Catching Up on the Characters from Agents of SHIELD

Okay, nerd friends. We know that it is nearly impossible to watch all the nerdy things out there in the world. Who has that time? Sometimes you only have time to try something and then have to move on.

From what I hear out there in pop culture land, some of you had to give up early in season one on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD.  But…it got so much better and I want to get you up to speed. Please come home because below is what you missed.

[divider]Catching Up on the Characters from Agents of SHIELD[/divider]

Season one of SHIELD was very uneven but despite that, it did some interesting things, especially after Captain America: Winter Soldier had major implications on the show. Many think that SHIELD’s slow episodes in season 1 was a stall they had to do until that moment happened.  So here are the quick things you need to know.

Characters:

Phil Coulson is the Phil Coulson you’ve seen and met in the Marvel movies. He has been to “Tahiti” and comes back from the dead, which came at the cost of him having terrible nightmares because of an alien goo that they injected him with.

Agent Melinda May is a long term Coulson friend and the veteran agent on the team who kicks butt, takes names and doesn’t talk about her feelings.  She is Phil’s right hand woman, especially in combat.

Agent Grant Ward is a young agent who early on is very heroic, but turns out to be be an agent of Hydra.  His childhood was sadly full of abuse and his current state is ambiguous.  He seems most loyal to Skye, who despises him since his betrayal was revealed.

Agents Fitz and Simmons are the scientific duo that keep all the tech jargon in the show.  Fitz loves Simmons and sacrificed himself to oxygen deprivation to save her when Agent Ward dropped them to the bottom of the ocean in an attempt to kill them.  His declaration of love freaks out Simmons, who winds up going deep undercover with Hydra, maybe as a way to escape the feelings.  She comes back and she and Fitz are working through their stuff, as Fitz tries to regain his mental abilities.

Skye, aka Daisy Johnson.  Skye was a hacker that was caught by Coulson and much of season one is her making the decision to be all-in on SHIELD, as she falls for her trainer, Ward.  She took his betrayal the most.

Her mysterious background is explored in both seasons, with her father being a crazed version of Doctor Jekyll / Mister Hyde. She was also injured and saved by the alien goo.

At the end of the mid-season break, we learn that Skye is of a special race, called the Inhumans and she discovers that she has seismic powers. (Clave did a great write-up of the character Daisy Johnson from the comics if you want to look speculatively ahead!)

Antoine Triplett is an agent the team comes in contact with after the Hydra reveal, and because of his grandfather’s involvement in the Howling Commandos, his retro gear proves quite useful.  He and Simmons seemed destined for a romantic relationship, but it appears that Trip sacrificed himself at the end of the last episode to save Skye and the crew.

Season two saw us introduce some needed agents to join the deeply underground SHIELD, who was basically outlawed because of the revelation at the end of Winter Soldier of Hydra being deeply embedded.

Nick Blood is a mercenary, but seems to be all-in as a team member, and we’ve already seen in the season that he can handle himself in combat.

Blood’s ex-wife is Bobbi Morse, who is Mockingbird in the comics.  She was deep undercover at Hydra and blew her cover to get Simmons out when it went sideways. Again, she has proven herself in combat and the witty banter between her and Blood has been great.

Alphonso Mackenzie is the street mechanic version of Fitz and Simmons.  He and Fitz have become a kind of bosom buddies, as Mac helps Fitz process information as he recovers from his oxygen depravtion.  Mac also has been used well for comedic timing.

So those are the major characters thus far in Agents of SHIELD.

There have been others who have been in-and-out, seen in cameos, or on the periphery. Of course, there have also been the villains and an occasional guest spot from the movies, but if you are familiar with the above characters, you can get up to speed.

Next, click here to look at the major storylines thus far.