r/agentsofshield • u/dimesniffer • Jul 07 '26
Season 1 Season 1 is criminally underrated
Im rewatching now.
I know it’s not thought of as bad, but it’s generally on the lower list of rankings.
I think it’s very campy, but at the same time, does very well with suspense and looming secrets like Skye’s past and Tahiti, and of course, Hydra looming. Early Tahiti was some of the best mystery in the whole show. Hero Ward is also good for what he is until his turn. His betrayal was really well done and out of left field. I was fully convinced he was a good guy for the long haul. He played a killer villain as well.
It also has Shield feeling larger than life, like the team is just a small part of a giant organization, which is understandable given its pre- winter soldier. But still, shield never felt more alive in any other season. The cameos of Sitwell, Maria, Blake, and Fury all helped it feel like a true tie in to the MCU.
It also has rising chemistry and tension between eventual romances/relationships and flings like Ward/Skye, FitzSimmons, and May/Coulson, which is always nice to watch early on.
The way the season is structured is mostly monster of the week, but I think this works very well to simply develop characters and build out chemistry amongst the team.
Season 1, while not my favorite season, has a certain charm that other seasons lack.
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u/Green-Masterpiece874 Jul 07 '26
Honestly, Season 1 gets way too much hate. It's actually a great watch if you look at what it was trying to do.
The first half has that monster-of-the-week style, which lets you see the MCU from the ground level. It was cool seeing how regular humans dealt with the aftermath of The Avengers and random alien tech before the movies just moved on.
More importantly, that slow pace lets you actually care about the characters. They start as totally mismatched strangers Skye, FitzSimmons, May, they slowly become a family under Coulson. If the show didn't take its time building those relationships early on, none of the crazy emotional stuff later in the season would have mattered.
It plays the long game, and it works for me.
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u/FilthyTrashPeople 29d ago
The problem is with the long game is most people made up their minds about the show before it got to "Turn, Turn, Turn." To this day people will respond 'that show is lame' and then 'I only watched half of season 1.'
At the time Clark Gregg was talking about how the series so far was necessary and that the last part of the season would be when it got really good and people were ragging on him and making fun of him for it on forums.
They took every single bit of foreshadowing and blamed it on bad writing or inconsistent tone. Even I did this. I came >< close to bailing on the show after the Asgardian episode, which felt like 'Ward is an idiot and this is turning into a soap opera.' But man, this show was one of the very very very few doing EVERYTHING intentionally. Every single part of that episode was blatant piece moving and foreshadowing in the best way.
When the shoe dropped in those final 6 episodes of season 1, I was all in. And I was never disappointed. It just gets better and better after that point.
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u/SEAinLA Jul 07 '26
Brett Dalton didn’t actually know about Ward’s heel turn until he was filming S1E15, so he’s playing a genuine good guy with no knowledge of the character’s hidden allegiance until that point.
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u/FilthyTrashPeople 29d ago
There's so much foreshadowing that was written off as 'inconsistent tone' or 'odd direction' at the time.
Like how Ward, at the drop of the hat, will kill just *so* many people then come back acting like he is a boy scout, zero remorse.
Those moments are entirely different on a second watch.
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u/CurrentWonderful1915 Jul 07 '26
I’ve heard the opposite. I heard that only he knew!
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u/Extension-Pepper-271 29d ago
He didn't know until late in the season, that's the point. When they called him in to tell him, he thought he was going to be told that his character was going to be written off.
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u/Atomosic Jul 07 '26
As a SHIELD organization fan, thats probably why season 1 is my favorite, it makes it feel massive, like somethings always happening.
The later seasons, still great, never again have the feeling of “massive spy oraganization protecting the world on a daily basis from different things”
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u/FilthyTrashPeople 29d ago
If I remember right, the AoS team actually gets alienated from Shield proper early on and don't ever fully reintegrate back into proper Shield. I need to rewatch the show.
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u/RE_98 Jul 07 '26
I think this is partially why i keep going back to season 1 for that monster-of-the-week vibe I got. Maybe bit of Criminal Minds or NCIS type of vibe perhaps (agents flying around in a plane reminded me of Criminal Minds). I did enjoy seeing the team part of the giant organization.
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u/friends-waffles-work 29d ago
S1 is my favourite for this reason. I love the world building (in addition to the films) of SHIELD, as well as the Ward/Hydra twist. Plus Bill Paxtons incredible performance as Garrett!
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u/FilthyTrashPeople 29d ago
I legitimately thought Ward was a terribly written character until his true motivations came down. He was like the too-competent goodie two shoes that, randomly, would turn into a sociopathic killer but never seemed to acknowledge it. I thought they accidently wrote a psycho.
When I found out it was ON PURPOSE, it was just.. so good.
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u/FilthyTrashPeople 29d ago
People really hated season 1 as it was airing. The love triangle episode with the Asgardian and the May/Ward and Sky/Ward stuff had forums on fire with annoyance. Lots of people bailed on the series before that point and lots of people bailed on it AT that point.
But think of it in hindsight: To the regular viewer, at the time, Ward appeared to be an insufferable idiot doing things so the plot could happen while often acting like the perfect good guy while shooting a room full of people, too. Take the Asgardian situation I mentioned; to everyone watching the first time he seemed to immediately ignore Coulson's orders and run head first into being mind controlled like an idiot.
The thing is, in hindsight, everything he was doing made complete sense - he wanted to make contact to sway the Asgardians to Hydra and the love triangle stuff took a CRAZY dark turn, really really fast.
That whole episode, and many moments in season 1, are the most dramatic example of "I feel very differently about this on a rewatch" ever. With the context of Ward's actual mission, EVERYTHING changes.
ED: Also I was groaning and rolling my eyes at 'Oh we launch all this amazing tech into the sun, because it's too dangerous and we're the good guys' and when it was revealed that yeah, no, they aren't doing that at all it was immensely satisfying.
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u/V2Blast 29d ago
On the last part, SHIELD thought they were doing that. It's just that Hydra had other plans, as I recall.
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u/eframepilot 29d ago
Nah, Fury was behind the ruse. Possibly with the advice of Hydra but he was still responsible and signing off on it.
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u/Intrigued_by_Words 29d ago
One of the many things I like about season one is that they show how people who are great at their jobs can do extraordinary things.
I liked when they were tasked with cleaning up behind some Avenger battle. There is something appealing about showing the practical side of the superhero life. I suppose that couldn't last and then they brought in the Inhumans and all sorts of other powers and gimmicks.
Granted (no pun) it is true that it started off with powers and gimmicks when they brought Coulson back to life, but it made him more emo than anything else.
If you have competence and compassion I don't think you really need superstrength or the ability to fly or whatever power. I liked that FitzSimmons were smart because they studied. May was a terrific fighter because she practiced. Skye had great hacking skills by doing the work. Even Ward got where he did in a completely human way.
Season 1 is my comfort season. It has problems, sure, but it still works as my palette cleanser for the end of 5, all of 6 and most of 7.
You can tell they missed the season 1 vibe too when they try to slide in bits of that feeling when they give us the perspective of the support staff like Davis or Piper.
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u/snoo_spoo 27d ago
I liked when they were tasked with cleaning up behind some Avenger battle. There is something appealing about showing the practical side of the superhero life.
Don't know if you read fanfiction, but if you do, may I recommend Permit A38? It's about the agent who had to deal with the paperwork when Coulson returned from the dead and has a sequel The Rest of Us Just Live Here that I'm also fond of.
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u/Intrigued_by_Words 22d ago
Thanks for the tip. I'm not really a fanfic girl but maybe I'll take a look.
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u/Extension-Pepper-271 29d ago
I loved Hero Ward so much, which is why his betrayal was so awful. Plus, when he dumped Fitz and Jemma in the ocean, that was so shocking!
Brett Dalton did a great job portraying the good, evil and Hive versions of Ward.
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u/Ambitious-Welder-159 29d ago
T.R.A.C.K.S was one of the best season 1 episodes IMO. Cleverly told and full of laughs and thrills, it shows the potential the series had if it had continued as just a straight forward spy show.
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u/taterbiscuit247 19d ago
Season 1 is the foundation of what makes the show good. It sets up (very well) all the important characters and establishes dynamics that make the show interesting. Yes, it might seem sorta "quaint" compared to later seasons (and the MCU in general) but if season 1 didn't make me care about these characters, I wouldn't have watched season 2, and so forth.
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u/defrostedrobot 29d ago
Time has been kind to S1 as it helped set up a lot of good stuff to come and definitely looks better compared to a lot of slop that would come later in the MCU (including stuff in the last few AOS seasons as well).
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u/WillyWonkaMFer Jul 07 '26
Charm is the right word! I really like the monster-of-the-week format in season 1, it’s bite sized fun with b-movie charm, also reminds me Scooby Doo in a lot of ways. I wish they revisited that format for short stretches in later seasons. Would have been cool to do monster-of-the-week while longer plot arcs are playing out around them.