My Quest to Make a Moodboard for Every AoS Character
The Real S.H.I.E.L.D.: "We founded S.H.I.E.L.D., the real S.H.I.E.L.D., on the belief that leadership should operate with transparency and not from the shadows."
I just finished doing a re-watch of the Season Two “AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.” episode, (2.15) “One Door Closes”. I really enjoyed the flashbacks featuring the experiences of Alphonso “Mack” Mackenzie, Bobbi Morse and Robert Gonzales on the day S.H.I.E.L.D. fell in “CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER” and (1.17) “Turn, Turn, Turn”. But looking at the story arc as a whole - namely the whole “S.H.I.E.L.D. agents v. real S.H.I.E.L.D. agents - I now realize that it was one of the major reasons why I disliked the series’ Season Two so much.
It was just stupid beyond belief. After watching Bobbi, Mack, Gonzales and Isabelle Hartley survive the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., I found myself incapable of rooting for Coulson and his team. I could not. It was not hard to be upset over the mistrust that Gonzales’ team held toward Daisy and other Inhumans without getting to know them. I found some of Gonzales’ comments about Fury a little hard to swallow as well. Fury had his faults, but he did not have a God’s complex. He, Anne Weaver and the others from the agency’s different factions should have contacted Coulson from the beginning. But I also found Coulson’s unwillingness to really work with Gonzales and the others without being the agency’s top dog even more hard to swallow.
What was wrong with Coulson working on the same committee as Gonzales and Anne Weaver? Coulson kept claiming that the agency could only be managed by one person at the top. And since Fury had selected him, he felt he was that one person. Apparently, Coulson, who had worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. since he left school, had forgotten that the agency had been managed by more than one person before Howard Stark’s death in December 1991.
Peggy Carter, Stark and Chester Phillips had served as the agency’s leaders for a little over 20 years until the latter’s death around the beginning of the 1970s. For a period of 20 to 21 years, both Peggy and Howard ran S.H.I.E.L.D., with HYDRA mole Mitchell Carson almost completing the triumvirate. It was during this latter period when Coulson had joined the agency. Only from December 1991 - the period of Howard’s death - to the present day, was S.H.I.E.L.D. led by one person. Peggy Carter was the first, Alexander Pierce was the second, Phil Coulson was the third, Jeffrey Mace the fourth and Mack is the current director. During a rough period of 27 years out of 70, S.H.I.E.L.D. had only one leader.
Coulson had been with S.H.I.E.L.D. long enough to know this. But his ego and blind adherence to Fury’s words would not allow him to accept this. As for Gonzales, Weaver and other members of the agency’s other faction; their prejudices against enhanced beings - fueled by HYDRA using one to attack Weaver on the day of the agency’s fall - had blinded them to the possibility that not all enhanced beings were a threat. I realized that Coulson had made his peace with Gonzales and the S.H.I.E.L.D. committee before the season ended. But honestly? This whole story arc was a cock up from the beginning and completely unnecessary. It was one of the main reasons why I disliked Season Two of “AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.” so much.
