The Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Interesting you allow one time traveler on your list, but the one from the future would have to be relegated to "other"...............

As it stands, now, Simmons is my pick.  She's got the coolest head and has the most knowledge of the mission. I mean, let's face it, she's the one calling the shots now, anyway.  Mack is more like a field commander while Jemma is running HQ.

I wouldn't completely ignore Deke.  He's come a long way and has shown adaptability as he learns what it means to be an agent.  Granted he's got a way to go and his tactical skills leave a lot to be desired, but I'd rather have him in charge than Daisy.......

All cogent arguments; and, to be honest - going forward - I'd rather not see any of them in charge. 

FitzSimmons need to take over Deke's company.
Yo-Yo and Mack need to get out of the spy game.  Go build a life together somewhere and leave SHIELD in their rear view
Daisy could join professional wrestling
Deke should take over a late night talk show
May should become an Avenger and replace Black Widow
Coulson decommisioned
Enoch should join Coulson
Soussa should bcome a NYC cop in 2012 (after a trip to T.A.H.I.T.I.)

S.H.I.E.L.D. needs to evolve into S.W.O.R.D. 


ALso:
Let's be honest, you're dislike for Mack goes back farther than the last couple of seasons.  I remember us discussing it back on IMDb way before the exodus. 

Note that I am posting this before episode 7.05 airs in my time zone. The events in that episode may or may not affect my opinions below.

I was planning to work on a couple of other projects, but, when I saw this thread yesterday, I knew that I was going to work on this response instead.

I have also addressed this issue a few times. In fact, while going through my notes, I found an unposted draft of a very similar poll that I wrote between the fourth and fifth seasons. For what it is worth, Mack was not even one of the choices. I do not remember if this was because I had not gotten to him when I abandoned/forgot about the draft or if I was not even considering him as a candidate. I suspect that, at the time, I would have supported Talbot as the Director if he fully recovered from the assassination attempt at the end of the fourth season. Unfortunately, that is not an option today even if the show runners have hinted that we may not have seen the last of him.

Here are my views of the candidates:

Mack

I believe that Mack has shown leadership potential but, as I sometimes say, he seems to be more of a sergeant-type leader rather than a general-type leader. Others have described his ability as being more tactical rather than strategic, which is sort of the same thing. He can command a small group, but he does not seem like the sort of person who could lead a large organization. That is far too large a leap given his experience. Now that the Doctor is in Fitz, Mack may be the most moral of the characters, but it is a dogmatic morality. A Director needs to see greys.

In his favor, he led a successful uprising against the Kree toward the middle of the fifth season. Thanks to his leadership, the Lighthouse denizens gained their freedom... at least until Taryan arrives to avenge his sons' deaths by wiping humans into extinction. I suspect that Mack did not think that far in advance. He also did a good job as acting Director in "Maveth," when he effected the rescue of Simmons, Fitz, and Coulson.

May

If Coulson is not to be Director, on account of his habit of dying, then May is the most obvious choice of the main characters. She has the most experience in S.H.I.E.L.D. and has worked by Coulson's side for a long time. All the other characters respect her and look up to her. She is not heartless. She cares about the people below her, but she also does not let her emotions interfere with doing the right thing. She might be the member of the team who would be best at making hard choices.

Her main weakness is that she is more accustomed to being the person who does what is needed rather than being the person who can assign someone else with the duty of doing what is needed.

LMD Coulson

Assuming that LMD Coulson is regular Coulson only with super strength, immunity to bullets, etc., he would be the most obvious choice of the regular characters. He has the most experience in S.H.I.E.L.D. He worked directly with Nick Fury and was groomed as a successor. He is charismatic enough to earn strong loyalty from his subordinates, including people like Mack and Morse who initially did not trust him. If S.H.I.E.L.D. ever deals with the Avengers again, he already knows some of them and has their trust.

His main problem is that he sometimes lets his emotions get the best of him. To him, the needs of the few often outweigh the needs of the many, especially when the few happen to be his team. Even more especially when the few happen to be Daisy.

Daisy

Many people say that they see leadership potential in Daisy. I wish that they would say what exactly they see because I do not see any. She is not diplomatic. She is impulsive. She had a history of charging in to a situation without thinking. The people below her did not respect her, as Simmons's and Elena's mutiny showed. When Coulson named her to be his successor, her leadership experience consisted of a few months leading three people as part of the Secret Warriors. Of these three people, one quit, one died, and one took part in the mutiny.

Like a few other people on this page, she is a bit too young to lead a large organization like S.H.I.E.L.D. and a bit too inexperienced to be a good insider candidate while being on the inside too much to be a good outsider candidate.

The only thing that Daisy has going for her is blatant favoritism on the part of Coulson and of the writers.

While Elena was not offered as a choice, I would say that she shares many of the same flaws that Daisy has, only without the experience of leading the Secret Warriors.

Fitz

Fitz has one advantage that many of the others do not have: he has experience at the top of a large organization. The problem is that that this experience was being at the top of a very evil organization in a virtual reality. It will be a tricky balancing act for him to draw upon the useful experience without the negative influences of being a leader of evil.

If that part of Fitz were excised, then Fitz was arguably the most moral of the characters. Nearly all of the characters have killed people. Fitz is just about the only one who felt guilty afterwards. His problem was that he does not have a strong personality. He seemed to understand that Daisy was morally wrong when she violated civil rights to hunt down Watchdogs in "Watchdogs." He gave in to peer pressure and went with her anyway. In "T.A.H.I.T.I.," he participated in the Guesthouse raid, perhaps the most evil act committed by allegedly good characters who are not named Jemma Simmons. I question whether he would be capable of making the hard choices that a Director sometimes has to make. Also, his pre-Framework personality was far too emotionally dependent on Simmons for his own good.

Finally, ever since the final scene of the second season, Fitz has caused about half of the major problems that the team had to deal with and played a negative role in a few more. The question is not whether he should be put in charge but whether he should have been fired a long time ago. My guess is that he is retained only to prevent him from doing what Deke did in the sixth season.

Simmons

When this season is finished, I plan to look over Simmons's arc through all seven seasons of the show to answer the question of whether she is a generally good individual whose evil actions were out of character moments or if she is actually a despicable individual with any action that served the common good over her own interests being the out of character moments. Just about the only thing that I am sure of is that if she is intended to be a morally complex character, the writers are doing a very clumsy job.

In the fourth season she became a high ranking official in S.H.I.E.L.D. for some unknown reason. By "Self Control," with Burrows dead and Mace and Coulson trapped in the Framework, she was probably the highest ranking member of S.H.I.E.L.D. who was not incapacitated. Her actions showed her to be completely unqualified for top leadership regardless of her moral character. She had a duty to lead S.H.I.E.L.D. Instead, she went into the Framework just to save her boyfriend. While there, she did not perform well. Daisy may have been able to do better working alone. Worst of all, she did not even bother to brief Talbot on what was going on. The need to do so was so obvious that I assumed that showing her doing so was not worth any screen time (or not worth paying Adrian Pasdar for an extra episode). Had she done so, the Zephyr could have parked on the ground at an air force base safe from any of Ivanov's jets. The Zephyr could then use all of its energy running just Daisy in the Framework without having to spend energy flying or being cloaked. If it needed more energy, Talbot could probably provide it. Talbot could have sent people into the Playground sooner to clean up the mess and treat the wounded.

Also, if she were in charge, she would have to deal with a character mentioned above who has caused many of the worst problems that S.H.I.E.L.D. had to deal with. I do not trust Simmons to deal with that character objectively.

Sousa

Sousa is an interesting choice. I agree that he is capable, and it is likely that his experience running the Los Angeles office of S.H.I.E.L.D. would help. The problem was that, at least onscreen, he seemed to be little more than Peggy Carter's sidekick.

His major flaw is the one that was noted in the original post: he needs to learn a lot to catch up with the 2020 version of S.H.I.E.L.D. This means that he probably cannot become Director right away but, after a few years, he might be a better choice than any of the individuals listed above.

Deke

Deke has some advantages. He is charismatic. He is smart. He is good at adapting to new situations, perhaps unrealistically good. He has a strategic mind. He may whine, but, in the end, he does the right thing. As to him not being tactical, it is the Director's job to be strategic. It is the job of the subordinates to be tactical.

One problem is that he is learning to think of himself as being part of a team, but he is too used to looking out for himself first. This is not a good characteristic for the head of an organization. He also talks too much, which is not a good characteristic for the head of a spy organization. He inspired devotion from his employees, but I do not see him being able to do so with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Enoch

Enoch is a good person individual. He is very smart and appears to be the brains behind the current scheme to save earth from the Chronicoms. If S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to deal with more extra-terrestrial threats, it would help to have someone familiar with world beyond the solar system.

One problem is that Enoch is not a people person individual. As noted in a post above, he is not skilled in "bluffing" or in detecting "bluffing." Also, he is betraying his fellow Chronicoms. A willingness to betray does not engender trust.

L.T. Koenig

If the Director is to be someone we have seen before but not one of the regular characters, L.T. Koenig would be an interesting choice. She is a highly competent agent. She is tough and commands respect. She is apparently a third generation S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, which would be seen as an asset by those who would want an insider. However, Coulson seemed surprised to see that the mysterious "Gemini" was a Koenig, so I do not know how many people would know of her lineage.

Complete Outsider

There is one negative that I have not mentioned above because it applies to all the regular characters. S.H.I.E.L.D. was in a very poor condition when Nick Fury handed the Directorship to the team. Rather than rebuild the organization, they ended up running it into the ground. After the mess of the fourth season, it is not plausible for S.H.I.E.L.D. to exist in any capacity beyond a handful of vigilantes squatting in a long-forgotten base. If there is to be a S.H.I.E.L.D., it will have to undergo major reforms. I do not trust any insider to carry out these reforms especially one from the team that was at the top as S.H.I.E.L.D. finished its collapse.

Also, some agencies need to have civilian leadership if liberties are to be preserved. If I were to create a list of the types of agencies that most need civilian leadership, law enforcement agencies, spy agencies, and the military would probably be at the top of the list. At various times, S.H.I.E.L.D. has acted as each of the three. With very rare exceptions on this show, S.H.I.E.L.D. does not act as if it is accountable to anyone. Even when someone (often Talbot or someone working through Talbot) attempts to hold S.H.I.E.L.D. accountable, the team works to undermine accountability. What S.H.I.E.L.D. needs is someone a bit stronger than Jeffrey Mace who is willing to listen to the team but is also willing to tell them that either they will follow the new Director or they can find employment elsewhere.

Conclusion

If I had to rank the choices, they would be as follows:

1. An outsider (or L.T. Koenig)
2. LMD Coulson
3. May
4. Are you sure that it cannot be an outsider (or L.T. Koenig)?
5. If it has the be a regular character, why not Coulson?
6. OK, if it is not an outsider or Coulson, are you sure that it cannot be May?
7. Can it at least be an outsider, Coulson, or May until Sousa is ready to take over?
8. Fine, let it be Mack.
9. For the love of all that is holy, please not Daisy, Simmons, Fitz, Elena, or Deke.
10. You actually think that it should be Daisy, Simmons, Fitz, Elena, or Deke? Piper would be better.
11. Well, I suppose that Daisy, Simmons, Fitz, Elena, or Deke would be better than Snowflake.

I voted for Sousa, but never posted why... First,



This. If Thanos doesn't provoke Earth into defense from extra-terrestrial threats, then it deserves to get blown apart by Talbot...

We know SWORD is going to debut in WandaVision, it'll be interesting to see if it gets a larger role in the MCU.


However, I still have questions. There must still be a larger organization that must be SHIELD. Keller and Fox (red shirts from last season) were both in SHIELD for a few years. Who manages that side of the organization? Our director always seems to be off gallivanting someplace.

Also of question is whether they will follow the comic books and have SWORD be a division of SHIELD.


Anyway, Sousa.

Yeah, he's from 1955, but that doesn't mean he's useless. He's seen and experienced some incredible tech and information, but hasn't flinched beyond making a sarcastic remark or asking a question or two.

He's dog loyal, and his foe (Hydra) has been eliminated. He's free to invest his time into another threat.

He's already got clearance. Just because he's from 1955 doesn't mean he shouldn't see current intelligence.

He's the invisible man. He's been dead for 65 years. He has no history. Well, yeah, he does, but any intelligence anyone has on him is old enough to collect social security.

He's intelligent, hyper-aware, and takes risks to complete the mission.

(I've said the following before, so yeah, I'm repeating myself from another thread.)

Everyone on the Team has a role.

Coulson is a leader.
Daisy, Yo-Yo, May and Mack are field agents.
Simmons and Fitz are technical problem solvers.
Deke is comic relief, but is a competent field agent.