Agents of SHIELD - Season 2 Discussion Threads. (Spoilers Likely)
- Thread starter Trekker4747
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I've just binge watched all the 8 episodes of season 2 so far over the last couple of days. This has probably been discussed before but quick question-
Why did they bring an established actress like Lucy Lawless into the show, and therefore the MCU, only to have her not do anything and be killed off at the end of the first episode like a Star Trek redshirt?
I hadn't really read too much about the new episodes but I did know she was gonna be in it. When they said she was dead it was kinda like "oh, was that it?"
Why did they bring an established actress like Lucy Lawless into the show, and therefore the MCU, only to have her not do anything and be killed off at the end of the first episode like a Star Trek redshirt?
I hadn't really read too much about the new episodes but I did know she was gonna be in it. When they said she was dead it was kinda like "oh, was that it?"
I had forgotten about that actually--well not forgotten--when it happened I actually expected her not to be dead and come back in the next episode or two.
Synopsis for the mid-season finale, "What They Become", is up on marvel.com now.
http://marvel.com/news/tv/23719/declassifying_marvels_agents_of_shield_what_they_become
http://marvel.com/news/tv/23719/declassifying_marvels_agents_of_shield_what_they_become
No on the Dutch Netflix yet, crap. Hopefully they'll release it for us soon aswell. I'd love to rewatch some stuff.
So, I hadn't really been watching Agents of SHIELD at first. I didn't really give it a fair shot because I didn't care for the idea of bringing Coulson back. But then I watched the first two episodes that aired after Captain America: The Winter Soldier was released. And then I fell off the bandwagon. And then a little over a month ago, I watched a YouTube clip of that scene from the season one finale where Fitz and Simmons were trapped beneath the ocean, and Fitz proclaimed his love for her. And because I am sap, I looked other stuff up. And then I started watching Season Two. And now I'm catching up with Season One on Netflix and Season Two on Hulu. I'm on board the Bus.
So I'm just gonna jump on into this thread, if no one minds....
My current hypothesis is that SHIELD was founded as an Allied or as a joint U.S.-U.K. organization, but one under official U.S. domination. Sort of the way North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is ostensibly a joint U.S.-Canadian organization (with the NORAD commander always being a U.S. general and the deputy director always a Canadian general), but is obviously dominated by the U.S. and considered to be "ours" by the U.S.
The idea that SHIELD is officially international but still under U.S. domination would dovetail nicely with the idea that Secretary Pierce was the one who appointed Nick Fury. Maybe the U.S. always gets to name the SHIELD Director, the same way it always gets to name the President of the World Bank or the NORAD Commander? I wonder if perhaps SHIELD must by law always be commanded by an American and have its deputy director be a citizen of another participating country? Maybe Maria Hill (like Robin Scherbatsky!) is Canadian.
I like that comparison. SHIELD seems too large and well-established for its existence to be a complete secret prior to the Chitari invasion. I think it was the Chitari crisis that blew the lid off of what SHIELD is in general up to (i.e., dealing with fantastical threats), but that the existence of the organization was public knowledge beforehand.
As for what the public thought SHIELD did before the skies opened up over Manhattan... Bit of wild speculation, but maybe in the MCU, there is no Interpol, and its functions were handled by SHIELD as cover for its dealing with fantastical threats prior to the Battle of New York? Has Interpol ever been mentioned in the MCU?
As for the age of the Triskelion...
It has to have been built and functional by 2009 at the latest. We know from the episode "The Writing on the Wall" that Rebecca Stevens/Janice Robbins was a SHIELD agent stationed at the Triskelion until she "died of cancer" (actually became a subject of Project TAHITI) "five years ago," and Coulson remembers seeing her there.
So there's really no way that the very existence of SHIELD could have been a secret before 2012. The Triskelion took up all of Roosevelt Island in the middle of the Potomac. You can't keep that a secret.
This is why I'm actually okay with the X-Men being left out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Much as we all love the regular Earth-616 Marvel Universe, I never thought it made much sense that the public would hate, fear, and persecute "mutants" (people born with superpowers) but would adore and be huge fans of people who gain superpowers like the Fantastic Four or Captain America. I honestly think the X-Men work better as their own thing, in a world where there are no other kinds of superheroes, away from the glamor of the "beloved hero" variation of the superhero genre.
I took it as an allusion both to Zola's recruitment and Hydra's infiltration of SHIELD, and as an allusion to the U.S.'s real-life recruitment of Nazi scientists (which really was called Operation Paperclip).
Well, for one that, that'd be murder. You can't just kill your prisoners; it's a violation of every civilized principle the Allies were fighting for in World War II. They have a right to a trial -- and hell, we didn't even execute all the Nazi leaders we tried at Nuremberg!
I definitely liked the fact that "The Things We Bury" delved so explicitly into Hydra's Nazi origins. I like Hydra as bad guys a lot, but one of the things that has bothered me about them is that I felt like there was an attempt to gain with them the same kind of absolute moral certainty you have about Hydra's evil that you have about Nazi Germany's evil, but without depicting the concomitant horror and racism of the Nazis.
Hydra doesn't seem racist or sexist anymore (given all the non-white Hydra members and the women in leadership positions), and that does still bother me -- I don't think you can separate Naziism from racism. So depicting Nazis-by-another-name as not racist still bothers me. But emphasizing Hydra's Nazi origins and their history of Nazi war crimes goes a long way, I think, to depicting their fascism in a morally responsible manner, so that we're not just looking at them as cardboard supervillians we love to hate. If the MCU writers want for Hydra the same kind of moral certitude about their evil that we in the real world have about Nazis, then I think we should really get the same feeling of visceral horror from these guys that we get in real life from people like Heinrich Himmler or Hermann Göring.
I believe that may have been part of Grant's intent.
I think Christian's confession was real, for Alidar Jarok's reasons. The bit about how much he hated their brother for not being subject to their parents' abuse just felt too real to be made up. And goodness knows it's not unheard of for abused children to perpetuate the cycle of violence in the family. I think Christian really did abuse Grant.
I'm honestly not sure yet whether Grant legit wants back into Hydra or not. If he did, you'd think it would be easier for him to do that without having killed all those Hydra members at that bar and delivering Bakshi to Coulson's team.
But I do figure this: Grant wants Skye. Whether he loves her, or just wants to control her like an abuser, he wants her. And if I'm Grant, I'd be figuring that the best way to get her and keep her would be to isolate her, to tear down her support structure. Right now, her support structure, her social network, is Coulson's underground SHIELD organization. So if I'm Grant Ward, I'd be thinking very carefully about how to tear down what remains of SHIELD so I can get at Skye. And I figure that if there's a United States Senator standing up for SHIELD, then discrediting that Senator is step one. And if I get revenge on him for all the times he abused me as a child, so much the better.
But of course, that's just what I would do if I were a mass murdering sociopath who was viciously abused as a child and thinks he's in love with a woman who's angry at him for being a member of a neo-Nazi fascist conspiracy, betraying her and all their friends, and trying to kill people she loves. Maybe Grant has other plans?
(Interestingly, Grant did seem very embarrassed by Hydra's Nazi origins in Season One's "Nothing Personal." He adamantly denied it when Skye called him a Nazi. And he always seemed more loyal to John Garret personally than to Hydra as an institution.)
Yet another entry in the Old Whedon Actors' Recruitment Center, eh? Let's see, now, we can add Dichen to the list, including J. August Richards, Amy Acker, and Reed Diamond. At this point, I'm half-expecting to see Alexis Denisof show up.
Well, considering that Natasha leaked everything they had on Project Insight and Hydra's plans to hijack it to murder 20 million people with the Hellicarriers, and considering that President Ellis -- and presumably the rest of Congress, since President Ellis was in the Capitol when the Hellicarriers targeted him -- was one of those targeted, I think it's improbable that the Ellis administration isn't taking the Hydra threat seriously. Everybody on Earth knows how close Hydra came to enacting a genocide that would make the Holocaust pale by comparison, and to overthrowing the U.S. government. Hydra is clearly the most serious threat to national security the United States faces in the MCU.
The quote we see on that newspaper is really vague. We know they're calling the Hydra threat "overblown," but we don't know in what context. Maybe they mean that the idea that Hydra could plausibly have infiltrated other agencies as thoroughly as they did SHIELD is "overblown?" Maybe they mean the possibility that Hydra's been tapping into NSA spy satellites is "overblown?" If it occurred in the wake of the attack on the U.N., maybe he was saying that to stem the tide of countries willing to enact knee-jerk anti-SHIELD legislation. Who knows?
Interesting side-note: President Matthew Ellis has now faced two attempted coups d'etat against him by members of his own administration in as many years. First by Vice President Rodriguez and the AIM corporation in Iron Man 3, and now by Defense Secretary Pierce and Hydra in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Agents of SHIELD. If I'm the President, I gotta be wondering if I can talk Congress into giving better funding to the Secret Service....!
So I'm just gonna jump on into this thread, if no one minds....
My current hypothesis is that SHIELD was founded as an Allied or as a joint U.S.-U.K. organization, but one under official U.S. domination. Sort of the way North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is ostensibly a joint U.S.-Canadian organization (with the NORAD commander always being a U.S. general and the deputy director always a Canadian general), but is obviously dominated by the U.S. and considered to be "ours" by the U.S.
The idea that SHIELD is officially international but still under U.S. domination would dovetail nicely with the idea that Secretary Pierce was the one who appointed Nick Fury. Maybe the U.S. always gets to name the SHIELD Director, the same way it always gets to name the President of the World Bank or the NORAD Commander? I wonder if perhaps SHIELD must by law always be commanded by an American and have its deputy director be a citizen of another participating country? Maybe Maria Hill (like Robin Scherbatsky!) is Canadian.
I like that comparison. SHIELD seems too large and well-established for its existence to be a complete secret prior to the Chitari invasion. I think it was the Chitari crisis that blew the lid off of what SHIELD is in general up to (i.e., dealing with fantastical threats), but that the existence of the organization was public knowledge beforehand.
As for what the public thought SHIELD did before the skies opened up over Manhattan... Bit of wild speculation, but maybe in the MCU, there is no Interpol, and its functions were handled by SHIELD as cover for its dealing with fantastical threats prior to the Battle of New York? Has Interpol ever been mentioned in the MCU?
As for the age of the Triskelion...
It has to have been built and functional by 2009 at the latest. We know from the episode "The Writing on the Wall" that Rebecca Stevens/Janice Robbins was a SHIELD agent stationed at the Triskelion until she "died of cancer" (actually became a subject of Project TAHITI) "five years ago," and Coulson remembers seeing her there.
So there's really no way that the very existence of SHIELD could have been a secret before 2012. The Triskelion took up all of Roosevelt Island in the middle of the Potomac. You can't keep that a secret.
This is why I'm actually okay with the X-Men being left out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Much as we all love the regular Earth-616 Marvel Universe, I never thought it made much sense that the public would hate, fear, and persecute "mutants" (people born with superpowers) but would adore and be huge fans of people who gain superpowers like the Fantastic Four or Captain America. I honestly think the X-Men work better as their own thing, in a world where there are no other kinds of superheroes, away from the glamor of the "beloved hero" variation of the superhero genre.
I took it as an allusion both to Zola's recruitment and Hydra's infiltration of SHIELD, and as an allusion to the U.S.'s real-life recruitment of Nazi scientists (which really was called Operation Paperclip).
Well, for one that, that'd be murder. You can't just kill your prisoners; it's a violation of every civilized principle the Allies were fighting for in World War II. They have a right to a trial -- and hell, we didn't even execute all the Nazi leaders we tried at Nuremberg!
I definitely liked the fact that "The Things We Bury" delved so explicitly into Hydra's Nazi origins. I like Hydra as bad guys a lot, but one of the things that has bothered me about them is that I felt like there was an attempt to gain with them the same kind of absolute moral certainty you have about Hydra's evil that you have about Nazi Germany's evil, but without depicting the concomitant horror and racism of the Nazis.
Hydra doesn't seem racist or sexist anymore (given all the non-white Hydra members and the women in leadership positions), and that does still bother me -- I don't think you can separate Naziism from racism. So depicting Nazis-by-another-name as not racist still bothers me. But emphasizing Hydra's Nazi origins and their history of Nazi war crimes goes a long way, I think, to depicting their fascism in a morally responsible manner, so that we're not just looking at them as cardboard supervillians we love to hate. If the MCU writers want for Hydra the same kind of moral certitude about their evil that we in the real world have about Nazis, then I think we should really get the same feeling of visceral horror from these guys that we get in real life from people like Heinrich Himmler or Hermann Göring.
I believe that may have been part of Grant's intent.
I think Christian's confession was real, for Alidar Jarok's reasons. The bit about how much he hated their brother for not being subject to their parents' abuse just felt too real to be made up. And goodness knows it's not unheard of for abused children to perpetuate the cycle of violence in the family. I think Christian really did abuse Grant.
I'm honestly not sure yet whether Grant legit wants back into Hydra or not. If he did, you'd think it would be easier for him to do that without having killed all those Hydra members at that bar and delivering Bakshi to Coulson's team.
But I do figure this: Grant wants Skye. Whether he loves her, or just wants to control her like an abuser, he wants her. And if I'm Grant, I'd be figuring that the best way to get her and keep her would be to isolate her, to tear down her support structure. Right now, her support structure, her social network, is Coulson's underground SHIELD organization. So if I'm Grant Ward, I'd be thinking very carefully about how to tear down what remains of SHIELD so I can get at Skye. And I figure that if there's a United States Senator standing up for SHIELD, then discrediting that Senator is step one. And if I get revenge on him for all the times he abused me as a child, so much the better.
But of course, that's just what I would do if I were a mass murdering sociopath who was viciously abused as a child and thinks he's in love with a woman who's angry at him for being a member of a neo-Nazi fascist conspiracy, betraying her and all their friends, and trying to kill people she loves. Maybe Grant has other plans?
(Interestingly, Grant did seem very embarrassed by Hydra's Nazi origins in Season One's "Nothing Personal." He adamantly denied it when Skye called him a Nazi. And he always seemed more loyal to John Garret personally than to Hydra as an institution.)
Yet another entry in the Old Whedon Actors' Recruitment Center, eh?
Let's see, now, we can add Dichen to the list, including J. August Richards, Amy Acker, and Reed Diamond. At this point, I'm half-expecting to see Alexis Denisof show up. Well, considering that Natasha leaked everything they had on Project Insight and Hydra's plans to hijack it to murder 20 million people with the Hellicarriers, and considering that President Ellis -- and presumably the rest of Congress, since President Ellis was in the Capitol when the Hellicarriers targeted him -- was one of those targeted, I think it's improbable that the Ellis administration isn't taking the Hydra threat seriously. Everybody on Earth knows how close Hydra came to enacting a genocide that would make the Holocaust pale by comparison, and to overthrowing the U.S. government. Hydra is clearly the most serious threat to national security the United States faces in the MCU.
The quote we see on that newspaper is really vague. We know they're calling the Hydra threat "overblown," but we don't know in what context. Maybe they mean that the idea that Hydra could plausibly have infiltrated other agencies as thoroughly as they did SHIELD is "overblown?" Maybe they mean the possibility that Hydra's been tapping into NSA spy satellites is "overblown?" If it occurred in the wake of the attack on the U.N., maybe he was saying that to stem the tide of countries willing to enact knee-jerk anti-SHIELD legislation. Who knows?
Interesting side-note: President Matthew Ellis has now faced two attempted coups d'etat against him by members of his own administration in as many years. First by Vice President Rodriguez and the AIM corporation in Iron Man 3, and now by Defense Secretary Pierce and Hydra in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Agents of SHIELD. If I'm the President, I gotta be wondering if I can talk Congress into giving better funding to the Secret Service....!
BTW -- has anyone worked out the exact timing of the Hydra coup attempt in CA2 and Agents of SHIELD? As near as I can tell, the "Out of the Shadows, Into the Light" signal from "Turn, Turn, Turn" went out when Captain America got on the P.A. and exposed Hydra at the Triskelion in CA2. That scene happened some time relatively early in the morning in Washington, D.C. Yet when we see the Bus hijacked by Agent Hand from the Hub in response to that signal at the end of "End of the Beginning," it's clearly night outside.
We know that Agent Sitwell was ordered to the Lumerian Star early in "End of the Beginning," placing that episode shortly before the start of CA2, and the Bus was hijacked at the end of that episode, somewhere over an ocean at night. Now, "End of the Beginning" didn't seem to take that long--most of the action seemed to be occurring in the course of two or three days. But the events of CA2 seem to take place over the course of almost a week, IIRC... Has anyone tried to synch up how this chronology works? As near as I can tell, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and "End of the Beginning" take place over roughly the same period of time, with Cap's exposure of Hydra leading to the signal going out at the end of "End of the Beginning," and with the episode "Turn, Turn, Turn" taking place over the course of the next few hours after Cap's announcement (with the first few hours of "Turn, Turn, Turn" presumably overlapping with the Battle at the Triskelion).
The only thing I can figure for why it's day when the Cap makes his announcement but night when the Hub hijacks the Bus is that maybe the Bus was flying over the Pacific at the time, and the Hub is somewhere on the West Coast -- so if it was, say, 9 AM Eastern time when the Cap exposed Hydra and the signal went out, then it might have still been dark over the Pacific. Does that sound about right?
I'm not sure if that quite works though. The events of "End of the Beginning" from the point of Sitwell's departure to the Bus's hijacking don't seem to take place over nearly so many days as the events of CA2 from the point of Cap retaking the Lumerian Star to exposing Hydra at the Triskelion. But I suppose there might have been time jumps in "End of the Beginning" that just aren't covered -- maybe a few extra days went by between scenes without it being made clear.
We know that Agent Sitwell was ordered to the Lumerian Star early in "End of the Beginning," placing that episode shortly before the start of CA2, and the Bus was hijacked at the end of that episode, somewhere over an ocean at night. Now, "End of the Beginning" didn't seem to take that long--most of the action seemed to be occurring in the course of two or three days. But the events of CA2 seem to take place over the course of almost a week, IIRC... Has anyone tried to synch up how this chronology works? As near as I can tell, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and "End of the Beginning" take place over roughly the same period of time, with Cap's exposure of Hydra leading to the signal going out at the end of "End of the Beginning," and with the episode "Turn, Turn, Turn" taking place over the course of the next few hours after Cap's announcement (with the first few hours of "Turn, Turn, Turn" presumably overlapping with the Battle at the Triskelion).
The only thing I can figure for why it's day when the Cap makes his announcement but night when the Hub hijacks the Bus is that maybe the Bus was flying over the Pacific at the time, and the Hub is somewhere on the West Coast -- so if it was, say, 9 AM Eastern time when the Cap exposed Hydra and the signal went out, then it might have still been dark over the Pacific. Does that sound about right?
I'm not sure if that quite works though. The events of "End of the Beginning" from the point of Sitwell's departure to the Bus's hijacking don't seem to take place over nearly so many days as the events of CA2 from the point of Cap retaking the Lumerian Star to exposing Hydra at the Triskelion. But I suppose there might have been time jumps in "End of the Beginning" that just aren't covered -- maybe a few extra days went by between scenes without it being made clear.
I've made an attempt to explain it before. Short version is it really doesn't make sense for Hydra's signal to be broadcast when Cap made his speech. If that were the case, the Agents of SHIELD team would be in Florida when Nick Fury "died" and would have received word to take down Captain America. However, they did say the signal was jamming communications. To me, it makes more sense that the signal came out when the order to take down Nick Fury happened (either during the day or during the night when Bucky shot him).
Here was my attempt at a timeline of the two events:
The only real gap necessary in my timeline is that they would have to take down Garrett and wait (get some sleep, hunker down and see what happens?) while Cap takes down the Hellicarriers. But I do think this works better than the alternative, which would require about two days worth of events to go unknown to Coulson's team.
Here was my attempt at a timeline of the two events:
Day One (starting with Fury asking Project Insight to be delayed):
Morning - Fury asks for Project Insight to be delayed. Coulson's team try to take down Deathlok.
Afternoon - Fury calls Coulson's team and tells them to go to the Triskelion and then calls Maria Hill. He is attacked by the Winter Soldier and nearly killed but escapes. Coulson's team fights Deathlok and encounters the man they believe to be the Clairvoyant. Ward shoots that person. They are told to go back to meet Fury at the Triskelion.
Evening - (This is completely made up, but I'm padding out the time slightly) The Bus refuels for the journey back. Fury hides out in Rogers apartment, but is shot anyway. At some point (probably earlier in the day when Fury was attacked), a coded message goes out telling HYDRA agents to take out top operatives. Hand, who, like Fury suspected something, figures out the message and redirects the Bus.
Day Two
Early Morning - A standoff on the Bus occurs. Finally, May contacts Fury, but is told he is dead. The bus begins its long (6+ hour) journey to the Hub somewhere in Europe or Africa. The team deciphers the message from HYDRA but can't get through to Triskelion or the Hub because the message is jamming communication.
Mid-Morning - Piece makes an attempt to get Rogers to join them. When he refuses, he orders Rogers killed. Rogers escapes and dodges people in the mall.
Mid-Afternoon (EDT) - The Bus lands at the Hub. They try backing things up and wiping their systems. Then they sneak out to try and take down Hand.
Evening - The team fights Hand, figures out Garrett is the Clairvoyant. Events over here basically come to a stop. Rogers finds the bunker with Zola's computer in it. The bunker is destroyed by missile.
Day Three
Early Morning - Rogers teams up with Falcon. They find Sitwell and learn everything. They try to take down the Triskelion, but encounter the Winter Solider. Sitwell is thrown into a mfing truck!
Mid-Morning - They fight the Winter Soldier, they are captured, and Agent Hill helps them escape.
Mid-Afternoon - They meet with Fury, they coordinate their plan, they attack the Helicarrier. Rogers sends out his message to all of SHIELD. Those who have not yet fallen rally to fight HYDRA. People in the Triskelion try to do the same, but seem to get shot the second they try. Rogers takes down the Helicarriers. Hand tells Coulson that Rogers destroyed the Helicarriers and they prepare to transport Garrett. Ward shoots Hand and two other agents, ending the episode.
Morning - Fury asks for Project Insight to be delayed. Coulson's team try to take down Deathlok.
Afternoon - Fury calls Coulson's team and tells them to go to the Triskelion and then calls Maria Hill. He is attacked by the Winter Soldier and nearly killed but escapes. Coulson's team fights Deathlok and encounters the man they believe to be the Clairvoyant. Ward shoots that person. They are told to go back to meet Fury at the Triskelion.
Evening - (This is completely made up, but I'm padding out the time slightly) The Bus refuels for the journey back. Fury hides out in Rogers apartment, but is shot anyway. At some point (probably earlier in the day when Fury was attacked), a coded message goes out telling HYDRA agents to take out top operatives. Hand, who, like Fury suspected something, figures out the message and redirects the Bus.
Day Two
Early Morning - A standoff on the Bus occurs. Finally, May contacts Fury, but is told he is dead. The bus begins its long (6+ hour) journey to the Hub somewhere in Europe or Africa. The team deciphers the message from HYDRA but can't get through to Triskelion or the Hub because the message is jamming communication.
Mid-Morning - Piece makes an attempt to get Rogers to join them. When he refuses, he orders Rogers killed. Rogers escapes and dodges people in the mall.
Mid-Afternoon (EDT) - The Bus lands at the Hub. They try backing things up and wiping their systems. Then they sneak out to try and take down Hand.
Evening - The team fights Hand, figures out Garrett is the Clairvoyant. Events over here basically come to a stop. Rogers finds the bunker with Zola's computer in it. The bunker is destroyed by missile.
Day Three
Early Morning - Rogers teams up with Falcon. They find Sitwell and learn everything. They try to take down the Triskelion, but encounter the Winter Solider. Sitwell is thrown into a mfing truck!
Mid-Morning - They fight the Winter Soldier, they are captured, and Agent Hill helps them escape.
Mid-Afternoon - They meet with Fury, they coordinate their plan, they attack the Helicarrier. Rogers sends out his message to all of SHIELD. Those who have not yet fallen rally to fight HYDRA. People in the Triskelion try to do the same, but seem to get shot the second they try. Rogers takes down the Helicarriers. Hand tells Coulson that Rogers destroyed the Helicarriers and they prepare to transport Garrett. Ward shoots Hand and two other agents, ending the episode.
The only real gap necessary in my timeline is that they would have to take down Garrett and wait (get some sleep, hunker down and see what happens?) while Cap takes down the Hellicarriers. But I do think this works better than the alternative, which would require about two days worth of events to go unknown to Coulson's team.
Hmm, maybe if her character had been of any note at all. Tbh I was barely paying attention to that episode.
I mean, my only real issue with your timeline is -- if the signal went out on Day One, why didn't everybody (including the roughly 25-50% of the staff who weren't Hydra) at the Triskelion realize that SHIELD bases were under attack from Hydra on Day Two? There were some fairly loud explosions going on at the SHIELD Academy when Simmons gave them a call; I find it hard to believe no one who wasn't Hydra at the Triskelion would have realized that SHIELD bases around the planet were either going on communications blackout or were under attack.
I'm afraid neither your nor my models quite make sense, given the evidence. I suppose we just have to squint a little bit. (To be honest, given that the tone and dramatic conceits of Agents of SHIELD to me feel so different from the MCU films, I'm almost inclined to put it in a "spin-off" continuity separate from the main MCU continuity.)
Yes, please, this was a very good post, thank you.
In think that has more to do with what went down on their turf (the U.S. in general and DC especially) than any part of Shield being "theirs". It's been fairly well implied that Shield wasn't a solely US government agency, but and international one. Like th CIA/MI6 version of InterPol....only with ridiculously advanced technology.
My current hypothesis is that SHIELD was founded as an Allied or as a joint U.S.-U.K. organization, but one under official U.S. domination. Sort of the way North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is ostensibly a joint U.S.-Canadian organization (with the NORAD commander always being a U.S. general and the deputy director always a Canadian general), but is obviously dominated by the U.S. and considered to be "ours" by the U.S.
The idea that SHIELD is officially international but still under U.S. domination would dovetail nicely with the idea that Secretary Pierce was the one who appointed Nick Fury. Maybe the U.S. always gets to name the SHIELD Director, the same way it always gets to name the President of the World Bank or the NORAD Commander? I wonder if perhaps SHIELD must by law always be commanded by an American and have its deputy director be a citizen of another participating country? Maybe Maria Hill (like Robin Scherbatsky!) is Canadian.
I like that comparison. SHIELD seems too large and well-established for its existence to be a complete secret prior to the Chitari invasion. I think it was the Chitari crisis that blew the lid off of what SHIELD is in general up to (i.e., dealing with fantastical threats), but that the existence of the organization was public knowledge beforehand.
As for what the public thought SHIELD did before the skies opened up over Manhattan... Bit of wild speculation, but maybe in the MCU, there is no Interpol, and its functions were handled by SHIELD as cover for its dealing with fantastical threats prior to the Battle of New York? Has Interpol ever been mentioned in the MCU?
As for the age of the Triskelion...
It has to have been built and functional by 2009 at the latest. We know from the episode "The Writing on the Wall" that Rebecca Stevens/Janice Robbins was a SHIELD agent stationed at the Triskelion until she "died of cancer" (actually became a subject of Project TAHITI) "five years ago," and Coulson remembers seeing her there.
So there's really no way that the very existence of SHIELD could have been a secret before 2012. The Triskelion took up all of Roosevelt Island in the middle of the Potomac. You can't keep that a secret.
That's a good point. It seems like all of those real world institutions are still there but SHIELD is also there acting to help them. Especially when they mention "contries that have a treaty with SHIELD" and "no jurisdiction in Malta" it seems like an extranational organization that can only legally go where it's welcomed. But then they sent Ward and Fitz into Ossetia, I doubt that was a "legal" mission, like some said organizations seem to do.
That was one of the points I was trying to get to, so they are born like that, bad, get powers through some accident/experiment ok. What? But it seems to have been that way for years. Somewhat oversimplified but true.
Well, for me, I'm not a huge X-men fan for exactly that reason, so I'm happy they are compartmentalized to Fox.
I saw that on X-Files, so it must be true.
This makes me wonder if we are going to get the Hate Monger popping up sometime, but he's probably licensed to Fox because the FF seem to have been the ones to fight him the most.
Is it possible you can't tell one way or the other if you were barely paying attention to the episode?
Yeah, I realize it's not perfect, but I find it easier to believe Triskelion could be isolated from other communication centers without drawing attention compared to the other way around. All it takes is the people in charge of Triskelion's communications be Hydra agents. It's really one day (well, a day and a half) and, during that time, everyone is preoccupied with finding Captain America. But we don't know where the other facilities are. Triskelion is in the capital of one of the most important countries in the world. Those events would be noticed. The Hub could be in the woods, for all we know. And they did establish in AoS that communications were being jammed. Not only in the beginning with the Hydra signal that Skye decoded but when Simmons tried to contact the Academy.
I agree no version is perfect. I think you just have to shrug your shoulders and think everyone did the best they could considering two vastly different mediums on different production schedules where both had to write a viable plot for their show. However, I still like thinking of them as connected. Not only for obvious reasons but because it honestly explains a plothole in The Winter Soldier. The idea that there was a coup where all high-ranking SHIELD agents are killed makes sense. Rather than just launching three hellicarriers and calling it a day, they took down major sources of opposition before they could mount a response.
Spoilers in the photo-link.
I really hope there was a location shoot to go with this graphic...
http://shieldtv.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Agents-of-SHIELD-2x09-Ye-Who-Enter-Here-1.jpg
I really hope there was a location shoot to go with this graphic...
http://shieldtv.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Agents-of-SHIELD-2x09-Ye-Who-Enter-Here-1.jpg
Let's review the episode's plot and consider the times of day during the episode. It's daytime when the Bus lands on the helicarrier and Hand, Sitwell, Garrett, and Triplett board the Bus, which gets to 50,000 feet into the air. May states, "Cruising altitude reached. Bearing 90 degrees just over the North Pole.", and then the meeting to plan the current hunt for the Clairvoyant occurs. During which Blake mentions, "I need more coffee." (it's U.S. east coast morning?) Hand gives Sitwell his orders from the Triskelion to report to the Lemurian Star, and then she states she will take a transport jet back to the Hub to manage coordination. Everyone else is briefed and departs (though here there are multiple time jumps for scene transitions). It must be that all the suspect pursuit teams depart from the meeting at the same time. When Garrett's jump jet separates from the Bus, the sun is out. The first team shown on the ground is Ward and Triplett at a prison in the UK. It's cloudy but definitely daytime there. Then May and Blake are shown at a nursing home in Macon, Georgia. Also daytime. Then it's Coulson and Garrett in Muncie, Indiana. Also daytime. All the teams as well as the people at the Hub are then simultaneously alerted via live communications to May and Blake running into Deathlok. Then everyone regroups at the Hub where the critically wounded Blake is brought in via the Bus. Also daytime. They they quickly determine that Blake fired one of Fitz's tag rounds. May flies the Bus to Deathlok's location at an inoperative racetrack in Pensacola, Florida. Also daytime. Deathlok escapes, they find Thomas Nash, and Ward shoots him. Afterwards on the racetrack property, Garrett leaves to continue hunting Deathlok. May informs Coulson of a new message from HQ: Fury is back and waiting at the Triskelion. In the next scene, the Bus is flying in the sky at night. The moon is visible.
The final scene of "End of the Beginning" is of Hand giving orders to her personnel shows a map with an airplane icon (presumably the Bus) right off the coast of maybe Virginia. The airplane icon starts a line leading in the direction of the British Isles or Scandinavia, but the line doesn't appear to have a terminus on land. But if Coulson's team was coming from Thomas Nash's (forced) hiding place in Florida and on their way to see Fury (presumably in D.C.), then shouldn't the icon for the Bus have been over ~the Carolinas and not the ocean to the right of ~Virginia? Granted, though, Victoria Hand was obstructing our view of the screen.
With all the possibilities, it makes the most sense (but not perfectly) to me that the TV broadcast then showed the scene of the attack on Nick Fury on the road. It fits that he requested Coulson's presence, met with Captain America upon S.T.R.I.K.E.'s return and then met with Pierce, and then decided he could drive to meet with Hill and get back for the Bus's arrival. Suppose Fury's drive was simultaneous with the Bus's re-routing. How come no one knew about the HYDRA signal being sent out? Suppose Fury's drive was exactly just before the Bus's re-routing, then how come Captain America and the good Triskelion personnel didn't know about the HYDRA signal?
Plus, Captain America: The Winter Soldier definitely spent at least 3 whole U.S. nighttimes: one on the Winter Soldier shooting Fury at Rogers's apartment, one on Camp Lehigh's destruction, and one at Fury's secret river dam base.
Now maybe Coulson's team got sidetracked between the final racetrack scene and the nighttime flying scenes. And so the Bus was tractored by the Hub after the HYDRA signal went out on the same night as Fury's faked death. But that's still at least 2 more nights in Captain America: The Winter Soldier where the good Triskelion personnel did not notice anything wrong happening in the whole wide world.
Maybe Coulson's team got sidetracked even worse and so the Bus was flying at night at the same time as Rogers and Romanoff narrowly escaped death in New Jersey. But then why hasn't Coulson's team heard about Fury's apparent death the previous night?
By the way, guys, the Marvel Cinematic Universe wiki labels the aircraft carrier seen at the beginning of "End of the Beginning" as a helicarrier. Now I would have assumed this to be an error, but nothing in the episode actually definitively precludes the ship from being a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. What do you think?
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