“[1970s conspiracy thriller] works particularly well with Steve Rogers because it puts him on the back foot and makes him a fugitive in a way. You need to put him in parallel in order to
like Captain America. He is so pure and so symbolic that if he is in charge and
everybody likes him, it becomes a little infuriating. But if the only person he
can trust is himself and he is in the shadows, then he becomes a hero. He is a
character with a very simple arc: he has a moral code, he acts on his
principles. The most interesting version of this character is literally to see
him get the crap beaten out of him. You want to see him go through trials of
great pain and anguish because it makes you feel all that much better when he
does finally win.”
“This is a critical moment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is when SHIELD turns bad. In one scene you realize that something is going on on a much deeper level than anybody is aware of and clearly that the enemy is within. And I think this [scene] was able to reflect the audience’s sense of tension and 8 movies of build up to this elevator sequence. I think that’s why this is such an effective sequence because you’re in the same place Cap is. You have all this historical information telling you that SHIELD is good. And in about 5 minutes you’re discovering that they’re rotten to the core.“
Incidentally, do we know Rumlow and Sitwell’s clearance levels? In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. it’s a pretty big deal; I believe Fury is level 10 and Coulson level 8. Do we know how high up the ladder HYDRA’s operatives are?
Rumlow’s level flashes up on the lift display when they’re setting up the ambush on Steve. I took a few screencaps but it’s pretty hard to make out:
The two STRIKE guys who enter the lift after him are level 4, and Steve is level 8. It seems unlikely that Rumlow would have the same clearance level as Steve and Coulson, so assuming he outranks the other STRIKE members he must be level 5 or 6. (I think we can eliminate level 7 even from those blurry screenshots).
I still haven’t watched most of AoS so I don’t know where we might have seen Sitwell’s level there, but I’ll keep an eye out when (if) I ever manage to force myself to sit through the rest of the series.
I hadn’t spotted that detail, good thinking! I personally think Rumlow is somewhere around level 7-8, though; Fitz and Simmons are level 5, and as STRIKE team commander Rumlow would outrank everyone on Coulson’s team in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. except Coulson himself and maybe Melinda May (they would probably be equally ranked). May and Ward are both level 7, but Ward takes orders from May and would also take orders from Rumlow, so it appears either accumulated battlefield experience or some other ranking system is in play; probably the clearance levels dictate what information an agent can access but not their actual rank within S.H.I.E.L.D.’s hierarchy of command? Also, the levels appear to be somewhat fluid since only agents level 7 and above are supposed to know about Coulson’s death and revival post-Avengers yet obviously Skye (consultant/level 1), Fitz and Simmons (level 5), Triplett (level 6), and a whole host of other agents are aware that he’s alive.
I did a bit of poking around and found a list, though I don’t know how accurate it is. Interestingly, it has both Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton at level 7 but Steve Rogers at level 8. Jasper Sitwell is also level 7, which is lower than I would’ve pegged him for.
I’ll need to look closer into this! Thank you so much for the assistance. :>
No worries! Obsessing about minor details is apparently how I pass my time on Sunday afternoons
I just dug up AoS 1×07 and Sitwell definitely shows up as level 7:
That link’s reasoning for putting Natasha and Clint at level 7 is that the helicarrier was staffed by personnel of at least level 7 during The Avengers — but Natasha and Clint could still be higher than level 7, presumably.
I think it does make sense to assume that clearance levels are a separate system to the chain of command. As you say, Ward answers to May even though they’re both apparently the same clearance level. In which case maybe Rumlow is only level 6 because he’s not involved with the higher-level planning stuff at SHIELD, just leads STRIKE on missions? Does anyone in AoS ever mention about where Coulson’s team would stand relative to STRIKE in terms of authority?
One of the things conveniently left out of how MCU talks about clearance levels is that they make them unilateral – which is not how it really works. Clearances are typically based around an area of operations/duties. The technical term is compartmentalized. When I was in the service I was allowed to have a high level of information that directly pertained to my job but that didn’t mean I was entitled to be read in on everything at my clearance level. The reverse was also true, just because someone else had my clearance level (or higher) didn’t mean they were entitled to know anything about my job.
So I can easily see that someone on a STRIKE team might have a lower clearance level. We are talking about people that are out in the field with a decent level of capture. They might very deliberately not be read in on helicarrier operations or some of the inner workings of SHIELD – 1) they don’t need them 2) if they don’t need to know they they won’t know. And finally if Rumlow and company were based at the Triskelon they wouldn’t need the higher clearance levels anyway.
It’s also not uncommon to have mission specific information that transcends clearance levels that you are technically entitled to. That gets labeled ‘mission sensitive’ and you end up with an exception in your file that covers that bit.
And to further complicate it with MCU CATWS meta – Rumlow is clearly Pierce’s active muscle. He leads the attack on the control room so he has a lot more information about SHIELD as well as Cap that he would normally be expected to have. [We also don’t know what areas of the building that Rumlow would be expected to have.]
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