Carter on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." TV Guide. Archived from the original on September 11, 2014. Retrieved September 10, 2014.
  13. ^ a b Fletcher, Rosie (July 19, 2013). "Marvel's Agent Carter reaction: Comic-Con 2013". Total Film. Archived from the original on July 30, 2014. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
  14. ^ a b McCreary, Bear (September 24, 2014). "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Season 2 Begins". BearMcCreary.com. Archived from the original on March 21, 2023. Retrieved August 31, 2023.
  15. ComicBook.com. Archived
    from the original on September 15, 2014. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
  16. ^ Solis, Jorge (September 27, 2014). "5 Ways Hayley Atwell's 'Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.' Season 2 Appearance Sets-Up 'Marvel's Agent Carter!' [WATCH]". MSTARZ. Archived from the original on October 21, 2014. Retrieved October 16, 2014.
  17. ^ a b Kondolojy, Amanda (September 24, 2014). "Tuesday Final Ratings: 'Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.', 'Forever', 'The Voice', and 'Dancing With the Stars' Adjusted Up; 'Chicago Fire' & 'Person of Interest' Adjusted Down". TV by the Numbers. Archived from the original on September 26, 2014. Retrieved September 24, 2014.
  18. ^ a b "Top 30 Programs (September 22-28, 2014)" (PDF). Numeris. October 7, 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 30, 2014. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
  19. ^ Jones, Nate (May 21, 2015). "What's New on Netflix: June 2015". Vulture. New York. Archived from the original on May 23, 2015. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
  20. ^ Damore, Meagan (July 10, 2015). "SDCC: Jeph Loeb Unveils The Future Of "Agents Of SHIELD," "Agent Carter" & More". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on July 21, 2015. Retrieved July 16, 2015.
  21. ^ a b Goldman, Eric (September 23, 2014). "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD: "Shadows" Review". IGN. Archived from the original on September 30, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2014.
  22. ^ Buxton, Marc (September 24, 2014). "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD Season 2 Premiere Review: Shadows". Den of Geek. Archived from the original on September 27, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2014.
  23. ^ Hunt, James (September 24, 2014). "Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2 episode 1 review: Shadows". Den of Geek. Archived from the original on September 26, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2014.
  24. ^
    ScreenCrush. Archived
    from the original on September 27, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2014.
  25. ^ a b c Sepinwall, Alan (September 23, 2014). "Season premiere review: 'Marvel's Agents of SHIELD' – 'Shadows': The Absorbing Man cometh". HitFix. Archived from the original on September 27, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2014.
  26. ^ Sava, Oliver (September 24, 2014). "Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.: "Shadows"". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on September 26, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2014.
  27. ^ Siegel, Katherine (September 24, 2014). "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Review: "Shadows"". Paste. Archived from the original on September 28, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2014.

External links