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Warning: Spoilers for “Love in the Time of Hydra”
(2x14).
This week’s episode of
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., “Love in the Time of Hydra” (2x14), saw the
payoff of a huge plot point from the first half of the season when Mack took
Hunter to the headquarters of the “Real S.H.I.E.L.D.” and introduced him to his
boss, Robert Gonzales. This answered a
lot of our questions about Bobbi and Mack—among other things, they’re not
Skrulls. However, we seem to be
left with even more questions now: Who
is Gonzales? Why are Bobbi and Mack
working for him? What is the point of
this second S.H.I.E.L.D.? Was that
really an honest-to-goodness helicarrier that they were on!?!?!
We don’t know a lot
about the “Real S.H.I.E.L.D.,” but we can piece some things together from “Love
in the Time of Hydra,” as well as a few of the earlier episodes.
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The History
If you remember from
my article last week on the same subject, I was very curious how this
organization was started: Did Fury
himself start it? Is it a secret level
of S.H.I.E.L.D. that has been in operation under the surface all along? Is this just one of a number of splinter
groups that coalesced together after Hydra came out in the open and started a
turf war with the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D.?
While we can’t answer these questions definitively just yet, we can at
least make some educated guesses.
The fact that Gonzales
claims not to know that Fury is still alive makes it unlikely that Fury was
directly responsible for the formation of this group. He may just have said he thought Fury was
dead for Hunter’s benefit, however, so that possibility isn’t entirely off the
table just yet. At the same time, that
he is going after Coulson and trying to unseat him personally (even though
Coulson has Fury’s behind-the-scenes backing)—without any overt involvement
from Fury—does make it less likely that Fury is in any way involved with Gonzales
and his group.
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The sheer numbers at
Gonzales’ command lend some credence to the possibility of this being a shadow
S.H.I.E.L.D. organization which developed within the original S.H.I.E.L.D.
alongside of Hydra. How else could
Gonzales have come into possession of so many quinjets and other planes—along with
a freakin’ carrier to put them on!?!
More to the point, how could he have acquired so much tech and kept it
out of the US government’s hands, given how persistent Talbot was between the
end of last season and beginning of this season in trying to bring all the
former S.H.I.E.L.D. assets under his own control. Either they have a friend very high up in the
US government, or they have managed to keep themselves entirely off the government’s
radar and outside of US territorial waters for around a year—no mean feat. However, one flaw with this theory is
Gonzales’ admission that Hydra “had him dead to rights” in the uprising. If this were a “Shadow S.H.I.E.L.D.” created before
the uprising to combat the Hydra infiltration, I would have thought they’d do a
better job vetting their personnel. Could
a Hydra agent have gotten in? Yes, but I
don’t think they could have gotten enough sleeper agents inside it for them to
consider Gonzales “dead to rights” apart from Hartley’s miraculous intervention. Likewise, it appeared as though everyone in
S.H.I.E.L.D.—including Fury himself—was blindsided by Hydra. If someone within S.H.I.E.L.D. suspected what
was coming and started squirreling away assets off-books to combat it, then I’d
think they would have at least mentioned something to Fury (unless they thought
he was Hydra, too). Either way, I don’t
really buy the “Shadow S.H.I.E.L.D.” theory.
I think it is more
likely that Gonzales was one of Fury’s top lieutenants in the old S.H.I.E.L.D.,
and that after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell he began recruiting the surviving loyal agents
and bases into his own “New S.H.I.E.L.D.”
I think that he began entirely independently, without any involvement
from Fury. He must have been one of Fury’s
top guys (or one of the Council’s top guys—not the same thing) to be one of the
top officers on a S.H.I.E.L.D. carrier. It’s
likely that he was either in charge of the carrier or second-in-command since
he seems to have been one of Hydra’s chief targets there. It doesn’t seem too farfetched to imagine that
he was in command and Hartley was his second-in-command (in the same position
as Hill in The Avengers), given that she was in position to save his
life.
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The People Involved
Thus far we know seven
members of the “Real S.H.I.E.L.D.” by name; of those seven, two are just names,
while four of them are characters that we have met before.
The first two people
involved are of course Mack and Bobbi. We
don’t know exactly how Mack is connected to the others, but Bobbi and Gonzales appear
to have a very longstanding relationship.
She worked for him before (was she on the carrier when Hydra attacked?) and
clearly admires him—I suspect that is at least part of the reason that she is
working for the “Real S.H.I.E.L.D.” That
he can inspire such loyalty from his followers will make it all the more
challenging for Coulson to come out on top in the coming confrontation.
We also know that
Agent Hartley was working for the “Real S.H.I.E.L.D.” before the nasty
combination of the Diviner and the Absorbing Man killed her (or is she dead…
come back Sunday for my article on “Death in the MCU”). Gonzales revealed to Hunter that when Hydra
came out of the shadows, he, Hartley, and Bobbi (I think) were in their base,
and the Hydra agents had him “dead to rights” before Hartley saved his
life. Following the Hydra uprising, I would
guess that Gonzales found out that Coulson was starting his own S.H.I.E.L.D.
splinter group and decided to send Hartley and Bobbi undercover to learn more
about Coulson’s iteration of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The last agent we had
met previously is Agent Anne Weaver—better known as Fitz and Simmons’ professor
at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Science and Technology Academy. In the episode “Seeds” (1x12), Agent Weaver
was the head of the Academy, and made it clear that she was close with Fitz and
Simmons (especially Simmons). Then in “Turn,
Turn, Turn” (1x17), when Simmons is doing further research on Skye’s blood, she
attempts to contact Agent Weaver for a consultation. However, the Hydra
uprising intervenes and Weaver only has enough time to warn Simmons not to
trust anyone and tell her to find her before the connection cuts off. I think this may be setting up a surprisingly
interesting subplot for a future episode when Fitz and Simmons find out that
Agent Weaver not only survived the Hydra takeover but has joined the “Real S.H.I.E.L.D.” Given the obvious respect they have for her
(especially on the part of Simmons), which side will they fall out on? Will Simmons decide to leave her difficulties
with Fitz and Skye behind in order to join Weaver and start fresh with the “Real
S.H.I.E.L.D.”? Might they both decide
that they would rather leave all of the conflict over Skye behind and start
over together with Weaver in the “Real S.H.I.E.L.D.”? Could they instead convince her to join them
at the Playground with Coulson? Whatever
they decide, it could have serious ramifications for the series.
The only new agent we
know anything about is Robert Gonzales, who appears to be the leader of this
group. As I’ve said above, he is
definitely likeable, and clearly commands loyalty from his followers. From listening to his conversation with
Hunter, we can see that he believes in what he is doing. He believes that his S.H.I.E.L.D. is
as legitimate as Coulson’s—and more so, because he has corrected the problems
within the original S.H.I.E.L.D. Given
the inevitable confrontation coming between Coulson and Gonzales, it is clear
that this will not be a physical confrontation, but rather a philosophical and
ideological confrontation.
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The “Real
S.H.I.E.L.D.”s Philosophy
In his conversation with
Hunter, Gonzales makes it clear that he believes that all of the problems with
the original S.H.I.E.L.D. can be attributed to a lack of transparency from its
leadership. If Fury had been more
transparent instead of keeping so many secrets, then perhaps the Hydra
infiltration could have been discovered and prevented before S.H.I.E.L.D. could
be completely infected. Given the
secrecy in which Fury operated, this is a very tempting position, and one can
see a certain logic in it.
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From what we pieced
together between Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1, the Hydra infiltration primarily affected the
higher-level agents. There were many who
were loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D., but there were enough Hydra agents—and in enough
key positions—to eliminate most of the high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. loyalists
quickly upon coming out of the shadows. How
were these Hydra agents able to place themselves in key positions at every base,
fill base security teams with Hydra agents, and ensure that key groups within
S.H.I.E.L.D. (STRIKE and Insight especially) were entirely composed of Hydra
agents? Because of Fury’s culture of secrecy. Certain information was only available to
agents with a certain security clearance, and if Hydra sleeper agents could
determine who is given access to which information, then they could keep the
loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the dark. It
would have taken a long time for Hydra to work its agents up the ranks in
S.H.I.E.L.D. without drawing suspicion, but the level of secrecy made that
long-term plan not only possible but successful. By operating with a high level of
transparency, I believe that Gonzales hopes to avoid the danger of agents
attaining high positions within the organization while harboring ulterior
motives—and make it impossible for the leadership to operate from an ulterior
motive without being caught.
Looking back at the
end of season 1, Coulson seemed to be heading down that same path at first: he eliminated the concept of security
clearances, allowing all agents to have important information. However, since the season 2 premier, Coulson
has begun keeping important secrets from his people: Fury is still alive (and personally backs his
leadership)—the first major secret, most of the information about the alien city,
and basic things like extra backup teams on important missions are just some of
his secrets. He keeps much of the
information in Fury’s toolbox to himself.
The fact that he “stashed” Skye without telling anyone is just the straw
that broke the camel’s back as far as Gonzales, Bobbi, and Mack are
concerned. Why would he be hiding so
much from people that he claims to trust?
Such things are too close to the circumstances that allowed Hydra to
infiltrate the old S.H.I.E.L.D.
However, how much
transparency have we seen from Gonzales?
He definitely allows Bobbi—and the rest of his top agents—into his
briefings, but that’s all we’ve seen so far.
He didn’t tell Hunter everything, even though he was clearly trying to
recruit him. Do the rest of the “grunt”
agents know that they’ve been spying on—and will be moving against—a group of
their fellow former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who are also trying to pick up the
pieces of S.H.I.E.L.D. and start a new S.H.I.E.L.D.? If they don’t then that would be pretty
damning for Gonzales’ efforts at “transparency.” We will not find out for certain until at
least this coming episode, if not a later one, but that is something I will be
paying very close attention to.
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| Image Courtesy www.moddb.com |
The Carrier
So, the million-dollar
question everyone’s been asking since Tuesday:
Was that a freakin’ helicarrier that Gonzales was using as his
base of operations!?! We didn’t exactly
see it flying, since none of the agents who went out on the deck to search for
Hunter wore breathing apparatus, but it is entirely possible that it was a
helicarrier. We’ve only seen 4
helicarriers so far across all MCU media:
the original, which was heavily damaged by the combined forces of Loki,
Hawkeye, the Hulk, and Thor in The Avengers; and the three Insight
helicarriers which were completed, brought online, and destroyed virtually
simultaneously during Captain America: The Winter Soldier. However, no one ever said that “The
Helicarrier” in The Avengers was the only one S.H.I.E.L.D. had. This could be a second “Mark 1 Helicarrier”
like the one in The Avengers, which S.H.I.E.L.D. kept in operation while
they were completing construction on Project Insight.
Of course, the easiest
explanation for this carrier is that it is “The Helicarrier” from The
Avengers, which Fury had repaired and refitted, and which has been around
ever since. After all, considering that
Fury launched empty rockets into the sun for years just so he could stockpile
0-8-4s, do you really think the guy would throw away a perfectly good
helicarrier just because the Hulk smashed it?
So what are your
thoughts on the “Real S.H.I.E.L.D.”? Is
it what you were expecting from this plot twist? How do you think the impending conflict
between Coulson and Gonzales will be resolved?
Let me know in the comments!
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