Clark Gregg wasn't lying when he said S.H.I.E.L.D. will never be the same after the Season 3 finale episode. In the 6-month flashforward tease for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4, Coulson and Mack are on a stakeout to find Daisy, who went rogue after the whole Hive ordeal. Through a pair of binoculars, Coulson witnesses Daisy speaking with the late Charles Hinton’s wife, Polly. Mack and Coulson go after her, but come up empty. Mack radio’s for backup and says, “Call the director.” Wait, what?
So who is the new S.H.I.E.L.D. director?
The intuitive answer to this is Agent Melinda May, Coulson’s #1 confidante. It’s unclear at this point if Coulson willingly left his position as Director, or if he was pushed out after openly declaring his support for Team Captain America against the Sokovia Accords. If he willingly left, it’s probably because he’s too preoccupied searching for Daisy to run S.H.I.E.l.D. If this is the case, it’s most likely that he or Nick Fury has appointed Agent May in the interim. But if Coulson was pushed out or forced to step down, it’s unlikely the next director was appointed from within considering the events of Civil War.
“I thought I was going to find out when I saw Civil War , but it’s not at all clear. It all depends when the glorious Nick Fury [Samuel L. Jackson] returns from the cold and the shadows. I suspect, in the wake of the Sokovia Accords and the end of Civil War , the people involved in choosing who the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be are other than in-house S.H.I.E.L.D. people. If I know my government bureaucracies, I have a feeling it will be someone somewhat less qualified than Coulson to run S.H.I.E.L.D,” Clark Gregg told Entertainment Weekly.
“Since it’s clear that Coulson is Team Cap, Jed [Whedon] and Maurissa [Tancharoen] have fiendishly put Coulson on the spot, because Hive [Brett Dalton] turned out to be the living embodiment of all the reasons why you would be afraid of Inhumans,” Gregg continued. “He was the greatest argument that the people who support the Sokovia Accords could ever have for locking them all up. Coulson had to ride the line where he was trying to respect these new iterations of humanity as friends and allies, and at the same time stop Hive at all costs.”
If it was up to Agent Coulson or Clark Gregg, the new director is May. “I’d love it if it was [her],” Gregg said. “That would be magnificent. She has earned that right and she is a commander that Coulson would absolutely follow with absolute loyalty.”
However, if the government wants to thoroughly sweep S.H.I.E.L.D. to closely monitor all their missions, Agent May probably isn’t the smartest option because she’s so tight with Agent Coulson.
“I didn’t get the sense from Captain America: Civil War that S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to be turned over to autonomous management,” Gregg says. “The governments of the world have always been very wary of S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s hard to image the actions of Team Cap have necessarily allayed those suspicions or fears.”
As much as I love Agent May, it would be terrible to see her behind a desk instead of kicking ass or piloting the Quinjet. Who do you think is the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D? Sound off in the comments below!
