The Return of the First Avenger
Evan Valentine, writing for Collider, divided the season into highs and lows: highs included the "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" crossover, with Valentine noting that "The creators had clearly known this moment was coming ... and did a great job of capitalizing [on] it," as well as other tie-ins with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and he praised Gregg's performance, stating "What made us fall in love with the character from the first "Iron Man" to his death in "The Avengers" is still alive and kicking"; lows of the season included the episodes before the "Winter Soldier" tie-in, with Valentine feeling that the series "became the show that had to stall its developments and character building to make way for the [tie-in]." He also criticized the rest of the main cast, though he did approve of the guest and supporting cast members, and he criticized the series' use of minor comic book characters and concepts, singling out the costume design for Deathlok as "horrid" and not scary. Eric Goldman of IGN gave the season a 7.5 out of 10, calling it "a fun, lighthearted, but fairly disposable piece of entertainment", noting that it improved through the season, especially following the "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" tie-in, and that by the end of the season, the series "was starting to come into its own". Though he found the main cast's performances to all be good, and praised the strong guest and recurring stars, Goldman found the main characterizations to be weak during the first half of the season, and he also criticized the pacing of certain overarching plotlines, noting "the mystery of Coulson's return, Skye's parentage, etc. – moved far too slow, with relatively minor revelations treated as though they were big reveals".