Relationship Spotlight: Alphonso Mackenzie & Leo Fitz (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

Oh, how I love Fitz and Mack in season 2 – I mean, they’re still friends, but season 2 is when they first became friends, and I think it’s the best showcase for their relationship.  Even before you consider all the plot stuff going on with Fitz at the time, it helps with a much-needed shakeup in the group dynamics, and I like how we get to know Mack through his friendship with Fitz (season 2 spoilers.)

Fitz begins season 2 in a seriously rough spot.  His near-fatal encounter with Ward at the end of season 1 leaves him with cognitive, speech, and motor difficulties, Simmons has left for reasons he doesn’t understand, and rather than leaning on his other friends and colleagues for help, he’s retreated into working through his confused thoughts by talking to an imaginary Simmons.  He’s frustrated that nothing comes easily for him anymore and afraid that he’ll be let go from the team because he’s not quick or consistent enough in performing the work they need.  When he interacts with the likes of Skye, May, Coulson, and Trip, he feels like a) they think he’s useless now and b) they pity him because all they can see is who he used to be and who he is now.

Enter Mack, savvy mechanic and all-around decent guy.  He didn’t know Fitz before the traumatic injury, so he has no preconceived notions about who Fitz ought to be.  Instead, Mack meets him as he is now – struggling but far from incapable – and he treats him as such.  He starts reaching out to Fitz is small, easy ways, offering a pair of fresh eyes on tech stuff and treating Fitz’s agitated idiosyncracies as no big deal.

It could be argued that Mack is brought in as a “Fitz whisperer” and functions mainly to facilitate his storyline, but I think this relationship is so important for what it says about Mack as well.  True, this storyline is Fitz’s, and Mack doesn’t get much of his own plot until the second half of the season.  However, through their friendship, we learn a lot about what sort of person Mack is.

I love Mack’s interactions with Fitz so much.  He doesn’t walk on eggshells around Fitz at all, talking to him straight and not skirting around mentions of Fitz’s disability.  While the others sort of hold their breath and hope Fitz will be able to sort out whatever techy business they need him to do, Mack fully expects that Fitz has a handle on it, even if it takes him some time to get there.  But at the same time, Mack also gets that Fitz does need certain accommodations to get things done and he facilitates those accommodations in a nonchalant manner.  Helping Fitz fill in the words he’s missing due to his aphasia is of course the big one here, but I also like how he’s tuned into other stuff as well, like when there are too many people in the lab and Fitz needs solitude to concentrate.

Truly, these guys become friends, plain and simple.  When Simmons comes back and “thanks” Mack for being so kind to Fitz, you can feel how genuine he is when he’s all, “Um, no thanks required.”  She’s looking at Fitz from a medical model of disability, as someone to help and assist, while Mack sees him from a social model, whereby he’s just a regular guy, albeit one with some unique circumstances.  For Mack, it’s weird to be thanked for befriending Fitz, because he doesn’t view it as some great thing he did.  It’s just friendship.  Fitz starts opening up to Mack about personal struggles, just as Mack talks to Fitz about his doubts/worries with regard to some of Coulson’s orders.  They shoot the breeze and play video games together, and after Mack’s horrific experience in the Temple, being temporarily taken over by some Kree force, it’s Fitz’s turn to reach out, and he tries to get Mack to talk about what happened to him.  Both are able to be there for the other, and both are able to pull each other up.

Relationship Spotlight: Alphonso Mackenzie & Elena Rodriguez a.k.a. Yo-Yo (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

Gotta love Mack and Yo-Yo, seriously.  I love them separately, I love them together – even though Natalia Cordova-Buckley’s recurring status means that their relationship is kind of backburnered by necessity, I enjoy every second we get of them and eagerly wait for more (a few spoilers.)

Given the setup, it could’ve gone in a very different direction.  These two come into each other’s sphere when Mack is investigating a potential Inhuman criminal who turns out to be Yo-Yo.  But Yo-Yo’s not a villain.  She’s a fledgling vigilante trying to take down the gangs making her city unsafe.  Despite a tense first meeting with Yo-Yo tying up Mack and the two of them stumbling to communicate across language, both are ultimately able to get a glimpse of who the other really is.  Just like Yo-Yo’s not really a baddie, Mack isn’t, as he initially looks from her perspective, a shadowy agent on a government payroll looking to lock her up in a hole somewhere and leave her there.  In both cases, the circumstances are more complex than they first seem.

Can we take a second to admire how cool it is that Mack falls for an Inhuman?  Between his burgeoning romance with Yo-Yo and his partnership with Daisy, Mack is a poster boy about how people’s biases can change through actually getting to know someone that they’re programmed to mistrust.  With Daisy, it was a matter of Mack discovering that someone he already knew and valued as a friend was an Inhuman, whereas with Yo-Yo, Mack meets her already knowing what she can do, already thinking a certain way about her, but when he gets to know her, he’s able to see and love her for the person that she is.  With both, he needs a little time getting there, but that doesn’t lessen what he feels when he does.

Since then, Yo-Yo and Mack have been equal parts awesome/badass and cute.  I love they they both simultaneously work on learning more of the other’s language (since TV generally doesn’t like a ton of subtitles, we usually get Yo-Yo speaking English rather than Mack speaking Spanish these days, but the fact remains that both of them put in the work to learn.)  Mack worries about Yo-Yo’s safety and she tells him not worry, she tries to protect him when he’s in trouble, and both will go to great lengths for the other’s well-being.

Things have been moving gradually between them, particularly since Yo-Yo is someone S.H.I.E.L.D. calls in when they need her rather than a full-time member of the team, and at first, both of them are too aloof to admit they want to see each other just for the sake of it, instead couching it all in a work relationship.  But they’re making progress, and more than just the physical side.  Yo-Yo learning about Hope this past season was huge – even though that reveal starts with a fight, after Mack has been keeping secrets and Yo-Yo’s been feeling distrustful, things are taken to a new level when Mack is able to be that open with her.  A lot of their relationship might have been inching along in the background, but there’s been enough movement that, by the end of the season, I can fully believe how much Yo-Yo is willing to risk on Mack’s behalf.

Favorite Characters: Alphonso Mackenzie (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

Who doesn’t love Mack?  I’ve liked him pretty much from the first, and one of my most unshakeable Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. beliefs (along with May and Bobbi being too awesome for words) is that I always want more of him than the show gives me.  Despite his two-seasons-and-counting on the show, he still has a tendency to feel like a second-tier character, there to support others more than have stories of his own.  It feels like we’ve finally made a little headway this season, but I’m still eager to see much more of Mack (Mack-related spoilers.)

A topnotch engineer, Mack comes to Coulson’s team as a mechanic and quickly proves how valuable he is.  He has a sharp understanding of the ins and outs of machines, which comes in handy given how often their vehicles and other equipment get damaged on missions.  He also has enough tech-savviness to be an essential colleague for Fitz, who struggles with communicating after his injuries at the end of season 1 – Mack is able to follow Fitz’s train of thought where he’s trying to take it and bridge some of the gaps between Fitz’s knowledge and his speech difficulties.  And though he initially backs off from Coulson’s suggestion that he expand his scope within the team and become a field agent, citing that he doesn’t like violence, he eventually becomes a strong agent in the field, working with Daisy to approach Inhumans in season 3.

That last point is a development I like a lot, because we see Mack’s wariness of alien stuff through much of season 2.  I suppose that, even though he’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. veteran, he spent much of that time in an engine room or a garage and didn’t have as many encounters with the bizarre and unexplainable.  So, when he starts to see that stuff close-up in season 2 – the lingering effects T.A.H.I.T.I. has on Coulson, the emergence of the Inhumans – it freaks him out.  Plus, like Simmons, he’s also hit really hard by what happens in the Kree temple, and that only amps up his distrust of anything alien.  In light of all that, it’s great to see him learn to recognize the full range of Inhumans:  that, just like anyone else, they can be good, bad, or something in-between.  I really like his partnership with Daisy and how close they become.

In general, Mack is just a pretty excellent guy.  He has a lot of compassion and empathy for others, he’s good at reaching out to those who need it, and he’s incredibly loyal.  Season 4 was his biggest foray to date into character development.  Through his newish relationship with Yo-Yo (who’s totally awesome, by the way – Mack/Yo-Yo forever and lots more Yo-Yo in season 5, please!), we start getting hints of things about Mack that he’s never shared with the rest of the team.  Namely, that he had a daughter (Hope) from a previous marriage who died shortly after her birth.  When he and other members of the team are plugged into the Framework in late season 4, the “one regret” it corrects for him is Hope’s death, and for a few shining moments, Mack is an absolutely lovely father in the midst of the dystopian Hydra-ruled hellscape.  It’s wrenching to see how wonderful Hope is – nicknamed “Sparkplug,” she’s inherited her father’s mechanical knowhow, is filled with curiosity, and still manages to maintain a little innocence (thanks to Mack’s papa-bear protection of her) despite the aforementioned hellscape.  With Hope, he see just how deep Mack’s love and loyalty runs.  Even upon learning that Hope doesn’t really exist and he’s in a fake world that’s slowly flickering out, Mack refuses to leave her, and it’s only through the most herculean of efforts that Yo-Yo is able to convince him to save himself.  When Mack is on your side, he will never give up on you.