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

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

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there good canon evidence for the "Nightmare Matrix"?

On the Matrix wiki, there's an article about the Nightmare Matrix which says: The Nightmare Matrix was the second prototype Matrix, designed by The Architect after the massive failure of the Paradise Matrix in the hope that human minds would more readily accept an imperfect world with suffering. Unlike the first version, this Matrix instituted a basic cause-and-effect programming and forcibly made those connected to it accept the program. Vamp Prime, a possible remnant of the Nightmare Matrix. It also featured programs that resembled mythical evil creatures in various human mythologies such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, etc. It also failed, but many of the programs who were designed for it survived deletion in exile. The Merovingian and his wife, Persephone may have had their roots in this version of the Matrix. Upon its failure, the Merovingian started a smuggling ring of programs and information to provide a haven for exiles that would last for 6 cycles in the final ...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Anime with a boy hiring a creature from a stone, meets a man named Dante and starts a journey to collect crystals

I am from India, this anime or animated series (I can't remember this was made by the Japan or other countries) was aired between 2009 and 2012 probably in Jetix/Disney XD (but I'm not sure). This anime starts with a boy (the main character, I forgot his name) who find a stone (or crystal like thing) in his dad's property, his dad was missing that time. Some day he accidentally hire a creature/monster from that stone. Other day some creature attack him and he was saved by his creature and the story begins. In his journey to solve the mystery he meets a middle aged man 'Dante' (probably that was the name; this is the only character name I can remember). He had also some stone. After that they meet with one girl and a women (one of the girls is same age with the main boy character and probably will become his partner as the story goes on). Another women probably Dante's partner. Four of them started their journey to collect all the stone/crystal. They are collecti...
Post a Comment
Read more