The Return of the First Avenger
Mary McNamara of the "Los Angeles Times" felt that the series "created a whole new sort of television show: One that must support, and change with, the plot twists of its film family ... never before has television been literally married to film, charged with filling in the back story and creating the connective tissue of an ongoing film franchise." She stated that the "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" crossover "infused "S.H.I.E.L.D." with a new energy, and helped explain, perhaps, why the show took so long to find its footing—in the writers' room at least ... That "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." was able to succeed as a story both independent and ancillary is all but miraculous." She concluded that the series "is now not only a very good show in its own right, it's part of Marvel's multiplatform city-state. It faces a future of perpetual re-invention, and that puts it in the exhilarating first car of television's roller-coaster ride toward possible world domination."