TV Review: Agents of SHIELD, Season 2

After watching the first two episodes of Agents of SHIELD, Season Two (I'm watching them online, which leaves me a week behind when they air on TV), I can say that the show is now what it should've have been from the get-go.  For the first half of last season, it felt a bit like the Disney Spy-Hour-- they were a very cuddly family of spies who went on family friendly adventures together.  But in the second half of Season One, their world was upended when they realized their organization had been infiltrated by a rival espionage agency.  It got a little bit darker and more sophisticated, but still had some of the dippiness of the early episodes.  This season has jettisoned most of the wide-eyed innocence of the first season.  We're finally getting to see something a bit more like cross between X-Files and Alias, but with a little more action.

The key tension in the show right now is that (newly anointed) Director Coulson is a good man trying to build an organization that must, by definition, live on the edge of morality.  There will be lying, there will be double-crossing, and it's not clear how he's going to handle that.  Nick Fury, the former director, somehow managed to earn his agents' loyalty despite being an under-handed bastard.  Can Coulson do the same?  I like the dynamic, I also like how it feels a bit like The Magnificant Seven.  Coulson is meeting new people in the hopes of bringing them on board, and many of them will wear a black or white hat in equal measure.  And, of course, much of the old team has returned, but with grudges that were absent last season.

Another nice touch this year is that they're more liberally using characters from the Marvel Universe. Last Season, they seemed to go out of their way to avoid any more than a passing brush with pre-established characters.  They did have Nick Fury, Sif, the Enchantress and a couple odd versions of Deathlok, but there were many more random folks created specifically for the show.  This season we've already seen the Absorbing Man (!), Glenn Talbot (who did make an appearance at the tail end of last season), Peggy Carter, the Howling Commandos and the Kraken.  

I think they're off to a really good start.  However, I hope this darker take on the material doesn't scare off fans from last year-- I'd hate to see it get canceled just as it's getting good.