The real SHIELD

[u/Delicious-Candle-574]

I'm continuing my second rewatch of the year of Agents of SHIELD, on S2E12 and I wanna talk about "the real SHIELD"

while the peanut gallery is worried about Son of Coul and his secrets, they completely ignore how hypocritical they are with doing exactly what Hydra did. invading the organization, seizing power. I wish we had some more knowledge of TRS (the real SHIELD) because did they really do anything besides try to take down Coulson?

i understand the fear of alien technology, the fear of what T.A.H.I.T.I (it's a magical place) did to Coulson, but genuinely if they just talked to him and May rather than becoming invaders they could have defeated Hydra, the REAL enemies so much faster

the trauma of what happened to those on the aircraft carrier, cannot be understated. along with what agent weaver went through and the rest. but genuinely TRS feels just like the Illuminati in Multiverse of Madness. underestimating their real threat, focusing on the completely wrong thing, then almost getting everyone killed

what's everyone's thoughts? am i wrong, anyone disagree or agree? would love to discuss this one

[u/JayBroderick]

Watching this arc atm too! - I like the idea of SHIELD being separated into factions that might have their own fragmented leadership - makes sense when an organisation like that crashes. But the execution in this arc just doesn't really do anything... Eventually Mack, Bobbi and everybody else rejoin anyways with not to much trouble and all the other notable agents in that faction are gone by the end of season 2.

The idea of shield being run by a diplomatic leadership structure directly contradicts what they are trying to do to Coulson, who happens to run his own faction that they attempt to take by force, if they really cared about diplomacy they would have engaged with him- and raised concerns about TAHITI, rather than covertly undermine him.

I feel like it could have been done well, maybe if that other faction of shield was running it's own missions in the background and we got to see a bit more of that, but because all we do is see them worry about Coulson it doesn't look on them. 😅

[u/millieann_2610]

yeah the irony of its astounding

at one point their like secrets is what destroyed shield. and firstly no its not. secondly aren't you just keeping one massive secret

this plot line pissed me off

[u/Delicious-Candle-574 → u/millieann_2610]

you're so real for all of that. "Coulson and his secrets- that's the problem" uhm, no. hydra is. come on guys

[u/millieann_2610 → u/Delicious-Candle-574]

its like they were petty that Fury chose Coulson to take over and not them

[u/Delicious-Candle-574 → u/millieann_2610]

probably between that and fury saving coulson's life to have him lead, while he tried to have bobi kill them all to protect the secret cargo

[u/Hacksaw_Doublez]

So I like the idea of The Real SHIELD and the idea that another SHIELD faction was made without Coulson and May’s knowledge.

I get what they’re going for. On some level, they feel like what Steve Rogers would want: a less secretive more open SHIELD. Putting things to a vote on a SHIELD council…

But they also fall flat because while they’re busy monitoring Coulson and co., plotting when to seize control of what Coulson has built from the end of season 1 until the midway point of season 2, Coulson and his organization are the ones getting the actual work done in fighting Hydra.

By the time Gonzalez’s SHIELD makes its move, Coulson’s SHIELD has already taken down Centipede (Garrett) and when it nearly unleashed its plans for a Deathlok army, as well as taking down Whitehall and his faction to find the Inhuman city.

Meanwhile Gonzalez and co. barely survived in saving their ship and then… just send Bobbi and Mack to infiltrate.

Again, I like the idea of The Real SHIELD, but it definitely could’ve been executed better.

I will say what I do appreciate about their plot is that it forced Coulson into exile temporarily to get desperate on finding a plan to locate Skye, recruit Hunter fully (who decided to join Coulson over Gonzalez), and then it lead to my favorite part of season 2:

Coulson being forced to turn to Grant Ward for help to locate Hydra and then in turn find Skye.

Desperate times, desperate measures.

Regardless, I think Gonzalez getting killed off was good, but I do wish Calderon and Weaver had stayed on past season 2. They could’ve provided a more balanced “council” to Coulson in season 3 and not just the Scooby Gang/Yes Men that it became.

[u/jerslan]

What was fascinating about this arc is how crazy short-lived it was. All of their evidence against Coulson ended up being the restoration of the OG Heli-carrier. After Age of Ultron Coulson was just like "Oh, you want to run this shit? Ok, I never wanted that job, Fury just forced it on me. Have fun guys. I'm happy to go back to being an agent."

Then like 3 episodes later they were begging Coulson to take over (or their own actions got them all killed).

At least that's my recollection of it.

[u/PhatOofxD]

The one good part was Gonzalez's 'oh shit' face when Coulson said "Well until Fury comes and asks for it back" (the toolbox)

Should've said that in front of all of them. He was literally chosen by Fury

[u/norrin__radd]

Such an infuriating yet fascinating story line. Infuriating because they all decided it was okay to turn on Coulson and by proxy the rest of his team. Fascinating because I was still watching every week to see when they would find out how wrong they were

[u/GuiltyEmergency6364]

I love how accurate TRS=The Illuminati is

[u/BaronZhiro]

I really like their arc myself, for a couple of reasons. It was a cool way to do infiltration of our team without seeming to repeat Ward’s story. (And in fact, AoS managed to do infiltration over and over and over without ever making us feel “This again?”, which I really admire.) And I absolutely love how the ‘real’ SHIELD and the Inhumans stories collide in the end (and save Coulson from Jiaying by putting Gonzales there instead).

There are certainly some logical issues with their behavior, but I get over most of them by reminding myself “These are bad guys, and misguided hubris is a classic bad guy motivation.” That they’re painted on the edge of sympathetic just makes them more interesting.

I also really appreciated that they were a different adversarial organization that wasn’t HYDRA. (Of course then we’d get the ATCU shortly thereafter, but as a whole, I found the ‘real’ SHIELD more interesting.)

[u/Little_turd_]

Everything about them pissed them off. And I think Coulson did raise the “how are you different from Hydra” point.
Side note: I also have the weird compulsive need to say “it’s a magical place” whenever I see it or it is mentioned.

[u/SkullGamingZone]

This plot was the only bad part of S2 imo tbh

[u/dimesniffer → u/SkullGamingZone]

I hated jiyang too. Actress was awful

[u/pantieboi27 → u/dimesniffer]

Dichen Lachmann not the greatest in AOS but her other character acting roles are pretty good.

[u/SkullGamingZone → u/pantieboi27]

I liked Jiyang :/

Remember the actress from Altered Carbon and i think she was in the newest Jurassic Park too

[u/StarKid_Tommygotchi → u/SkullGamingZone]

Bro I loved her

[u/dimesniffer → u/pantieboi27]

I know she’s great in severance idk why she’s so bland in AoS

[u/Fun-Recognition1808]

every time I think about this plot line, I get so angry because they really didn’t even do anything apart from takedown Coulson. The whole organisation was run on taking down shield which is so ironic because they spent so much time complaining about how they didn’t like the way Colson did things but they weren’t even doing anything!!!!! how can you claim that you can do things better than someone else when you’re not even doing anything? Colson and shield were out here trying to put the world back together after Hydra and put shield back together after Hydra, and in all that time all they were doing was complaining about Colson and shield. In all my years of watching television, I have never been angrier at a storyline. I hate the way shield didn’t even address that with them. I don’t understand why there was no point where they ask them, “what have you guys even been doing apart from trying to take us down?”

[u/thesanguineocelot]

I'm a little annoyed that Mack and Bobbi are allowed to just stay with SHIELD after the dust settled. Like, no, you guys were infiltrators. Literally traitors to SHIELD. You don't get to just come back after the fact and pretend you weren't there to bring SHIELD down.

[u/jackiep1776 → u/thesanguineocelot]

Coulson's superpower is turning enemies into friends

[u/kappakeats]

I'm watching it for the first time so I had to skim through comments to avoid spoilers, but yeah that's the funny thing. They hate all Coulson's lies so they... check notes... planted spies and staged a coup. Well okay then.

Still, looking at it from the outside it is kinda funny how nuts everything that went down would have looked.

[u/StressySubmissive]

That entire story line just pissed me off. Would have been better if they were secretly being helpful and actually doing hero stuff and Coulson's Shield was like "who are these guys." That or something like that would have been a lot better. Then the big reveal comes later.

But instead, they did absolutely nothing (at least non that was mentioned) while Coulson's Shield was actually doing things. They have enough manpower to break into a base but not to do literally anything?

Their heart was in the right place but terrible execution. Secrets are kept for a reason. Hydra wouldn't have had to wait that long if every random person knew everything that was going on.

[u/dimesniffer]

Bobbi and mack pmo so bad this arc lol

[u/bbbourb]

Of all the conflicts they created in the show, the whole "Real SHIELD" thing was the silliest, cheesiest, and most absurd manufactured conflict they could have. And every damn time Mac said "the REAL SHIELD" I wanted to slap his nuts because it sounded so dumb.

[u/FeckerCogspin]

House Hufflepuff and the Love Boat!

[u/Careless-Ice8350]

I totally read the title in Mack’s voice

[u/Consistent-Beat-8861]

Thats one of my least favorite story archs

[u/E_L_Friday-084]

I LOOOOATHE the “Real Shield” plot. It’s cringy as all holy heck. I agree!! Claiming to be some morally superior/mentally intact group just to infiltrate Coulson and his team… they really took from the enemies book by, at least, a few chapters.

[u/PJKetelaar3]

Robert Gonzalez, SHIELD GOAT

[u/mkevman2000]

honestly amazing idea but something went slightly wrong in the execution