Well, presumably he wants to spend decades training Oliver to be more like him, before he steps aside.

Yeah, "empowering" a character means a lot more than assertiveness, and giving lots of monologues about morals.

"It's okay dude, you were just Maseo for a second there, but you're cool now, right?"

I barely even remember what the storyline of the flashbacks is this season. Shreeve wants to unleash a bioweapon on some people because,,,? Wasn't he an Army guy?

The multiple closeup quick shots at the end of Oliver putting on his LoA garb, reminded me of the bizarre shots from Batman & Robin, of them putting their suits on. I half expected to see strange closeups of Bat-nipples and Bat-asses.

You've been kind of weirdly fixated on the lack of sex scenes in this series, haha.

I think that's a pretty thoroughly uncharitable interpretation of that scene, haha.

His attitude to everyone he knows has been protective. He didn't want Karen or Foggy to get involved, and he was also mad when he found out Karen involved Ben.

The suit is fine, for a realistic "first draft" of his eventual iconic suit - it's the helmet that I think looks kind of silly, and the one thing I think the Daredevil film got right.

I don't think it was a matter of their friend being the ONLY clean cop on the force - more that he was a guy they both happened to know, for sure, was clean, because they were friends.

I liked most of the episode, but similarly found the final fight kind of anti-climactic, and poorly choreographed. It's just two guys wailing on each other. The music also turns into pretty standard action movie junk, for the final showdown.

Anyone else love that scene where Ward casually asks Fitz whats up, and then Fitz flies out of his seat to go kick the shit out of him?

How many sitcom characters seem to spend less than 10% of their time at their actual day job?

Could have been more interesting, if some of the categories didn't step into editorializing of their own - "sci-fi/fantasy stunt casting"? "Wildly obvious secret identity"? "Too many cameos"?

Do you have a link to that interview? I'd be interested to hear Joss talk about what creative freedom he gets.

I gotta say, now that the day is almost here - I'm pretty excited for Age of Ultron. That clip of the movie on YouTube, where Hulk and Iron Man are fighting, Hulk destroys the Hulkbuster's arm, and Tony "summons" a replacement one from that floating platform… that sold me. Silly, I know… but it sold me.

I suspect they "meddle", in the sense that there's certain story beats they NEED the director to include, for their greater universe to work. Of course, that's also just part of the package when you take a directing gig with Marvel, right? It's not like they hide that stuff.

The show bringing on Fury and Black Widow for an arc (especially with all of this Olmost SHIELD stuff), would be fantastic. And it would ensure all kinds of press leading up to the episodes in question. It'd also probably perk up the ears of people who like the MCU films, but gave up on AoS after it's awfully boring…

I'm still waiting for the show to delve into what, exactly, happened to Cal, to make him the way he is. Didn't Gordon refer to him as a "science experiment"?

Bobbi and Mack enter Cal's old office after HYDRA and everyone else have left the scene, and see Coulson sitting at the desk, saying he's turning himself in. No one else is there, which I assume means Fitz and Hunter left with Team Ward.