Well Played Sir... Well Played.

"Slow playing (also called sandbagging or trapping) is deceptive play in poker that is roughly the opposite of bluffing: betting weakly or passively with a strong holding rather than betting aggressively with a weak one."

   The above quote is a poker reference. As season one of Marvels AoS begins to wind down and we look back on all the twists and turns and the cumulative story that they are telling one thing becomes very clear... Marvel has a plan. In multiple interviews AoS show runners have stated that they have access to all the larger cinematic movie scipts in advance. They go on to say that they frame the plot and pace of the show according to the larger cinematic universe, because lets face it, at the end of the day AoS is slave to the larger events of the cinematic universe. AoS started with huge expectations and tons of momentum behind it. The first few episodes (lol ok, the first 6 or 7 episodes) were a bit bellow expectations. They were slow, cheesey, poor dialogue between characters, laden with bad jokes and apparently pointless plots. There were no real meaningful cameos from the larger universe, beyond Fury, and at times the characters were down right annoying. Then a funny thing happened... Captain America saved the day and the AoS story began to take shape. Characters and past events took on new meaning and the plot and story arcs that had been set in the beginning of the series began to take a clear shape. We got to see the direction that the show is moving in. The characters, the story, the show, began to matter.

   As the plot developed so did the characters. Two characters that have undergone the most change from the start of the show until now are Ward and Skye. We all have our theories on Skye and her origin and who she will become when it's all said and done. We can also universaly agree that bad Ward is light years better then good Ward. Its rare to see a character change so abruptly, to such an extreme and so successfully as Marvel was able to do with Grant Ward. By comparison look at another T.V villain that we all loved to hate.. King Joffery from Game of Thrones. Immediately he was clearly a terrible kid and his sadistic evil simply grew. With ward he went from a very dry, vanilla, almost boring character to a nearly classic bad guy in one episode. One. Hell, it took one scene! The reason why the turn around was so jarring, why it was so effective? Because AoS had went to great lengths to establish him as being boringly heroic. As being business like in his mission and lacking any real personality. It established him as boring and robotic. Then BOOM, we see this driven character willing to do anything to achieve mission success. He's become cold blooded to the point ware speculation on him becoming classic Marvel killers such as Bullseye and Taskmaster are a genuine possability. That is excellent character development on the part of the show writers and an example of the slow play payoff. The character of skye is in the same situation. She was a loner and distrustful of the establishment. An information anarchist. We see her character change as her eyes are opened to the real dangers of the world she lives in. Again, the show runners have gone to great lengths to establish her strengths, weaknesses and develop her skill sets throughout the course of he show. We have quite literally watched the story of Shield unfold through Skye's eyes. She is far from a finished character though. There will still be plenty of reveals in regards to her character. Here again we see the beauty and effectivness of the slow play.

  AoS built its characters from the first episode to respond to the events of the winter Soldier. To show the changes in them. The entire plot was geared towards this Marvel "Event". The early episodes, the boring "villain of the week" episodes that spotlighted a character were geared towards establishing a character and the plot threads that underline the show. As weak as the Thor tiein episode was it served it's purpose. When ward takes ahold of the Staff when they are robbing the Fridge the viewers understand the significance of that because they spent an entire episode early in the season showing just how dark Wards character could be and the power that the Staff gives it's user. Now we wonder what the next step is. That is good story telling. The slow play is what drives the show. AoS has it's eyes on the bigger universe, on the bigger picture and on the bigger story. The introduction of the Kree didnt take place in Guardians of The Galaxy or Thor. It took place on AoS. I know it's not confirmed Kree but it IS confirmed to be alien so assuming the body is Kree is not a stretch. There are plots and subplots throughout the show all being slow played to perfection in a way that has never been done before. What Marvel has established with it's cinematic Univers and with AoS's connection to that universe is unprecedented. With movies planned for the next 14 years (think about that... planned until 2028) and 5 new shows, all connected in the same universe, Marvel has broken new ground. They have slow played an expansive, deep, character and story rich universe that is really just getting started.