Agents of Shield: some much-needed love for the middle manager

When I recently finished my rewatch of Agents of Shield, which I first watched a couple of years ago, I felt quite melancholic. This TV series, which first started to air well before the Disney Plus era (though it's not that old: it's roughly contemporary with Once Upon A Time), might actually be the best Marvel series out there. Granted, I've not seen more than one episode of the acclaimed Daredevil, which seems a little too gritty for me. But I would argue that Agents of Shield trumps most of the Disney Plus TV series at least – and I'm a big defender of Marvel's Disney Plus series.

For one, Agents of Shield has the classic American TV series format of 22-23 episodes per season, with a mid-season finale (where one storyline is often wrapped up in favour of a new one). The last two seasons had "only" 13 episodes each, but that was still plenty. As a European, I'm not used to such generously long seasons: a series/season of ten or so episodes (although they are mostly longer than a typical American-style episode) is considered a lot. Consequently, I was more attuned to the Disney Plus format of six to eight episodes where each episode had to carry a lot of weight than I suspect many Yanks were. Even so, I understood their hankering after the "good old days" of multi-episode TV series.

There is much to be said for the Agents of Shield format. You don't have to be overawed by every episode, or even every storyline. Something you like better will be along in a minute. Meanwhile, you can enjoy the quips and interactions of your favourite characters, whose individual story arcs get plenty of time to develop.

Because that's another thing Agents of Shield has going for it: really engaging characters, who constitute a strong ensemble cast. I know I've expanded on the importance of a likeable ensemble of characters before somewhere, though I can't find the post now. Anyway, Agents of Shield is a good example of ensemble-driven storytelling done right. True, Phil Coulson's select team of agents do need some time to set out their stall in season one, but they soon grow on you, and later additions to the team also work really well, which is important in a long-running series such as this. The likeability of the characters does have one drawback: you are seriously disappointed when an agent has to leave the team, for whatever reason. I'm still a bit peeved about a character death in season two which just seemed unnecessary.

The series is also really rewatchable, as I've now found out. Some storylines were anxiety-inducing the first time around (somber season five is still my least favourite, I think), so knowing roughly how everything plays out helps, though I had forgotten some of the plot twists. I could also acknowledge that certain turns of events that seemed to come out of nowhere first time around actually did make sense upon rewatching (That Twist in season one). Moreover, the dialogue is consistently witty. Comfort viewing at its finest.

Lastly, there is Phil Coulson himself, the leader of the special Shield team whose fates we follow. Coulson is supposed to be dead: in the first Avengers film, we saw him skewered by Loki. So how come he's still around? That's the mystery to be solved in the first season, but the main thing for the viewer is that he's there. Though he climbs in the ranks of (an admittedly shattered) Shield, and his boss Nick Fury goes underground never to be seen in the series after a few guest appearances in season one, Coulson strikes me as the ideal middle manager: gently smiling, full of self-deprecating humour, genuinely concerned for his team, tough and focused when he needs to be. The team members hype him up quite a bit as the series goes on, and it's a credit to the writing – and Clark Gregg's acting – that you totally buy into the hype as a viewer.

In Sweden, "middle manager" has become something of a term of abuse, which I can't help feel is unfair. There are shades of the Medieval argument "it's not the King's fault, it's his wretched tax collectors" about it. Many of the tough day-to-day decisions in an organisation have to be taken by the sorely tried middle management, while their lofty bosses "focus on the big picture". I don't usually have anything against said lofty bosses, mind you. Still, it's nice to see someone like Phil Coulson earn some love for the seconds-in-command out there.

From the swashbuckling to the depressing – some recently read historical novels

It's time for a book-related post, but it's hard to find a common thread tying it together. I think I'll have to go with the historical novel theme, rather than some (actually very entertaining) "family therapy chick-lit" which I've also read recently.

Back to my summer holidays, then, when I read Antonia Hodgson's A Death at Fountains Abbey and The Silver Collar in quick succession. As they take place in the 18th century (more unfamiliar territory for me than the Victorian age), and some serious issues play a part in the stories (the aftermath of the South Sea Bubble and slavery respectively), they kind of count as ambitious reads for me. And yet, they shouldn't, as they are so insanely readable. I had just started Fountains Abbey at the start of a six-day trip to London; by the time of the return flight, I had already finished both it and Silver Collar and had to resort to aforementioned family therapy chick-lit for the return flight.

Hodgson is an author who has clearly done a formidable amount of research, but she wears her learning lightly. There is never a sense of local colour added just to show that she has done her homework: everything feeds into the plot and characterisation. Thomas Hawkins, Hodgson's unruly hero – I'd call him hero rather than anti-hero, as for all his supposed roguishness he has a strong core of decency – is really likeable, and so is the woman he loves fondly and faithfully, the fiery Kitty (who loves him just as much in return). The setup reminds me a bit of Lindsey Davis's Falco novels, before I went off them: the down-on-his-luck protagonist and his lady figuring out mysteries together and making the reader root for them and wish they'd finally tie the knot properly.

I started this book series with book two, The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins which I also loved, about a year ago. Now I've purchased book one, The Devil in the Marshalsea, and look forward to reading it eventually. I should have read it before Confession, but was put off by the title: now, however, I'm reassured that there is nothing very infernal about Samuel Fleet whose nickname is in the title. However fierce to others, he is remembered by Thomas and Kitty with great warmth. So couldn't his fellow crooks have called him "the ogre of the Marshalsea" or something?

One thing Hodgson's novels do not have, though, is antagonists worthy of a villain-lover's sympathy. The main villains are horrible, enough for a Game of Thrones baddie to say "hold up" a couple of times. But it works plot-wise, and instead sympathy is shown to other shady characters, such as the unhappy fraudster in Fountains Abbey who in an inferior novel would only be an object of moral censure.

Feeling well disposed to historical novels, I started Emma Donoghue's Frog Music: I had read and liked her novel The Sealed Letter, about a fascinating Victorian divorce case, and knew that the writing would be good. And so it was, but goodness, how depressing! The cover and the blurb were, I would argue, intentionally misleading. The cover showed the torso of a woman in a bright dress carrying a pair of fancy boots, and the blurb spoke of "a compelling story of intrigue and murder" involving "three former stars of the Parisian circus", and hinted at some relationship-centred chamber piece ("When an eccentric outsider joins their little circle, secrets unravel, changing everything").

Not with one word is it mentioned that the main reason for the protagonist Blanche's ("an exotic dancer at the House of Mirrors") falling-out with her appalling lover Arthur and his equally ghastly chum Ernest is her and Arthur's singularly unlovely baby. Blanche belatedly rescues the baby from a "baby farm" and then cares for him, mostly out of guilt at first although she eventually starts to love the kid. Arthur and Ernest are miffed. The "eccentric stranger" Jenny Bonnet is only a part of it.

Donoghue is rather too good at describing discomfort, and I trudged through the descriptions of the heat- and smallpox-ridden San Francisco of 1876 and Blanche's tribulations with little enjoyment. Blanche's wearisome child-minding is only the start of it: then, things get worse, as she keeps failing to collect money that is hers and losing what she has. It's all well-written, just decidedly not my cup of tea. There is hope towards the end, but it's precious long in coming. I can't blame myself for sinking into chick-lit and very satisfying fairy-tale-themed fantasy (which I may return to in a later post) after I was finished.