Four of these people are gone-zo. Can you guess which?
Okay. Here be much spoilerage.
Now that season 3 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (and that’s the last time I type that out) is over, I gots some identity-politickin’, pot-stirrin’, white-people-genocidin’ things to say.
First of all, I was really annoyed at the excessive white peopleage in season 3’s S.H.I.E.L.D. team. It felt like they had to add more white people to make up for the one or two extra POC they dropped in. I mean, agents Mack, May, and Daisy had been solid since the previous season, but they introduced a few new POC Inhuman good guys (fast Yo-Yo and metal-melty Joey Gutierrez, who is also gay AF!!!), as well as the Inhuman bad guys we’d been seeing for a while (telekinetic Mark Dacascos, FTW! Also, the Latino dude with the eye-stun thing) so it felt like maybe somebody thought it was getting too colorful up in S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ and some dilution was in order.
So we got cute-but-boring old Lincoln in there as a series regular (and Daisy’s BF), and then also Bobbi and Hunter (Bunter? Hobbi?), who came from season 2, but didn’t have to stick around. Yeah, what was that one about? I hated Bobbi and Hunter, not least because Bobbi (“Bobbi?” Who are they kidding?) looked, literally, like a Barbie doll. But also because Hunter (“Hunter?” “Lance Hunter?” Who are they kidding?) looked like a weasel (especially next to Bobbi’s resplendent blondeness) and also talked and behaved rather like a weasel but we were supposed to buy that the show’s blondeazon wanted him and only him and not, say, equally resplendent Mack (with whom she had a spayshul bond) or cutiepie Fitz or strangely hot Coulson?
Also, also! They were all three blond/e! Lincoln was guy-blond, which never involves much bleach, and Hunter was buzzcut guy-blond, which doesn’t give the brown a chance to lighten in the sun so he doesn’t really look blond he looks brown but is actually a crypto-blond which you can kinda start to see when the top of his hair gets a little long and actually Fitz is short-hair guy-blond as well and oh my god why do I know this somebody shut me up
…
But they are all gone-zo! (Except Fitz, thank oG.)
Lincoln is extra space crispy (self sacrifice, dontchano) and Hobbi/Bunter are never allowed to come back (until some idiot writes them back in and then I start assassinating idiots). In fact, they are so gonny gonna gone gonzo that they can not only never come back (please), but Daisy now has the perfect excuse (guilt, shame, broken heart, whatevs) to never get a boyfriend again, thus freeing her hapa self up to become awesome again, and no longer boring and whiny and hangin’ on a white man. (Why does she only date white men?) And the Bobter/Hunni spinoff was kicked hard to the curb not once but twice. Bye now!
So that brings us back down to, lessee: Coulson and Fitz/Simmons for the pale team; and Daisy/May/Mack for the colors. That’s equity, that is.
And it gets better. Because, you see, Yo-Yo had been doing so much for and with the team that she’s almost a shoo-in for series regular in season 4 (assuming they want her there, and they should, because we do because she’s awesome.) Joey Gutierrez did a lot as well, and then kinda disappeared for the finale, but he can be easily brought back as either a major recurring character, or (my vote) a series regular as well (because we didn’t get to see enough metal melting. Which is probably because it’s expensive to CGI, but come on.) Which would make him Agents’ first gay series regular.
This is likely because they’re clearly bringing in the Secret Warriors and they clearly spent all that time on Yo-Yo and Joey because they’re the anchor (along with Daisy) of their Secret Warriors team, and everyone loves superpowers and now that they’re showing superpowers on the show they can’t go back and these are established and awesome supes. And, on top of that, there are NO WHITE CHARACTERS of similar stature and states of aliveness and awesomeness in the offing waiting to be cued in and — although they could quickly introduce some — I sure hope they won’t do something that dumb and instant like they did with Hobble/Bunni.
So. At the start of season 4, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (that’s a copy and paste) could have more regulars OC than white. Which, given the truly awful state of diversity in the MCU in general, and especially in the films, would be a first step only, but a really freakin’ solid step one, yanno? I mean, they could make a huge statement about how much they care about the incredible diversity of their cash-paying audience with this one little show.
If they want.
Or… if we want. Which is to say… hashtag time! What should it be? #POCofSHIELD? Does that work for everybody? Let me know in comments if it doesn’t… but not without coming up with your own.
