Posted by Jonathan Klotz | Published
The year is currently 2026. Six years, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD was off the air, and every day since then, fans of the adventure series have been wondering when their favorite characters will appear in the MCU. It won’t.
From the beginning, the signs were there that Disney was not interested in fully integrating the television series into the MCU. All you had to do was watch the second episode, “0-8-4,” a bottleneck episode that can be set in any universe, with any cast, and it needs a last-minute 30-second cameo by Samuel L. Jackson to keep viewers tuned in for Episode 3.
No Game Should Start With a Bottleneck
“0-8-4” has Agent Coulson’s (Clark Gregg) team in Peru to find an artifact of “unknown origin.” Returning “the heroes duck down and a shockwave comes from their stick” takes off calmness, the group flees back to their ship, “The Bus,” with members of the national army. That’s right, the second episode of the new big-budget MCU television series is a bottle episode.
Bottleneck episodes use existing sets, often with only the main characters involved, and are very heavy on dialogue. They can be great if used well, like Supernatural “Baby,” but “0-8-4” was only the second episode to broadcast. Going straight into the bottle episode was meant to allow us to see how the characters interact with each other and develop relationships, but Agents of SHIELD it was also a Marvel series, and nothing about this episode used this setting.
How many lost civilizations are there in the Marvel universe that the artifact might be tied to? It may have been part of Nova Roma. Instead of the Peruvian army, the former Coulson may have been leading a unit of The Wild Pack. Something. Anything small to integrate the story into the larger world, instead of being a generic adventure. And of course, bottle episodes are cheap to produce, so “0-8-4” should have been a clue that the show’s budget was being reduced to 22 episodes per season.
Agents of SHIELD is the Best of Modern Marvel
Best of “0-8-4,” without FitzSimmons, best part of all episodes Agents of SHIELDa brief appearance by Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury after the credits. For more than a decade, fans have been complaining that they’ve never had another moment like this. That was the second clue in “0-8-4” that the series never reached its potential.
Agents of SHIELD finally found its niche by, ironically, dropping all ties to the MCU and saying, “Trade, we’re doing Ghost Rider,” or “Let’s adapt. The Secret Empire.” It was a fun, fun sci-fi show. After 14 years, the unprecedented power Disney had there still hurts. Given the current state of the MCU, however, it’s probably best that FitzSimmons, May, Quake, Coulson, and Mack are remembered alone. But….What If?
