Uh, Clash of Red and Black. Shuichi and Shinichi/Conan essentially circumvent their own allies (and in Shuichi's case, he really violated the chain of command) and make their own plan. Their justification (even if Shinichi/Conan never really says things like this, Shuichi does) seems to be that Jodie and James (and the rest of the FBI, for that matter) are just not up to it. They use the same justification ("yes, you are allies, but you're allies who aren't competent enough to realize our plan, and you'd ruin it if you figured it out.") in Scarlet Showdown, when Shuichi's fake death is revealed. If anything, Gosho has had Jodie and Andre display incompetence and has had them not get things as quickly as they should (just look at them completely stumped by such a simple mystery in Scarlet Epilogue), so that Shuichi's and Shinichi's/Conan's deceptions seem completely justified. Gosho seems to have no desire to have Jodie and Andre keep pace with Shuichi.
This is a rather uncharitable reading of their motives (also where does Akai say that?). It's not a matter of the FBI not being up to keeping Akai's secret, just the basic principle that the less people in the know the less chance the secret has of getting out. Imagine if Jodie or Camel had come across Scar Akai and they knew Akai was alive and undercover. The risk that their initial reactions would gave spilled the beans vindicates Akai's reasoning. This isn't really a matter of competence or not. Besides that, Akai has good reason not to trust Camel on the particular point of keeping his secret, as Camel had already outed Akai once before. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain Akai told James what he was planning. After all, James noticed the glue on Akai's fingertips when he grabbed him, and while non-canon, the scene at the end of movie 18 seems to confirm that James was in on it. So Akai didn't really violate the chain of command.
And no, Gosho doesn't want Jodie and Camel to be Akai's equals; as I said, Akai is Gosho's pet and still the most special FBI agent, both as a member of the organization and as a player in the story. I just don't think that means that Jodie and Camel are hopelessly incompetent.
(I was annoyed by that scene in the epilogue, though, especially right after Jode just figured out Akai's whole elaborate death plan on her own. I agree that scene was poorly conceived of and written)
Allow me to add on to my earlier statement—the FBI have been dumbed down to make the BO more intimidating, and to make Shinichi/Conan and Shuichi seem even cooler and more on top of things.
I think Jodie and Camel have been dumbed down maybe once or twice to make the BO more intimidating (Sakura shrine case), but I don't agree with your addition. Akai has always been a better agent than Jodie and Camel, but that doesn't make them bad anymore than Conan being the smartest detective in the series makes everyone else stupid. I just can't agree with this notion when Scarlet Showdown went out of its way to show Jodie's and Camel's merits as agents. (And yes, the scene in the epilogue is an example of exactly what you're saying. However, a lot of my dislike for it comes from it being inconsistent with the portrayal of FBI agents
within the very same case, not because it was yet another example of the FBI being dumbed down).
Since the Halloween Party case, Jodie has not made a deduction like she did, back then. Her deduction in Scarlet Showdown is just not on the same level.
This seems like a rather arbitrary judgment. What is it about her deduction in Scarlet that's not on the same level? If anything it's more impressive, because she made it in far less time, and the only clue that tipped her off was Conan's scared face, which could have meant any number of things. Instead, with only a fraction of the hints the readers had to figure out Akai's faked death, she put the whole thing together, with assistance from no one.
That's not the argument I see being made—rather, I see the argument, "This resolution isn't worth 200+ Files of waiting."
Maybe not in this particular thread perhaps, but I've certainly seen it made.
Vermouth in that recent case, Haibara to a degree after the Confrontation with Vermouth
Could you elaborate on this? I'm not sure I see it.