The Whims were all aflutter with mixed emotions at the end of this week’s Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD episode. Immediately after watching the show, they sat down together to talk about it, and this is how it went:
TESSIE. So! This week’s episode was very very good, don’t you think? And yet, at the same time, very very bad.
TILLIE. I know it sounds weird, but I agree! Highs and lows, all over the place!
TRIXIE. So what was good—?
TESSIE. Well, first of all, it was funny! I mean, it was really, really funny at the beginning, when they were on the train, and they all got paired up and were pretending to be different people. Some of the things they said—
TILLIE. I know! And didn’t Agent Coulson and Simmons look funny in those glasses?
TESSIE. Funny? I think they both looked adorable!
TRIXIE. And how about Skye and Fitz, pretending to be on like…their honeymoon or something?
TILLIE. Didn’t he say something like…”You’re the least supportive pretend girlfriend I ever had”?
TESSIE. (giggling) Yes! What a riot! But what was even funnier, was hearing him talk in an American accent!
TILLIE. Actually, he was very good at that. Well, a lot better than Skye was at doing the British accent.
TESSIE. Scottish. And don’t talk about Skye. It’s too upsetting.
TILLIE. I know! You mean because she was shot?
TRIXIE. Yes! She was shot! And not just a little shot. Big time, oozing blood all over the floor shot!
TESSIE. (worried) Do you think she’s going to make it? Do you think she’s going to live?
(The three Whimsies sit quietly for a moment, thinking, then…)
TILLIE. I think she will. I mean, if they were going to kill her, they would have killed her already, right?
TRIXIE. And besides that, she’s an 0-8-4. We don’t know what that is exactly, but we know she’s something special.
TESSIE. Maybe she has the ability to heal herself?
TRIXIE. We can hope. Or at least we can hope that somebody somewhere in SHIELD knows what they can do to save her. I mean, they brought Coulson back from the dead, right? You’d think someone somewhere could do something to help Skye.
TILLIE. I admit, she’s never been my favorite character, but still, I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. And like Trixie said, she’s an 0-8-4. They wouldn’t have introduced that whole idea if they just meant to kill her off. We need to find out what that MEANS.
TESSIE. I think we’re going to find out. And hopefully really soon.
TRIXIE. Well, it won’t be too soon, girls. I snuck on the computer right before we sat down, and I saw that the next episode isn’t going to be for another month!
TILLIE & TESSIE. (together, exasperated) WHAT??
TRIXIE. Yeah. Same as they’ve done before. We’re gonna have to WAIT! A long time!
TILLIE & TESSIE. (together, exasperated) WHAAAAA!!
TRIXIE. Yeah. Too bad…
TILLIE. (suddenly) But wait! Silver lining, girls! I just remembered: the Olympics are starting soon. For a couple of weeks, it’s going to be all Olympics, all the time. So it’s not like there will be nothing to watch on TV. 
TESSIE. (eyes gleaming) Oh! I love the Olympics! I love the figure skating!
TRIXIE. I like the skiing, when they do that big jump. It’s kind of scary, but it also looks fun.
TILLIE. I like the Summer Olympics better.
TRIXIE. (shuddering) Ugh! Not me! Entirely too much water!
TILLIE. Well, snow is water. Only it’s frozen.
TRIXIE. Right. So it’s entirely different. See?
TESSIE. Hey! Hey! We’re getting off track here! What about the show? What were we talking about? Why was it good? Why was it bad?
TILLIE. Well, honestly…I think the only bad thing was Skye getting shot. And there’s nothing we can do about that except wait and see how it all turns out.
TRIXIE. But lots and lots of good stuff happened! Like how about May? When she beat up all those bad guys? And then threw a knife in the leader’s back?
TESSIE. Trixie! Really! Sometimes you seem to delight in the most horrific things!
TRIXIE. Well, they were bad guys, right? They needed to be killed!
TESSIE. Yes! But it was so…bloody!!
TILLIE. Don’t mind her, Tess. You know how she is. She’s been reading all those comic books for years and years, so she’s used to seeing the villains get killed in all kinds of horrific ways.
TRIXIE. I guess I am. But you know, it’s a lot more…what do you call it…? GRAPHIC when they do it in TV and movies.
TESSIE. And that’s a GOOD thing?
TRIXIE. Well, it is when the bad guys need to be killed!
TESSIE. Yes! But…but—
TRIXIE. (rolling her eyes) Really, Tess! Stop being such a girly girl!!
TILLIE. (breaking it up) Okay, okay! Enough already, you guys. But speaking of comic books, there’s something else I wanted to ask you, Trix. The whole time we were looking at Mike Peterson, that poor dad who got his leg blown off, you kept saying ‘deadlock, deadlock.’ And then at the end, when he had that machine leg, the camera zoomed in and we saw those words!
TRIXIE. Well, sort of. Not exactly. It’s DEATHLOK.
TILLIE. Okay. Close enough. But what does it mean?
TRIXIE. (excited) He’s Deathlok! At least, it looks like he WILL be. He’s a character from the comics! He’s a cyborg!
TESSIE. Huh?? Do you even know what that means??
TRIXIE. Half man, half machine.
TILLIE. Yes, but is he good? Or is he evil?
TRIXIE. Well, in the comics, he’s….no, wait. I’m not going to tell you!
TESSIE. Why not?
TRIXIE. Because, well, for one thing, it’s not that simple, know what I mean? Maybe there’s someone who’s good some of the time, but other times they’re evil. Or maybe they do the right things, but for the wrong reasons. Or the wrong things, for the right reasons.
TILLIE. So which is it?
TRIXIE. (gloating) I’m not going to tell you!
TESSIE. Trixie! For Heaven’s sake—!
TILLIE. No, no. She’s right. She shouldn’t tell us. We should find out for ourselves. And besides, just because this Deadlock—
TRIXIE. —Deathlok—
TILLIE. —Just because this Deathlok is one way in the comic books, doesn’t automatically mean he’s going to be the same way on the show.
TRIXIE. That’s right! With comics, you never know!
TESSIE. Okay. I get your point. And with this show, you never know, either, do you?
TILLIE. (nodding) Always surprising.
TRIXIE. But that’s good….right?
TILLIE. Yes! It’s awesome!
TESSIE. I agree! It’s awesome! It’s just so aggravating that we have to wait so long to find out what happens next.
TRIXIE. Yes, but while we’re waiting, we can watch the Olympics!
TESSIE. Oh! Okay! Good! And you’ll watch too, won’t you, Till?
TILLIE. Of course! I didn’t say I hated the Winter Olympics. I just said I preferred the Summer. But I like the Winter Olympics just fine. Mostly, I like to watch the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. I like all the music and pageantry best of all.
TRIXIE. Yeah, that is pretty cool. Lots and lots of people.
TESSIE. (sadly) But no Whimsies….
TILLIE. I wouldn’t advise it, Tess. So many people, and they’re all so big, and some of those athletes are really, really big. We’d probably get stepped on.
TRIXIE. Well…that wouldn’t be fun.
TESSIE. No, it wouldn’t…
After this, the girls talked about the Olympics, and what jammies they were going to wear to the Opening Ceremony—well, not TO the Opening Ceremony, because they’re not going, because they don’t want to get stepped on, but what they planned to wear while watching it on TV, cuddled up under blankets on the couch.
I almost felt the Whims might miss SHIELD during this next month, but knowing the Whims, I’m sure they’ll find plenty and plenty of other interests to keep themselves busy until they can see it again.
So, the other night, while we were having our Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD discussion, we all got the idea to write about our Favorite Boyfriends, and I decided to write about the most important person in all of Marvel Comics (as far as I’m concerned), Stan Lee, who is pretty much the father of Marvel Comics, along with some other guys like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, who did a lot of the earliest artwork. But when it came to dreaming up the characters and writing the stories, almost always (at first), it was Stan Lee.
At least, she didn’t remember it. And it was kind of that way for me too, this past week, suddenly discovering all these comics that were really OLD comics, but they were NEW to me.
Another way that Stan Lee stays young and fun is that he almost always makes a “cameo” appearance in the Marvel movies. He’s done some pretty funny ones that I’ve seen so far (and some I’ve only read about), but probably one of my favorites is when he was in the Fantastic Four movie, and he played Willie Lumpkin, the mailman that brings the Fantastic Four all their fan mail (and it’s a huge sack of fan mail!!). I read about Willie Lumpkin the mailman in quite a few of the early Fantastic Four comics, so he’s sort of almost like one of the family to me. So it makes perfect sense that Stan Lee would play him in the movies.
he’s a very happy person. That’s why I consider him one of my Favorite Boyfriends. It’s no fun to hang around with people who are dark and depressing. I think if I was ever lucky enough to actually meet Stan Lee and hang around with him, it would be a lot of fun. 
Tessie has just shared with you her thoughts about why Fitz from Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD is her Favorite Boyfriend. I also have a Favorite Boyfriend from the show, but he’s much more mature. I like Agent Phil Coulson best of all. And what’s not to like? He is a fearless leader who is willing to take chances and “think outside the box.” He always seems to be in complete control, and nothing rattles him.
But that’s not what I came here to talk about, is it? Let’s talk instead about how cute Agent Coulson is! Yes, I know he’s “middle aged,” so it’s hard to imagine that a Whimsie would think of him as a Boyfriend, but at the same time, there is something youthful and impishly adorable about him! He’s short, so his physical presence is not overpowering. That’s part of what makes him cute. And also…what a great smile! And always a sparkle in his eye! 
I like also that he has this fascination with the superheroes of the past. He has a lot of Marvel Memorabilia that he collects in his office. Remember in The Avengers movie, what a fan-boy he was when he met Captain America? That was cute! He has such a respect for all superheroes—as someone in his position should! But he takes it to the next level, and I like that about him.
Trixie and Tillie are always teasing me because I consider Fitz from the TV show Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD to be one of My Favorite Boyfriends. I don’t know why they tease me, but it’s probably because they think I’m only watching the show BECAUSE of him… which is absolutely not true! 
It’s a great show, full of fun and suspense, and that’s why I watch it. But any show is made even better when it just happens to have a smart cute guy in it!
but in different areas, so it’s like they are two sides of one really really super-smart scientist who knows EVERYTHING. When you’ve got Fitz and Simmons together, you’ve got a lot of scientific power working for you, and sometimes they even help each other out, because they can bounce ideas off each other.
So as Miss Chrissy says, the other part of me has to agree: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Really. I think it would be best to just keep them the way they are.
After what many here in Whimsieville considered a disappointing offering of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD last week, we were all delighted to find the show back in full form this week. The Whimsies were especially delighted…
