Daisy
(née Skye) is a character that snuck up on me a little. I was lukewarm in season 1, pricked up my
ears in the second half of season 2, found myself squarely pro-Daisy by season
3, and am interested in her continued journey in season 4. As both a person and a character, she’s
rough, still crystalizing, but I’ve enjoyed seeing where the show has taken her
(Daisy-related spoilers.)
Back
when the show began and Daisy was called Skye, she was hit-or-miss for me. While the character as introduced is much
further down on my list than Fitz, Simmons, May, or later additions to the show
like Bobbi and Mack, I didn’t really get onboard the “specialest snowflake”
accusations, either. Yeah, it’s not
hugely credible that Skye goes from government-mistrusting, homeless-by-choice
super-hacker to first-string field agent in SHIELD so quickly and so
completely, and her heavy focus can get tiring when it feels like other
characters take a backseat to her story, but despite those strong whiffs of
protagonist-itis, I don’t feel like the show itself puts her on a pedestal that
much. If anything, her depiction is hurt
by Coulson’s insistence on
special-snowflaking her, prioritizing her over everyone else and generally
being such a surrogate dad that he loses all objectively as her boss.
Skye
started coming around for me in season 2.
Others may disagree, but I really like the decision to make her our
introduction to Inhumans. Going through
Terrigenesis and coming to the realization that she’s not “just” human anymore
is a really compelling storyline for me.
I feel like she was a good choice here because she does hold such beloved status within the team. Having someone they care about go through
such extreme changes gives the whole team decisions to make. Fitz goes into full-support protection mode,
for instance, while Simmons is spooked by the whole alien DNA thing and focuses
on helping Skye by coming up with ways to contain her powers. Skye becomes a flashpoint for discussing
Inhumans and how they fit into the world in a larger sense. The Afterlife storyline, for me, is a mixed
bag in execution, but I like the theme of the heretofore-presumed-orphan Skye
connecting with her Inhuman roots, trying to figure out what she is now and
exploring her new powers instead of fearing them.
Starting
in season 3, she’s reclaimed her birth name, Daisy, and is a proud Inhuman who
is sharply aware of how others of her kind are being viewed and treated. Given her long years of not knowing where she
came from, it makes sense that, once she accepts her Inhumanness, she throws
herself into that new identity (in a way, it’s an interesting parallel with
Emma on Once Upon a Time – she was
also an “orphan” who spent years obsessively searching for parents who didn’t
seem to exist, but when she learned the truth of her similarly insane origins,
it took her a long time to feel
remotely comfortable in that world.) I
like that discovering she’s Inhuman is ultimately able to fill something empty
inside herself, I think her powers are pretty cool, and I enjoy seeing her as a
champion of other Inhumans. On that last
point, I like that she’s such an imperfect advocate – she can be really
one-sided about it, not willing to hear humans’ concerns about dangerous or
unstable powers, and some of the people she reaches out to are nowhere near
ready to hear her “Go Inhumans!” cheer.
It’s good to see her going too far and making mistakes because again,
she’s not a special snowflake, and even
though she has superpowers and alien DNA now, she’s still so “human.”
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