Skip to main content

Men In Black: After Agent K's retirement, why was Agent J left as senior partner?


From my limited understanding, generally police-type agencies partner an experienced senior agent/detective with a junior one.


However, at the end of "Men In Black" movie, Agent K announces that he's ready to retire and he has been training Agent J as replacement:



I haven't been looking for a partner. I've been looking for a replacement.



Now, Agent J is a brand new green rookie - he was hired just a couple of days before (based on my understanding of movies' timeline); and doesn't know anything; see the scenes with Agent K explains obvious beginner type stuff to J, including how to identify a bug, or general methods and mission of MIB, or hell, the starting-off on the job:



Kay: Cool, whatever you say, slick, but I need to tell you something about all your skills. As of right now, they mean precisely... dick.




So, how come Agent J ends up being the senior partner once Agent K retires, instead of being partnered up with another senior agent till he stops being such a rookie?


NOTE: I'm specifically asking about the very end of MIB1, where Agent J is a senior partner to agent L - not about eventual MIB2 where J is obviously more experienced and more likely qualifies to be a senior partner.



Answer



I don't have any concrete canon information to back this up, but:


My guess would be that there are a limited number of people who they (the MiB org) would consider as a field agent, as the field agents likely get exposed to a slew of more exotic experiences than the people who work on base. Therefore they would need people who can handle all the weirdness on a constant basis and not break down. Secondly, they would also want an agent that is already familiar with the retiring agent's patrol region; in this case NYC and the surrounding area. This would limit agent's getting lost when on duty or making cultural gaffes when trying to make up new histories for the people they flash.


Considering the two above points, which may or may not be valid, it may take a considerable amount of time to find someone who can work in the field. After all, by the start of MiB2 agent J had retired a number of candidates and was in the process of washing another. Zed, while upset at having lost another candidate, was not overly discouraged, which would seem to indicate that it was not uncommon for it to take a while to find agents. Add to this that the field agents seem to work in pairs (at the start of MiB there was only K and his partner) there just may have not been another unpaired senior agent available in the NYC area.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more