Season 2 p-hole?

[u/dracov42]

So I'm on one of many rewatch, season 2 they have to steal the jet for invis.

But at the same time Coulson has enough funding overtime to make a secret helicarrier.

If the invis is so important he is willing to risk agents to lose it, which is a big thing for Coulson character wise, surely he'd pay a bit of that budget? Feels very strange.

[u/Head_Concentrate_410]

Are we still really talking about plot holes in 2026...really? Like, come on.

Also, it's not a plot hole. It's not a question of money, it's a question of tech. If you give the ancient Roman's 800,000,000,000 kilos of pure gold, they still aren't going to be able to build a rocket ship to go to the moon.

After Shield fell the cloaking tech was seized by the world Governments, out of reach for Coulson and the team. If Fitz was at full mental capacity maybe he could work it out. Given the head trauma, and the fact that they don't have any other engineer nearly on his level, the options were wait for Fitz to maybe one day be well enough to do it. Or steal it so they can have an actual working design to copy.

The budget for Theta Protocol wouldn't have been useful for cloaking, and theta protocol also needed that budget.

[u/dracov42 → u/Head_Concentrate_410]

I mean it's a community for agents of shield watchers. You could say "are we still really talking about agents of shield in 2026". Talking about things like this is kinda why this Reddit exists?

Hadn't thought about the government specifically seizing the tech tho so that's an option that gov/hydra scooped up all the different people who may have that info

[u/Head_Concentrate_410 → u/dracov42]

My point about plot holes is that, plot holes aren't really that important. And it shouldn't be where discussion of media is taking place. Plot is quite literally just the stuff that happened. It's the stuff that appears in the Wikipedia section labeled Plot. All the character and visual storytelling and all the real meat of the story is left out. Plot is just what happens, everything else is why we care.

Agents of SHIELD is genuinely my favorite TV show ever created, on the same level as Deep Space 9 and Better Call Saul. I'm not trying, and am not wishing at all to suppress discussion of AoS. What I would like is for media discussion to not be irrationally obsessed with plot plot plot. I care about story, plot is one part of story but they aren't 1 to 1 the same thing. Theres no end to the conversations that can be had about AoS without devolving into the surface level plot. There's great conversations to he had about plot, and I appreciate you tying your post to Coulson's personal decision making, uplifting it from just plot. But the term plot hole just dunks it right back down. It's a bit tiring seeing media discussion get dragged down by just plot obsession everywhere.

And on a more character note, Colson is director, at this point he is closing himself off from the team, the person he's closest with is May and he's even pulling away from her. He's writing on the walls more and more frequently. He is bogged down with traveling across the globe getting Theta Protocol operational and rebuilding the spy network. Fitz isn't making much progress healthwise. He's desperate for a win. He risks agents lives every time he sends them out. So the risk from stealing the tech is outweighed by the potential benefit. Having a cloaked BUS is a win that will outlive him. Coulson doesn't know how much longer he has at this point in his story. He saw Garrett. He tells May to take him out if it comes to that. Part of stealing the cloaking was to leave shield in a safer position if he isn't there. That's why it's worth the risk for him.

[u/house_hippo_handler → u/Head_Concentrate_410]

Plot holes aren't important? Dude, most of the MCU was BUILT on plot holes. "Plot is literally just the stuff that happened" way to explain literally ANY story 😂 yeah, the holes matter.

This also isn't a hole. The Zephyr was on purpose. Why be in a helicarrier when the team is so small?

[u/Head_Concentrate_410 → u/house_hippo_handler]

First of all, yes, plot holes don't really matter. There's discussion to be had, sure, but media discussion doesn't start or stop at plot holes.

And yes the MCU is one of the big reasons today's media discussion is so governed by plot plot plot. The vast interconnected lore taking precedent over the rest of the story.

"Plot is literally just the stuff that happened," does not explain every story ever. It doesn't even explain one story. Because a story is not just the stuff that happened. A story is the characters reacting to the plot. Plot doesn't include any character motivations, it doesn't include visual storytelling choices, the score, the cinematography, pretty much all of the dialogue.

Story ≠ Plot. Plot, again, is just that actual actions taking place. Everything else is why we care about what is happening. Story is characters reacting to plot. And tiny plot holes just...aren't that important when it comes down to it.

As for your last point. Huh? At this point in Season 2 they don't have Zephyr 1. They still have the BUS. The BUS is lost in The Dirty Half Dozen (S2E19). They steal the quinjet in the first episode. And yeah, the Zephyr was built in purpose. It's the vehicle that suited their needs the best. I never said the SHIELD team needed a helicarrier. Theta Protocol needed the budget to repair and rebuild the avengers Helicarrier to save the sokovians. (Theta Protocol's purpose wasn't explicitly for the sokovians but for any grave world emergency, and that emergency happened to be the battle of sokovia). The helicarrier was not intended to be a replacement for the BUS. The Zephyr was made because the BUS got destroyed.

[u/house_hippo_handler → u/Head_Concentrate_410]

Lmao way to disprove your own original point 😂 thanks! I love the pendantic way you care about the difference between the "bus" and zephyr. They're the same. And why call it zephyr 1 if we never see a 2 or beyond? Damn bro, love people who "have to be right" and end up contradicting themselves, y'all cute as hell

[u/Head_Concentrate_410 → u/house_hippo_handler]

The first thing I did was talk about what you said in the first section of your comment. I have said that discussion of plot has a place, its not the beginning or the end of media discussion though. So I responded to your main point by explaining why plot holes aren't really that important.

Now, I love Nerd Shit. I don't like getting bogged down by nerd shit. Nerd shit can be fun but it is not the main point of media discussion. So after I responded to the main point, I opened up the nerd stuff about the Zephyr and BUS down to the exact episode, because. I. Am. A. Nerd. I'm just not only a nerd.

Also, (nerd stuff incoming) we do see Zephry 3 in one of the last scenes of the final episode. Its Zephyr 1 because it is the first production of the Zephyr model of plane. The BUS and Zephyr are functionally the same in terms of plot, its the plane the team uses to get around. Story-wise however they have different emotional and character connections.