Captain America and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

[kennyab]

I've been pondering May's role in all of this, specifically whether or not she knows about Hydra, and I'm starting to go in the direction that she does. We're of course meant to believe that she knows about the alien. But when Coulson and Skye had her cornered, May told them that they couldn't talk there. It seems that she wants to tell them but is aware of ears all around. Perhaps the cockpit area from which she's been sending the messages is the only place on the Bus that she knows is secure.

So, why would Fury trust her with that much information? He didn't even trust Rogers or Romanoff (and I don't believe Hill) until the very last minute when he had no choice. Why's May special. Maybe, just maybe, she's the one who discovered Hydra in the first place? She was working a pretty anonymous pencil pusher job when the show started, a job for which Coulson implied she was much too qualified. Could her super agent training have allowed her to see patterns in the bureaucracy that evaded everyone else, and she alerted Fury to that fact? That's the only way I could see him put so much trust into her.

He then brings Coulson back in a way that evades the SHIELD's eyes and assigns him to a task to make a bunch of noise in an effort to smoke out the ringleaders. Of course Hydra's going to be incredibly interested in an agent returning from the dead. Fury's betting on their love for powerful, mystical artifacts to make them slip up.

So what about the others? I'm also in the Hand-is-good, Garrett-is-shady camp. Rewatching 1-16, he really seemed to be buttering up Skye when going over the mission plan. She's young and impressionable, and he was kind of creepy when he told her that she was a SHIELD agent...just like him. Same way Triplett was cozying up to Simmons. Trust no one, indeed. As for Hand, I don't necessarily blame her for not trusting Coulson. From the outside, everything he does looks sketchy. If she just found out about the attempt on Fury's life (as noted above he was shot at night, and she took control of the Bus at night), I can see how she'd want to pull Coulson's team in.

On the other hand, if she is Hydra and thinks Coulson's getting to the truth about the Clairvoyant, it would make sense to try to keep them from the Triskelion, as they'd be more pro-Fury allies to help Cap et al.

So many options. As much as this show has dragged, after seeing Winter Soldier I'm incredibly excited to see what's about to happen. Tuesday can't come soon enough. I'm not excusing them for the storytelling mistakes they made earlier on, but I'm willing to give them another chance and stick the landing for what actually is a pretty good setup. Zola/Hydra as the Clairvoyant honestly is way more exciting than someone like Mentallo.

[KirkB]

Since they can't even reference people like Xavier or Emma Frost I never really thought the Clairvoyant would actually BE clairvoyant. I presumed it was someone with access to or part of SHIELD. Making it Zola, if that is indeed the case, would be brilliant. Being a machine intelligence now I still don't quite know why he would be so interested in what happened to Coulson, unless its just that it was a bit of information he couldn't access.

As for who the bad guys are, the presumable Hydra agents, I would say Trip. Maybe Garrett too, but I'm more inclined to say it's just one of them and they may or may not want their big guest star to be a bad guy. I doubt it's Hand, mainly because that would be a little TOO obvious. I could be wrong, of course. Now, if Coulson's team has a Hydra agent on it, the show wants you to think it's May. I doubt that. I doubt Ward too. No Hydra agent, given how long they have kept this thing a well guarded secret, would draw attention to himself by killing the supposed Clairvoyant. My money is on Fitz. Why? Because it makes no sense. He's quite literally the last guy on the Bus you would suspect, which is why I think it could be him. He could have some connection to Zola.

[kennyab]

Being a machine intelligence now I still don't quite know why he would be so interested in what happened to Coulson, unless its just that it was a bit of information he couldn't access.

 

Super-technology and magical artifacts are Hydra's bread and butter. If there's something out there that can bring people back from the dead, then Hydra will go to great lengths to get their grubby little paws on it. It's not so much Coulson that's the bait, it's the process that brought him back. Hydra's using the cover of the Clairvoyant and outside agents like Rainia to throw off Team Coulson, but May's been reporting back to Fury this whole time about every little step. Since Fury's the only one with the big picture and access to all of SHIELD's intel, he can use that info about who's chasing the group on the Bus and look for connections to SHIELD insiders to try to ferret out the bad guys.

And Coulson makes sense as someone to bring back. Everyone in SHIELD heard about his death. Coulson was high enough ranking and close enough to Fury to believe that Fury could have a legitimate excuse to spend the resources to try out some fancy, expensive procedure on him. It's actually a pretty good plan and explains a whole bunch of the season.

[Kaoteek]

My problem with all that is still the same : I could see Tahiti being a "Fury's Eyes only' type of deal, with no administrative trail, whether digital or paper, and thus the project could conceivably escape Zola/Pierce/Hydra or whatever... if the Tahiti base wasn't a well-know, well established, clearly well-staffed place more or less affiliated to Shield.

The Guest House stuff, for instance, is clearly a digital/electronic database, thus hackable/accessible by Zola/Pierce ; the Guest House guards are clearly paid by someone, somehow ; and so on : there are too many variables for the whole Tahiti operation not to have some kind of traceable paper trail. And if Shield is that corrupted from the inside, up to the top rung of the ladder, I don't see how Hydra isn't already aware of Tahiti, and of how Coulson & Skye came back.

(either that, or Centipede really is just another terrorist cell, distinct from Hydra, and AoS is gonna keep on not interacting too much with the main MCU thread, instead fighting its own, weaker, less-informed, infiltrated ennemies)

[HistoryGirl]

Since they can't even reference people like Xavier or Emma Frost I never really thought the Clairvoyant would actually BE clairvoyant. I presumed it was someone with access to or part of SHIELD. Making it Zola, if that is indeed the case, would be brilliant. Being a machine intelligence now I still don't quite know why he would be so interested in what happened to Coulson, unless its just that it was a bit of information he couldn't access.

As for who the bad guys are, the presumable Hydra agents, I would say Trip. Maybe Garrett too, but I'm more inclined to say it's just one of them and they may or may not want their big guest star to be a bad guy. I doubt it's Hand, mainly because that would be a little TOO obvious. I could be wrong, of course. Now, if Coulson's team has a Hydra agent on it, the show wants you to think it's May. I doubt that. I doubt Ward too. No Hydra agent, given how long they have kept this thing a well guarded secret, would draw attention to himself by killing the supposed Clairvoyant. My money is on Fitz. Why? Because it makes no sense. He's quite literally the last guy on the Bus you would suspect, which is why I think it could be him. He could have some connection to Zola.

MCU seems to be stealing back some of their mutants as evidenced by Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch popping up in the bonus scene at the end of the film.  They likely won't be called that in Avengers 2, but it's still worthwhile noting that they are technically Magneto's kids.  I'm sure they'll come up with some fancy reason as to why those kids have powers. 

And Fitz as the one with the connection to Zola would: a) break my heart as a FitzSimmons shipper and b) BE AWESOME.  You are right.  He is the last person you'd expect. Also, why was he so insistent that he set up comms with Simmons? 

[kennyab]

The Guest House stuff, for instance, is clearly a digital/electronic database, thus hackable/accessible by Zola/Pierce ; the Guest House guards are clearly paid by someone, somehow ; and so on : there are too many variables for the whole Tahiti operation not to have some kind of traceable paper trail. And if Shield is that corrupted from the inside, up to the top rung of the ladder, I don't see how Hydra isn't already aware of Tahiti, and of how Coulson & Skye came back.

 

Coulson's medical file was actually a hard copy. For a show that uses computers for just about every bit of intel, this actually stood out a bit. I don't think the file was stored electronically, so Zola wouldn't have been able to put together the reference to GH325 with the Guest House. It's also interesting that the map stored in the Guest House file was saved in such a way that a human could recognize the "decrypted" data, but a computer algorithm would have a much harder time performing such a feat. And the Guest House itself wasn't a SHIELD facility -- Fury went outside of the organization for that one. The only people who know are Fury, Hill, Ron Glass, and apparently May.

I really wish HuluPlus had the whole season available right now, cause there's no way I'm spending $40 bucks for it on iTunes. But I'd really like to go back and watch a few things. The more I think about it, the more I can see where I think they have put in things fairly intricately to tie into Winter Soldier and set up the future of the show. If only they could have made it more entertaining in process. I can possibly see myself enjoying some things more with hindsight, but it needs to be enjoyable on the first pass as well.

ETA: I just went back and rewatched the scene where Fitz and Simmons are going through the database looking for information on where Coulson's procedure may have taken place. The program that stored the location of the Guest House marked the file as "Unrecognized Data" so it seems that my guess that software couldn't figure it out was correct. I also noticed that Fitz said he got access from a friend of his. Riffing on HistoryGirl's conjecture, maybe it was a Hydra bro helping him figure out the truth about the procedure.

Then again, Simmons was the one who was excited about joining a field team. Fitz was just along for the ride. This is seriously the most fun I've had with this show all season.

Edited April 7, 2014 by kennyab

[HistoryGirl]

Another thing that just occurred to me-- Simmons was pushing to submit the GH325 in the SHIELD systems and Coulson was telling her to stop and not to. Obviously Coulson didn't want to draw more attention to the whole alien thing-- but what if by running whatever it is Simmons wanted to do at the Hub, she unknowingly gives ZOLA the info they've been looking for? (Which is why we see Raina, Quinn, Garrett and Ward in those promo photos with the alien (?) bodies)

Also, where's Streiten & Goodman (Coulson's doctors) in all this?  Presumably, they're good guys if Fury trusted them to do the reanimation. 

[Grammaeryn]

 

Super-technology and magical artifacts are Hydra's bread and butter.

I want that as a bumper sticker or sig line on a message board LOL!

 

This is seriously the most fun I've had with this show all season.

For realsies!  To play devil's advocate about Zola being the Clairvoyant, don't they have to write the show for the entire audience (movie watchers and non)? So, how could they introduce Zola into the TV show in a threatening and non-cheesy way?  if you think about it that way, the only character, other than Coulson, that spans AoS and MCU is Sitwell.  So, I'm caling it.  Sitwell is the Clairvoyant.  I'll collect my prize tomorrow at 9:00 PM EST.

[Kaoteek]

@kenniab, I totally follow you on all your points, BUT... i still struggle to see how AoS' "Clairvoyant that can only have access to some files and can't follow either the paper trail or hack the GH325 file" & Cap2's "omnipresent Hydra, infiltrated at every level of Shield for decades, with men & eyes everywhere + Zola controlling the entire computer infrastructure + Pierce capable of accessing/altering Fury's top secret files" really sync up.There's a discrepancy of scale and influence that bothers me, there.

You'd think even if Zola/Hydra couldn't access Coulson's file (because hard copy), there's someone, somewhere, who could have been bought, and would know something. Between the moment Coulson died during Avengers, and the moment he came out of the Tahiti thingie, there has been way more than simply four people involved. There has been pilots, there's been guards, nurses, doctors, specialists, agents, there's been office supplies, medical supplies, energy bills, salaries, and so on... if Hydra is really everywhere in Shield (as evidenced by Winter Soldier), there's no way Fury was able to erase all traces of the Coulson operation without anyone noticing, and no way Hydra couldn't trace it back to Tahiti on their own, one way or another.

(that said, let's not forget that on this show, everybody's dumbed down to make Team Coulson look competent, so I guess I could see the writers not going past the "not on a computer = Centipydra can't get it" idea, and thinking it's a sufficient explanation)

Edited April 8, 2014 by Kaoteek

[Cranberry]

So, that episode seemed to be taking place after the movie, after all! Hand clarified that Captain America had destroyed the three helicarriers and now everyone knows that Hydra has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. even to the top levels. I'm surprised that the TV show would be allowed to spoil the movie so soon after its release date, but I'm excited, because this episode was intense and it changes the direction of the show.

[ApathyMonger]

Well, they didn't spoil everything (nothing about Bucky, and "the good guys win" isn't much of a spoiler), but I think the reports today that Fury will be back in the finale spoil that he's not dead.

[KirkB]

The episode seems to take place in just a few hours near the end of Winter Soldier. Everyone knows about Hydra now, SHIELD is all but gone, Captain America is credited with taking out the Helicarriers but they don't know what happened to him, and what's left of SHIELD thinks Fury is dead.

[Kromm]

So, that episode seemed to be taking place after the movie, after all! Hand clarified that Captain America had destroyed the three helicarriers and now everyone knows that Hydra has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. even to the top levels. I'm surprised that the TV show would be allowed to spoil the movie so soon after its release date, but I'm excited, because this episode was intense and it changes the direction of the show.

Even nuttier than the show spoiling the movie so quickly, there's also the weird aspect of an episode 17 episodes in of a 22 episode season being the one that by default has to PERMANENTLY mark a direction change.  It's really bizarre they didn't do it at Episode 21 or 22 instead.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Kromm

[ApathyMonger]

Even nuttier than the show spoiling the movie so quickly, there's also the weird aspect of an episode 17 episodes in of a 22 episode season being the one that by default has to PERMANENTLY mark a direction change.  It's really bizarre they didn't do it at Episode 21 or 22 instead.

That's what I expected but, presuming there's no status quo reset at the end of the season, I'm glad they didn't wait around.

[Lisin]

I think (and this is based on nothing) that what happened is that Marvel decided to do the show and Thor 2 and Cap 2 had already been either filmed or at least written so they had to decide to do a big chunk of the first season as sort of a throwaway getting to know the characters etc. because they knew all along that in Cap 2 BAM everything was going to change. They could have chosen to start the show later in the season, have it not tie into Thor 2 and have it only be 4 or 5 episodes before the Cap 2 tie in, but I'm assuming they figured that whatever they payed to produce AoS prior to Thor 2 would just drive viewers to the movie on opening day rather than waiting so I guess they thought it was worth it? Plus now they get to spend two weeks talking about how this is something that's NEVER been done before and wow aren't we cool. Of course none of this matters if the ratings are so terrible they don't get a season 2 so it's crazy risky and kind of looks like it was a blunder. 

[HistoryGirl]

Something that I didn't notice until it was mentioned on tumblr-- Fitz's mouseholing tool (the one that got them out of the Bus without being noticed) was used by Director Fury in the film!  A Fitz-invention was used by the director himself!  I feel like we should be giving Fitz a gold star. 

[ChelseaNH]

Now if they only showed us the device the team used to get out of the hangar without being seen...

[myril]

The episode seems to take place in just a few hours near the end of Winter Soldier. Everyone knows about Hydra now, SHIELD is all but gone, Captain America is credited with taking out the Helicarriers but they don't know what happened to him, and what's left of SHIELD thinks Fury is dead.

Be warned, sometimes I get obsessed with timelines, but please, bear with me.

From what I figured the events of the movie play out over about 5 days, or maybe 1-2 days more, there is a bit of time in between some scenes possible. And most of the movie plays at the eastcoast of the US, mostly in and around Washington, so one time zone, except the Lemurian Star, the ship was somewhere in the Indian Ocean (if I remember location right, that is a time difference to U.S. EDT of -7 to -10 hours).

Movie starts with Rogers jogging, in Washington, daylight, don't remember because didn't pay that much attention, but guess it was morning (?). Rogers is called in, Romanoff picks him up, airplane over ocean with the rescue team, it's night time. Action on the Lemurian star happens at night. Considering time zone differences and that they always seem to have some very fast jets, guess all this happens pretty much in one, maybe two days. Say day 1.

Day 2: Back to Washington, daylight, Rogers meets Fury, who shows him the Helicarrier shipyard. Pierce talking to members of the council via tele conference, daylight. Attack on Fury in the street, daylight. Rogers comes home, Washington, nighgttime, finds Fury in his appartement, attack of the Winter Soldier. Fury crashes in the emergency, declared dead. That is night of day 2/ morning of day 3.

Day 3: Romanoff and Rogers in a room paying tribute to dead Fury. Rogers goes to Triskelion, meets Pierce, is attacked, all in daylight. Rogers declared a fugitive and threat. Rogers and Romanoff on the way to camp in daylight, arrive there in the evening, it's dark when their on the camp. They learn from Zola, that HYDRA has been infiltrating SHIELD and is deep in it. Attack of the drones in nighttime. So is the meeting between Pierce and Winter Soldier.

Day 4: Back to Washington, Rogers and Romanff show up at Wilson's, daylight, morning. They go after Sitwell, looks like it's around lunchtime, daylight and looks like high noon sun on the roof. Drive to the Triskelion, attack by Winter Soldier, Hill freeing them, and brings them to hiding place, looks like close to dusk to me - end of day 4.

Day 5: In the morning they're back at the Triskelion, while Pierce is meeting there with the council Rogers, gives his speech, revealing Pierce is HYDRA and Project Insight a threat to the good ones (and that is, I think, when the message got send out, makes no sense any earlier), destruction of the Helicarriers, all in daylight.

following days: Rogers revovering, Romanoff at hearing, Agent 13 at shooting range CIA and Hill at Stark industries. Rogers, Wilson meet at graveyard.

Still trying to figure out, when the events of episode 1x16 and more so 1x17 take place. Sitwell is called to the Lemurian Star in episode 1x16, that would be day 01 of the movie, or maybe even a day before. Then Coulson's team goes after the possible candidates, think on that very same day, encounter Deathlock, Black is injured, they got to the Hub(?), Simmons and Tripplet leave the bus, the  others go after Deathlock and find the fake Clairvoyant, May tells Coulson, that Fury is waiting for him at the Triskelion, all in daylight.  Possible that is during day 2 of the movie, before the attack on Fury in the (late) afternoon. We then see the bus, it is nighttime. When Simmons and Fitz talk on the secured line, she says, something is going on, agents rushing to the situation room - and I thought that maybe that was when it became known, that Director Fury was dead and Rogers considered a fugitive. But it doesn't seem like 2 days are now going by, because pretty much in the next hour the bus is taken over and everyone starts to distrust everyone. Garrett shows up, some attack drones at his tail, comes on the bus. Skye discovers, there is an encrypted message on all channels (Why didn't Garrett get it before? Drones where scrambling his communication, so they must have just started to send the message) and they learn, HYDRA is alive and kicking inside SHIELD. Meanwhile at the Hub and the Academy and probably everywhere chaos and fights. No idea, where the Hub is, so possible could be a very different time zone so nighttime while in Washington daylight, but I have the impression the Hub is somewhere in North America.

The events don't quite add up. But I am assuming that the death of the director of the organisation would cause some buzz in at least the higher ranks, meaning level 7 and higher, and that it's not just the events on the 5th day we have as background in the episode. And it just doesn't make any sense to me, that the message was send out when Zola was destroyed (or more likely his current main brain, doubt he is all gone), because they're was no sign of it next day at the Triskelion, they acted all very normal and like there was no threat, until Rogers gave his speech. But let's assume message was sent out when Zola was more or less destroyed (would fit, it was nighttime), then why did no one at the Triskelion sound alarm? One way or the other, it doesn't add up.

Or maybe I have some flaws in my timeline and thinking here.

Pesky details.

Edited April 11, 2014 by katusch

[HistoryGirl]

Now if they only showed us the device the team used to get out of the hangar without being seen...

Well they were dressed as Hub/Hydra/whatever agents who'd arrested May and...? I forget was it Coulson?  Those guys in the computer bay believed them off the bat.  

[KirkB]

katusch, your timline is very well done and pretty much fits with what I was figuring. In my post I was only pointing out the fact Hand shows Coulson footage of the helicarriers falling out of the sky, talks about Captain America doing it but missing in action afterwards, and everybody already knows (or at least believes) Director Fury is dead. We know roughly what moment in Winter Soldier that scene takes place, after Insight is beaten but presumably before Widow goes before Congress or whoever. So basically the events of this last episode are taking place right around most of the movie action is winding down.

[John Potts]

Katusch, I would guess that the final scenes of the movie are weeks later - it's a Congressional Committee and the wheels of government grind S-L-O-O-O-W-L-Y, particularly when it comes to reorganisation of major government Agencies (I'm still not sure if SHIELD is a US government Agency or - as in the comics - an agency of the UN. In fact, if it's a UN Agency, it would take even longer as you've got all the international politics as well).

And I'm pretty sure Steve mentions that he likes to go for a "morning run" (as does Falcon - "So why don't you?), but I don't have the script in front of me.

[Kromm]

I've been pondering May's role in all of this, specifically whether or not she knows about Hydra, and I'm starting to go in the direction that she does. We're of course meant to believe that she knows about the alien. But when Coulson and Skye had her cornered, May told them that they couldn't talk there. It seems that she wants to tell them but is aware of ears all around. Perhaps the cockpit area from which she's been sending the messages is the only place on the Bus that she knows is secure.

So, why would Fury trust her with that much information? He didn't even trust Rogers or Romanoff (and I don't believe Hill) until the very last minute when he had no choice. Why's May special. Maybe, just maybe, she's the one who discovered Hydra in the first place? She was working a pretty anonymous pencil pusher job when the show started, a job for which Coulson implied she was much too qualified. Could her super agent training have allowed her to see patterns in the bureaucracy that evaded everyone else, and she alerted Fury to that fact? That's the only way I could see him put so much trust into her.

Fury has levels of reveals.  I mean he clearly trusts Hill.  Agent 13.  Probably Hand, although its not totally clear which bits she was in on and which not.

[Raja]

Katusch, I would guess that the final scenes of the movie are weeks later - it's a Congressional Committee and the wheels of government grind S-L-O-O-O-W-L-Y, particularly when it comes to reorganisation of major government Agencies (I'm still not sure if SHIELD is a US government Agency or - as in the comics - an agency of the UN. In fact, if it's a UN Agency, it would take even longer as you've got all the international politics as well).

And I'm pretty sure Steve mentions that he likes to go for a "morning run" (as does Falcon - "So why don't you?), but I don't have the script in front of me.

SHIELD is international. I don't know where the UN stands. Except for the War Machine and now the Falcon combat suits the USA has SHIELD seems to control all of the legal ubertech.

[Raja]

Zola's got to be The Clairvoyant.  As for Centipede, it could be AIM.  AIM's going to be on the show one way or another, doesn't matter if they're Centipede or Rising Tide, but they've got to be on the show.

Just about all of Hydra is/was SHIELD as such were suppressing Rising Tide. However now Black Widow has for the immediate time accomplished many of Rising Tide's goals while accomplishing Skye's mission was before she was captured and turned by SHIELD.

So at the moment in the MCU we seem to have the Hydra/SHIELD civil war, AIM which Ironman knocked down a few months ago seems to be independent of Hydra. Centipede as a client or illegal subcontractor of Hydra. A few other contractors like Hammer which provided the War Machine upgrades to an old Ironman armored suit. The US Military which besides War Machine/Iron Patriot can go into production with the Falcon individual flying suit. Along with the aliens living among us 

[dusang]

katusch, that's a great timeline.  One of the (many) things I enjoyed about the movie is that, after detailing how difficult it will be to acquire the Falcon suit, they jump immediately to having it without ever showing any effort to retrieve it.  And even in your timeline, they manage to infiltrate a secure government facility and steal top-secret equipment between breakfast and lunch.  Love.

Also, I definitely took from the episode that it ended after the helicarriers fell but before Captain America was picked up (unconcious) on the riverbank.  I was surprised that they revealed the crashed helicarriers in the episode (spoiler alert!) but, as ApathyMonger noted, they reduce the spoil-level by implying that Captain America may have disappeared and/or died.  Technically, the show revealed no more than every commericial that showed the helicarriers crashing.

[Jediknight]

So at the moment in the MCU we seem to have the Hydra/SHIELD civil war, AIM which Ironman knocked down a few months ago seems to be independent of Hydra.

Iron Man 3 never happened.  That was some sick joke played on everyone by Marvel.

[Jamoche]

I haven't been watching closely enough, but has Skye noticed yet that the secret she tried to hack SHIELD to discover is probably out on wikileaks by now?

[Kel Varnsen]

Not sure why I was thinking about it, but it just hit me, what happened to the helicarrier? I mean I know that the 3 that Cap destroyed in Cap 2 were the new ones, but what happened to the one with the jet engines that was used in The Avengers?

[Humbugged]

Not sure why I was thinking about it, but it just hit me, what happened to the helicarrier? I mean I know that the 3 that Cap destroyed in Cap 2 were the new ones, but what happened to the one with the jet engines that was used in The Avengers?

I imagine the US military seized it .They 'collected ' everything else including the 084s

[Raja]

I imagine the US military seized it .They 'collected ' everything else including the 084s

Or whichever side, SHIELD or Hydra won the civil war battle aboard the carrier was able to find a hiding spot or neutral country willing to have such a powerful mercenary force

[ChelseaNH]

I could also see one side scuttling it so the other side didn't get it.  There's no way to know until it becomes a plot point somewhere.

[KirkB]

After getting up close and personal with the turbines Stark probably bought it, scrapped it, and used the components for Ultron.

[Bruinsfan]

I do love how the MCU continues the tradition of heli-carriers being highly disposable. The entire US Navy manages to fund and construct one regular Nimitz class carrier every 4 years - the end of The Winter Soldier probably set the various governments funding SHIELD back $90 billion or more for the heli-carriers and their docking bays alone.

[Raja]

I do love how the MCU continues the tradition of heli-carriers being highly disposable. The entire US Navy manages to fund and construct one regular Nimitz class carrier every 4 years - the end of The Winter Soldier probably set the various governments funding SHIELD back $90 billion or more for the heli-carriers and their docking bays alone.

I guess after surviving an attack by aliens the old rules and priorities went out hatch. Only lo and behold Nazi Hydra tried to capitalize on the new world order. And the aliens are still out there as the world struggles to put up some kind of defense beyond an alien who returned home a PTSD suffering genius who wants to retire, a super soldier, a couple of spies and an unreliable creature