To be honest, I thought season 1 was mediocre leaning to bad up until the twist and it was a decently cool, but the execution of everything was still bad. Like Ward fighting all those guys at the hub while Skye was hiding in the closet looked like shit. I thought the plot overall ramped up but the show still wasn't very good... it was just okay. I always thought Ward was a bad actor from the beginning too, tbh
I had high hopes going into season 2 and I thought the premiere was a giant mess topped off with a *really* stupid scene at the end where Coulson does a voice over about how they had to take a risk and they could have failed that day, but they needed an edge, as it shows them steal the cloaking quinjet with May riding off on a motorcycle popping wheelies while guards shot at her. i thougt that scene was stupid as hell. I thought "oh god they havent improved at all, this scene is gonna suck too"
Then Simmons was undercover and Mockingbird showed up and Hunter turned out to be awesome and the Afterlife plotline began and I WAS ALL IN. I love season 2.
show just gets better and better from there.
I thought S3 was a little inferior than S2. The plots got kind of silly at some points, especially Hive's plan at the end, and some of the religion Hydra stuff. Also fuck Bobbi and Hunter leaving. That made me hate the show and put it on hiatus for over two years, until someone told me S4 was great.
S4 is amazing tho. S5 has been great so far, albeit a little too dark for my tastes. ---