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| Oh, how far we've come! Image Courtesy www.marvel.com |
Sorry about the late update. I wanted this ready to go up early in the day, but I kind of got sidetracked by Daredevil season 2!
Let’s do some quick math here:
56+18+13+13=100
You know what that means? 56 episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
(22 episodes * 2 seasons + 12 of season 3) + 18 episodes of Agent Carter
+ 13 episodes of Daredevil+ 13 episodes of Jessica Jones = 100
episodes of MCU TV. Wow!
Yes, Tuesday’s episode of Agents
of S.H.I.E.L.D. was the hundredth episode of MCU TV, all since the fall of
2013. I remember when Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D. kicked off and we started this adventure with such high
expectations. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
season 1 didn’t exactly get off to a fast start, but around the midseason
premiere things really started to pick up.
And when Captain America: The Winter Soldier shook things up and
S.H.I.E.L.D. crashed and burned, AoS really started going strong. Since then they have added 3 additional
series to the MCU (Agent Carter, followed by Daredevil and Jessica
Jones on Netflix), with another dozen or so in various stages of
development!
And now they’ve got a full
hundred episodes of TV under their belts.
So to celebrate that
accomplishment, here is my Top-Ten List of the Best Moments/Episodes of MCU
TV. Note that this is my opinion only,
so it may be different from yours. If I missed
any moments or episodes that you think should be on the list, let me know in
the comments!
Note that there will the spoilers.
Note that there will the spoilers.
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| Image Courtesy www.marvel.com |
Honorable Mention 1: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1,
Episode 18 “Providence”—“S.H.I.E.L.D. has to mean something”
This episode only aired 2 weeks
after Captain America: The Winter Soldier called this series’ entire
existence into question. Simply put,
S.H.I.E.L.D. was no more as far as the movies were concerned. Now Coulson was left on the run from a
repurposed Hulkbuster (then-Colonel Talbot) and the full force of the U.S.
military while Hydra ran rampant trying to consolidate its power. What was going to happen next with Agents
of S.H.I.E.L.D.?
The answer comes as Coulson is
leading his team on a wild goose chase following the instructions that he
received from his S.H.I.E.L.D. badge. Coulson
finally breaks down and screams that “S.H.I.E.L.D. has to mean something” after
he gave his life literally as well as any hope for a normal life in service of
the organization. This is a very moving
and powerful moment.
Honorable Mention 2: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1,
Episode 22 “Beginning of the End”—all the scenes with Fury
The second honorable mention also
comes from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1. Coulson and his team are outmanned and
outgunned against Garrett, Ward, and the full force of Hydra—a force which
included a number of super-soldiers and Mike Peterson, a.k.a. Deathlok. And on top of that, two of the remaining
members of his team are stuck on the ocean floor with little hope for
survival. Fitz and Simmons manage to
escape from the pod on the ocean floor and are left floating in the ocean, and
who shows up to rescue them? None other than
Nick Fury in all his badass glory, fresh off his role in Captain America:
The Winter Soldier. He saves the
scientists, and then he goes off to help Coulson take down his old student,
Garrett. Coulson and Fury’s chemistry is
absolutely amazing, and it is a ton of fun to see the interaction between them.
#10: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1,
Episode 15 “Yes Men”—the first quality crossover between Marvel TV and the
Marvel movies
Okay, I promise that this is the
last episode of AoS season 1 to make the list. This one is here because it shows the
crossover potential inherent in a shared cinematic universe with both movies
and TV shows involved. The first
crossover between the two came in episode 8, “The Well,” in which the
S.H.I.E.L.D. team was relegated to picking up Thor’s trash. The banter was amusing, but the concept would
have made 1000x more sense as the backdoor pilot to Damage Control.
And so when Sif appeared in
episode 15 looking for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s help in tracking down one of the
Asgardian criminals who escaped during Thor: The Dark World, it was
really exciting! Add to that the fact
that they’d even brought in a character from the movie and set up something
which could pay off in Thor: Ragnarok, and you’ve got all the makings of
an amazing TV/movie crossover. Sif and
May have the opportunity to interact and discover common ground as the “warrior
women” of their respective franchises, Sif and Coulson have some banter about
what happened to him, and Sif sets events into motion that lead into season 2’s
exploration of Inhumans. Oh, and Sif
brings Lorelei back to Asgard because Odin wants her returned alive—and we all
know from Thor: The Dark World that “Odin” is actually Loki. Does this mean that Loki has plans to use
Lorelei to consolidate his power in Asgard?
#9: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 3,
Episode 5 “4,722 Hours”—Simmons alone
The AoS Season 2 finale
shot Simmons off into parts unknown, leaving her mostly out of the picture for
the first several episodes of season 3. However,
episode 5 put the spotlight squarely on Simmons. In a major deviation from this series’
typical writing style, there was only one plot for this entire episode—and considering
how jam-packed the first few episodes were with extra subplots, this was a very
necessary change of pace! Elizabeth
Henstridge really shines when she’s left alone with just 2 other characters to
play off of and a smartphone with incredible battery life.
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| Image Courtesy www.facebook.com/AgentsofShield |
#8: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2,
Episode 22 “S.O.S. Part Two”—Inhumans vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.
Aos finished off season 2 with a
major bang as the S.H.I.E.L.D. team finds itself in a battle against a force
that they really can’t match: the
Inhumans, led by Jiaying. Coulson seems
to have lost Skye/Daisy to her parents, and he’s been attacked inside his base
by the newly-transformed Mr. Hyde. However,
Coulson brings what forces he can muster to retake the Iliad from the
Inhumans.
The two best moments in this episode
come near the end. First, Mack, Fitz,
and Coulson fight the Inhuman teleporter Gordon in a desperate attempt to
prevent him from releasing tainted Terrigen mist into the ship’s ventilation
system and killing every non-Inhuman present.
That is a really cool action scene and shows just what S.H.I.E.L.D.’s
ingenuity can accomplish.
The better moment, I think is
when Skye and Jiaying face off. Jiaying’s
madness finally reaches its apex as she attempts to drain the life from her own
daughter. And when she’s given an
opening, Skye shows that she is still thinking of others before herself as she
knocks the quinjet full of tainted Terrigen crystals into the ocean so they can’t
be used to slaughter the humans. And then
Cal/Mr. Hyde appears to perform one last selfless act for his daughter: murder the woman he loves to save the
daughter he adores.
It also doesn’t hurt that this
moment directly leads to the conflict of season 3, as S.H.I.E.L.D. seeks to
contain and help the new Inhumans.
#7: Jessica Jones Season 1, Episode 7 “A.K.A.
Top Shelf Perverts”—The police station scene
This moment makes the list
primarily for its intensity as the first interaction between Jessica and
Killgrave since the night of Reva’s murder.
Watching Killgrave force the cops to all point guns at each other to
force Jessica into listening to him was (for lack of a better word)
intense. And the confrontation between
them was also (for lack of a better word) intense. This was far more intensity and horror than
we’ve really gotten from anything so far in the MCU.
#6: Agent Carter Season 1, Episode 8 “Valediction”—Peggy
and Howard
Agent Carter only makes the list once, though
the exploration of Zero Matter/Darkforce in season 2 could also have made the
list.
What sets this episode apart is
exactly what Agent Carter is all about.
This is a very character-driven series, so the moment that makes this
list is the most powerful exploration of Peggy and Howard’s characters in the
MCU. The biggest moment in the episode
does not actually have any stakes: Peggy
is talking Howard out of bombing Manhattan before Jarvis has to shoot him down—but
Jarvis can’t shoot him down because Dominic Cooper still has to turn
into John Slattery and father Robert Downey, Jr.! However, this gives Peggy a chance to talk
her way through her grief over Steve’s death.
And it also gives Howard a chance to reflect on the fact that Captain
America is the only truly good thing he’s ever created.
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| Image Courtesy www.screenrant.com |
#5: Jessica Jones Season 1, Episode 13 “A.K.A.
Smile”
Two moments in this episode lead
to its place on this list. The first is
right at the beginning, when Jessica brings Luke to the hospital and receives
help from Claire to save his life. We already
knew that the Netflix series were all going to be interconnected, and we knew
that Claire would provide some of the connective tissue, but this felt wholly
necessary to show her role in the series.
And watching her work to save Luke’s life was really cool, too. Considering her role as the first Night Nurse
we met in the MCU, this was a good way to show just how well she can handle “unusual”
cases.
The second moment comes right at
the end when the Jessica/Trish relationship gets its payoff. I really like how this relationship was built
up and explored through this series, from hardly getting along to becoming
closer than sisters. However, their
relationship is not one in which Jessica would normally express her feelings
verbally; it only happens in the most extreme of circumstances when Jessica is
forced to face her greatest threat and overcome him.
#4: Daredevil Season 1, Episode 2 “Cut Man”—The
hallway fight
This was probably one of the
best-choreographed fight sequences in these 100 episodes. Matt takes on over a dozen Russian gangsters
while wearing little more than exercise sweats.
The one-take fight sequence is one of the more difficult things to do,
and this is one is filmed very well. This
fight is also unique for the way it displays the hero’s limits, something this
is drastically lacking from most superheroes’ portrayals.
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| Image Courtesy www.tv.com |
#3: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2,
Episode 10 “What They Become”—Skye becomes Quake
If you want to talk about huge,
universe-expanding moments, you can’t get much bigger than introducing an
entire super-powered race on network TV, 3 years before the movie based on that
race is scheduled to come out. That
huge, universe-expanding moment is when Skye and Raina go through Terrigenesis
in the penultimate scene of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2
midseason finale. We knew that there was
something unusual about Skye from the beginning of the series, but this is when
we finally learned just who—and what—she was.
Even if there isn’t any direct
tie-in between the AoS Inhumans and the Inhumans movie, it’s
still amazing that the Inhumans first appeared on the small-screen.
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| Image Courtesy www.imgur.com |
#2: Daredevil Season 1, Episode 13 “Daredevil”—Daredevil
vs. the Kingpin
Daredevil season 1 put a huge focus on the
interplay between Matt Murdock’s hero career and his legal career. In the season finale, Matt, Foggy, and Karen
have put their considerable legal talents to work in making a case against
Wilson Fisk. Matt did have to go out as
Daredevil to secure the final piece, a dirty cop who could implicate Fisk in
everything he did, but the resolution to Fisk’s story comes instead from the legal
process.
And then Fisk makes his play and
attempts to escape. And Matt has to don
his brand-new Daredevil suit to stop Fisk and ensure that he is taken back into
custody. It’s the first time in the
series that Matt has worn the Daredevil suit, and it’s the most intense fight
scene in the season.
I also really like how Fisk makes
his play: quoting the Parable of the
Good Samaritan and talking about how he always saw himself as the Samaritan,
who really loved his city. However, Fisk
now recognizes and embraces that “I am the ill intent!”
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| Image Courtesy www.todaynewsshow.com |
#1: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 3,
Episode 11 “Bouncing Back”—The Secret Warriors assembled
The most recent moment is the one
that makes it to the top of the list, and it’s one that has been building for
about half a season. This is the first
time we really saw the Secret Warriors in action. Elena Rodriguez, a.k.a. “Yo-Yo,” joined the
team, and she, Daisy, and Joey all worked together to take out an entire
station full of police officers. Considering
that the Secret Warriors were teased before the season ever started, it was
well overdue to see a group of powered people fighting together as a team and
working together well. Yo-Yo especially
was a lot of fun with the sheer joy with which she uses her powers.
I really can’t wait to see more
of the Secret Warriors, especially now that the latest episode teased the
introduction of Eden Fesi, a.k.a. “Manifold,” as well as Carl Creel’s
involvement with S.H.I.E.L.D.
Conclusion
So here’s my list of top ten
moments/episodes from MCU TV. What are
your favorite moments? Let me know in
the comments!
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