I Saw This!! What I Have Been Watching: 2019 Edition: Pt B

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(!) or Toasty attempt to write about a bunch of stuff they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. But we can't not write cuz that would be bad, very bad.  Smells bad, bad.

What I Have Been (or Am) Watching is the admitted state of me spending too much time in front of the TV. And despite what I said above, I have been avoiding telling you about what I have been watching. But let's try with what's on right now, and stepping backwards in time until I get entirely lost. The bad smell should help me find my way back.

Pt A is here.

Jessica Jones S3 and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S6

*delete delete delete*

It's easy to rant about movies that are terrible. I stop watching TV shows that are terrible (most of the time; just wait for my post on Another Life). It's less easy to talk about movies or TV I loved, as finding the exact reasons I love something is not not always easily put into words. It's very difficult to say something about something I was just OK with, or something I knew wasn't very good but I liked it fine.

I have a Love/Meh relationship with the Netflix Marvel series. While I relish their concept and applaud them for the bravado of it all (a connected thread leading to The Defenders) I can easily acknowledged that pretty much failed. And yet, I am still really fond of everything Jessica Jones. Primarily Jessica and her non-stop bourbon bottle, leather jacket and combat boots. The idea that they did a low-key powered story spoke to me.

This season follows after last season's combat boots with the consequences of Patsy shooting Jessica's mom (to save her) and Jessica not being able to forgive nor forget. I never really saw the weight in Jess's emotional attachment to her mostly forgotten mom. Considering how much she despised Patsy's mom for the physical and emotional abuse, being connected to a serial killer of an estranged mother, should have driven Jessica in the other direction. But no, she got her mother back and Patsy took her away -- drama and conflict. Jessica's messed up; we accept that.

The crux of this season is: a smart non-powered serial killer is discovered and they cannot seem to stop him, and Trish is working hard at becoming a (minorly) powered supe, not really successfully. On the side stories, we explored Hogarth dealing with her terminal illness via standard Jeri horrible tactics. Malcom is joining the dark side as he does more and more for Jeri, but he has been able to spruce up his apartment (but not move?) and has a hot girlfriend. And Jess meets a new fuck buddy who has the power to identify Bad Guys via a massive headache. Everything and everyone gets wrangled together, as is common to the series, along with the requisite tragic events.

I shifted from my fondness for Jess, to yelling at pretty much every other character for their choices and behaviour. I just couldn't bring myself to care for any of the side characters, and the underlying theme of how far are the powered people allowed to go in their fight for justice. While I know this is another Marvel earth, different from the one the MCU movies take place in, obviously The Avengers exist, so the people of NYC are quite aware powered people have saved the world a few times. So that plot fell flat to me. But I enjoyed watching the season, though I feel no pain that this was the last.

In yet another Marvel TV world, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't even notice that the Snappening happened (the reserve the use of The Blip for people's return) while they were busy altering the future so that it wouldn't get destroyed for an entirely different Kree based reason. Yet, I still have to have a head-canon conversation with myself about the changes to the Kree Empire during Captain Marvel's onslaught against them, from the 90s onward, and how it affected their future behaviour.

The season picks up a year later with two incontrovertible ideas: Director Coulson is dead, really dead, and half of the lead team is in space trying to find the (un)frozen body of Fitz. Back on Earth we introduce some dimension hopping villains on the hunt for something/someone led by one very familiar face -- Coulson, who is called Sarge.  Oooo, is he an LMD ? Is he a clone? Was Coulson whisked away to another dimension / space and is not dead? Is there another much more convoluted reason? TL;DR -- yes.

The first half of the season, in space, is a lot of low key space opera fun. Once they actually kicked off the reason plot for the season (planet destroying alien species), I got less interested. Sarge and team were not from another dimension, just Space. Sarge definitely had a connection to Coulson but he couldn't remember, and really didn't care. He had an agenda and would not let ANYONE get in his way. The PoAp / Gritty Alien Hunter vibe was fun and Clark Gregg got to have a lot of fun with the character, so at least we had that.

I am not sure how this show is still on the air, but then again, when you look at the genre shows that stay around forever (hello Supernatural) I guess I can see a fan-base keeping something going long enough, especially on network TV. Its palatable, not entirely terrible and is built to generate fandom strong enough to watch each week. Meanwhile, we just entirely forgot about it, and once the season ended, grab a DL and binged through. I feel that was the only way I could enjoy it.