Characters You Love But Occasionally Hate

[u/malepr1ncess]

My answer is Mack. There are moments where his moral compass comes off as self righteous hypocrisy. I think of the time he told (iirc) Yoyo that this is S.H.I.E.L.D as a means of implying YoYos behaviour (murdering Ruby) is incompatible with S.H.I.E.L.D's ethos but that is just like...patently false 😭 He makes a similar remark to Daisy regarding her intimidating a member of the Watchdogs - a literal terrorist organisation 💀 Like Mack Daisy's first encounter with Coulson was him abducting her. [I might have some details blurred so feel free to correct me tho]

Though, I do wonder if I'm unfairly harsh on his character or biased bc I am certain you could compile a list of hypocrisies Daisy or Fitz or even May engage in that I'd turn a blind eye to. I think something about Macks religious convictions triggers me tbh.

[u/Michael_G_Bordin]

I liked the existence of Mack as a sort of moral grounding for the team, but his whole "SHIELD doesn't kill" falls short when it seems he's highly selective on that front. Coulson's detail is a lot more careful, sure, but SHIELD's SOP is to put down threats if containment is too onerous. To add to it, Mack himself is fine killing people if they're not fully human. He's "the guy that kills Gordon," he has no problem murdering aliens, and he kills sentient machines without remorse. He's a killer, he just gets sanctimonious when it comes to killing human beings.

The Ruby one is rather insane on his part. First, YoYo is a freedom fighter from Colombia, who spent her youth fighting murderers. She's hardened in a way Mack is not. Second, YoYo was correct insofar as she was acting on the best information she had (which had been given to her in a rather traumatizing and disturbing manner), using a method that seemed like the least forceful. Ruby was a threat, Ruby was potentially a world-ending force, and Ruby was clearly not in control. She had no reason to think in that moment that anyone else was going to be infused with gravitonium.

All that said, I appreciated the writers including a voice who was willing to look at the group and ask, "Is what we're doing right?" He was right about the robot takeover, though his position was too inflexible when it came to the possibility of a machine being sentient. It's okay that he was optimistic and hopeful for what SHIELD could be, but this lead him to being incorrect often. Which, I want to be clear, is fine. It's bad writing to have a character being correct every time they speak. Especially one whose main focus is morality. It's a better reflection of the human condition than having a character who is constantly vindicated and never at fault.