Agents of SHIELD season three. [Spoilers]

[The Romulan Republic]

Midseason finale starting in less than an hour.

Which means we'll be getting Agent Carter again soon.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, not the worst way to wrap up the first half of the season, though not the best either.

Warning: Big Spoilers:






So long, Grant Ward... maybe. I was rather surprised that Coulson actually straight up executed him in cold blood with his bare hands. Even Fitz, who has pretty good reason to hate Ward, seemed pretty disturbed by it.

On the other hand, we finally have an answer to who would win in a fight between Grant Ward and Phil Coulson.

At first it seemed like they went for a pretty definitive happy ending to the episode, and I wasn't sure where the rest of the season would go from there. But then that last scene... I thought it would be Lash meeting up with Malik, but no... its Ward... maybe. I'm guessing its the super inhuman impersonating a dead man like he did with Will (cheap way to resolve the FitzSimmons love triangle, by the way). Not sure how it got to Earth though. You'd think Mack, Fitz, Coulson, and Daisy would have seen it come through the porthole. Also no explanation on how Malik escaped his castle getting bombed by SHIELD.

Incidentally, the alien really didn't seem all that powerful in the end, besides having ridiculous regenerative and apparent shapeshifting capabilities. I mean, Fitz could hold it off for a while in hand to hand combat. A lot of build up for what so far seems to be a fairly weak threat.

Oh, and Lash is still out their, and maybe all evil now. Nice going their, Simmons. I have a feeling things will be unpleasant between May and Simmons if her role in that gets out.

On the other hand, Mack was pretty good for the most part as acting director. And I still really like Daisy, at least most of the time.

One more thing... I'm getting a very strong impression, between Andrew and Rosalin being out of the picture and the way their reunion was juxtaposed with Fitz and Simmons', that we're going to finally get May and Coulson as a couple soon, though its still ambiguous.

Edit: Also, religious zealot Ward was really creepy, in an annoying way.

[The Romulan Republic]

One touch I very much like was how obviously uncomfortable Fitz was about Coulson killing Ward. Fitz has excellent reasons to hate Ward, and spent much of the episode making his contempt for Ward clear, and even tried to attack him at least once. But he still was disturbed by the fact that Coulson murdered (or more charitable, executed) Ward for revenge. It underscored the seriousness and darkness of Coulson's actions without being heavy handed about it.

[Solauren]

To remind everyone, the thing that was Will and is now Ward is not an alien. It's an Inhuman.

And am I the only one that noticed the thing coming out of the dead-will bodies mouth?

I probably slithered over to Ward real fast (some snakes are really fast) without Coulson and Fitz noticing, ran it's new body to the portal and jumped in.

By that point, May had launched missiles, and Coulson and co were already running.

I very much doubt their escape from the portal went

"Sir, May is launching missiles, we need to stay around to make sure the portal closes"

Odds are, Inhumane-Possessed Ward made it out of the Portal as or after the Missiles hit. And while the castle itself was a write off, some of it is still standing.

[Gaidin]

Incidentally, the alien really didn't seem all that powerful in the end, besides having ridiculous regenerative and apparent shapeshifting capabilities. I mean, Fitz could hold it off for a while in hand to hand combat. A lot of build up for what so far seems to be a fairly weak threat.

HYDRA has built it up through it's own mythology I think. Even to itself. It may find itself surprised at what this thing really is. By the time they formed their little order it was already gone from the planet, largely thrown out in an era of mostly superstitious peoples in the Dark Ages at latest. In the end? Another Inhuman with some rather useful albeit utilitarian powers. This day and age? Who knows what they'll think when it comes down to actual analysis. And who knows what his actual powers are yet until we actually see them in play.

Oh, and Lash is still out their, and maybe all evil now. Nice going their, Simmons. I have a feeling things will be unpleasant between May and Simmons if her role in that gets out.

Desperate Simmons will be Desperate. I think Lash isn't evil so much as just Lash. I'm willing to bet he's gon full Inhuman and finished his transformation. My curiosity is how much his old personality effects things and how much the aggressiveness of Lash will have truly taken over. Or just what kind of personality Lash really has. There was so little of that seen, if any. Because it was the old personality effecting the target selection. If it's just Lash now? Roll your dice, we might have a non-Rage version of Hulk here who can...you know...talk. So to speak.

On the other hand, Mack was pretty good for the most part as acting director. And I still really like Daisy, at least most of the time.

I would've actually paid money to see them stuck on the other planet for more than one episode and have a SHIELD vs HYDRA Inhumans thing going on forcing Mack to make more tough calls as they figure out the way back. But my theory is this little conflict now is how SHIELD gets back in some good graces here. ATCU has literally deceived superiors on what they're doing incidentally, and who's the only people in a position to help? Though I would have kept Rosalin and a loyal guest star or two around to help with that fight.

[Me2005]

I probably slithered over to Ward real fast (some snakes are really fast) without Coulson and Fitz noticing, ran it's new body to the portal and jumped in.

By that point, May had launched missiles, and Coulson and co were already running.

I very much doubt their escape from the portal went

"Sir, May is launching missiles, we need to stay around to make sure the portal closes"

Odds are, Inhumane-Possessed Ward made it out of the Portal as or after the Missiles hit. And while the castle itself was a write off, some of it is still standing.

Personally, I'm kind of tired of the screen tricks they keep using to make it seem like the SHIELD agents are way more awesome than they need to be, without showing how they actually pulled them off. This has got to be the 3rd or 4th time they've had a really tight deadline, shown the clock ticking to 0, and then shown the place where the agent was exploding/falling/flooding/etc., and then revealing that the agent was actually totally fine and made it out unscathed.

In this instance, giving the agents an hour or so instead of the 15 minutes (coincidentally, also the amount of show time left when they showed it, so that all happened live and they traveled a few miles by foot in 15 minutes) to get to the portal, then fighting Ward & Death, then casually leaving when it opened and rushing to the container before Hydra breached their defense could have been more suspenseful. Now it seems like old hat for them to escape impossible circumstances.

That would have also made DeathWard's escape less implausible.

Incidentally, the alien really didn't seem all that powerful in the end, besides having ridiculous regenerative and apparent shapeshifting capabilities. I mean, Fitz could hold it off for a while in hand to hand combat. A lot of build up for what so far seems to be a fairly weak threat.

HYDRA has built it up through it's own mythology I think. ...

Eh, Hydra did have a pile of inhumans to give as a 'gift' to DeathWard. I think it might be really good at the inhuman thing. I also suspect it may not be an actual inhuman, but some alien that can infect and use inhumans as puppets and doesn't die.

Oh, and Lash is still out their, and maybe all evil now. Nice going their, Simmons. I have a feeling things will be unpleasant between May and Simmons if her role in that gets out.

Desperate Simmons will be Desperate. I think Lash isn't evil so much as just Lash. I'm willing to bet he's gon full Inhuman and finished his transformation. My curiosity is how much his old personality effects things and how much the aggressiveness of Lash will have truly taken over. Or just what kind of personality Lash really has. There was so little of that seen, if any. Because it was the old personality effecting the target selection. If it's just Lash now? Roll your dice, we might have a non-Rage version of Hulk here who can...you know...talk. So to speak.

I suspect Lash's purpose will be to either kill DeathWard for good or become DeathLash. He seems to know something is up with inhumans that regular humans shouldn't mess with, as he (usually) leaves regular humans be. Of course, as you note, that might just be the doctor's remaining personality holding him back.

On the other hand, Mack was pretty good for the most part as acting director. And I still really like Daisy, at least most of the time.

I would've actually paid money to see them stuck on the other planet for more than one episode and have a SHIELD vs HYDRA Inhumans thing going on forcing Mack to make more tough calls as they figure out the way back.

Yeah, dragging an arc out to more than just the one episode doesn't seem to be the way they like to do things. Sometimes that bugs me (the above complaint included), but other times it's nice to see the result of their operations wrapped nicely up in one episode.

[Iroscato]

Great way to round off the first half of the series, and it had me genuinely shocked at some points. Coulson crushing Ward's chest until he died was uh...sickening to watch. I mean, wouldn't it be kinder to put a bullet in his head? Either way that was a VERY dark moment for Coulson and one that I won't be forgetting for a while...and neither will Fitz, by the look of things.

As to Coulson vs Ward: bear in mind Ward had just been shot twice, and his hands were bound. Even then, he gave Coulson a pretty good fight.

[Gaidin]

Well, Injured Specialist vs Agent. I actually liked that it was still a good fight.

[The Romulan Republic]

To remind everyone, the thing that was Will and is now Ward is not an alien. It's an Inhuman.

And am I the only one that noticed the thing coming out of the dead-will bodies mouth?

I probably slithered over to Ward real fast (some snakes are really fast) without Coulson and Fitz noticing, ran it's new body to the portal and jumped in.

By that point, May had launched missiles, and Coulson and co were already running.

I very much doubt their escape from the portal went

"Sir, May is launching missiles, we need to stay around to make sure the portal closes"

Odds are, Inhumane-Possessed Ward made it out of the Portal as or after the Missiles hit. And while the castle itself was a write off, some of it is still standing.

Well, being possessed by an inhuman snake makes this even more a Stargate copycat.

[biostem]

My interpretation is that the guy Hydra was after *is* that metallic ooze, and that he basically rides in a corpse, which he can apparently enhance in some ways.

They should have shot the scene with Coulson detaching his hand differently - perhaps Ward kind of had a death grip on it, and Coulson had to detach the hand to escape - why he would waste the time to remove it didn't make sense the way it was shown.

The allusion to that "Hydra messiah" guy apparently wiping out all life on that planet during the time since his exile was similarly confusing - perhaps he gains power by draining life or something, and all these centuries basically left nothing alive, come present day.

Was that the season finale?

[The Romulan Republic]

Mid season break. As I understand it, they're going to do what they did last year- take some time off and run Agent Carter during the break.

[FaxModem1]

You know what would have really helped their assault on the castle? A helicarrier.

[The Romulan Republic]

Not sure about that. I believe their reasoning was that Hydra would identify and shoot down any aircraft that got close. Hence sneaking in.

More "Boots on the ground" might have been useful, if they'd had enough to go for a full scale assault, but maybe not. It would have warned Hydra and allowed them to use hostages. Anyway, Coulson's SHIELD doesn't seem to be as big as the old SHIELD. It might not have that kind of manpower.

[biostem]

You know what would have really helped their assault on the castle? A helicarrier.

If Hawkeye's single explosive arrow could take out 1 of the Helicarier's engines, then I don't see it being very effective against a fortified base w/ SAMs.

The Helicarrier is great as long as it is protected, but it isn't a floating fortress...

[Gaidin]

Helicarrier is great...if you have a fleet to protect it. I imagine like any carrier? What does that thing do solo against SAMs?

[The Romulan Republic]

The original helicarrier didn't seem to pack much weaponry, if any, of its own. It carried a fleet of fighters/gunships in the first film, and in the second relied on having War Machine as escort.

The Hydra carriers did have both anti-aircraft weaponry and heavy artillery, as I recall, and perhaps they could have repelled a SAM attack and then levelled the base. But that wasn't hardware Mack had at his disposal, and in any case, levelling the base wasn't the objective.

Edit: Or rather, levelling it without trying to get their people back first wasn't the objective.

[FaxModem1]

The castle didn't fire at the new Bus because it was out of range and it could also cloak, the helicarrier could also do the same. Another advantage it could do is launch multiple dropships to deploy troops, as shown in Age of Ultron, along with fleet capability, as shown in the first Avengers film. It could also ensure that no vehicles escaped, such as Malick's escape car through having more men there to create a perimeter of people or having the quinjets on board fire at non-hostage holding vehicles, cutting off another head of HYDRA's leadership.

The operation could have proceeded the same way as it did in the episode, only more effectively.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well yes, it could deploy an army. If SHIELD had that kind of manpower available. I already discussed that.

And using it to do what the Bus Mk II did would depend on it having weaponry it didn't appear to possess, unless you mean just deploying its own planes rather than the big plane they already had on hand. And in any case what they had was adequate for that role..

But fair point about stopping escaping vehicles.

[Gaidin]

The castle didn't fire at the new Bus because it was out of range and it could also cloak, the helicarrier could also do the same. Another advantage it could do is launch multiple dropships to deploy troops, as shown in Age of Ultron, along with fleet capability, as shown in the first Avengers film. It could also ensure that no vehicles escaped, such as Malick's escape car through having more men there to create a perimeter of people or having the quinjets on board fire at non-hostage holding vehicles, cutting off another head of HYDRA's leadership.

The operation could have proceeded the same way as it did in the episode, only more effectively.

Every damn thing that has flown near a HYDRA base has cloaked. It's just that when you're close enough and you're the only thing in the sky you're sort of going to get spotted. They tend to build the important bases in those out of the way places without a lot of air-traffic at that altitude. That's why Coulson's dropship got spotted. In spite of being cloaked. Let's get off the cloaking technology. Because remember, the Bus got spotted in the Arctic in Season 2.

[The Romulan Republic]

Some information on what to expect regarding Ward, courtesy of Brett Dalton:

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/agents-of-shie ... 34111.html

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the “Maveth” episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Ward’s death on the midseason finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was shocking — made more so by the sickening crunch that accompanied Coulson snapping the bones of his ribcage — but we learned, minutes later, that his death didn’t actually mean actor Brett Dalton is done with the show.

The “beast” that Hydra has been trying to bring back from the alien world all season (well, technically, for thousands of years) now possesses Ward’s body, and he will definitely be back when the show returns in March. We spoke to Dalton about the change, what he and his body’s new occupant have in common, and what we can look forward to from him the rest of the season.

So you actually died this time around. Are you ever worried that they’ll kill you permanently? Or is Ward so inextricably linked with the S.H.I.E.L.D. team that he’ll never leave completely?
I’m constantly in fear — [Laughs.] — that they will, all of a sudden, change their mind, forget about the contract, and just completely off me on the show.

Because that particular character changes so often, I’ve got to play a different character every season. There have been a couple of weird close calls in there too. In the midseason finale of Season 2, Skye shoots me in the chest, and if it weren’t for Agent 33 picking me up, there was the suggestion that maybe he was going to bleed out there. So there have been a couple of really close calls, but thankfully, you turn a couple more pages and find out he’s still alive.

Related: Get Caught Up With Our ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Recaps

So to answer your question: constantly. But that’s more of a Brett thing than it is anything else. I think the character has gotten the response that he’s gotten because he started off as good guy. It’s not just some bad guy of the week or whatever. He started off as a good guy; he was literally part of the team. And it wasn’t just that he double-crossed them. Now he’s doing a hell of a lot more than just double-crossing: Now he is the opposing force to the team that he was originally a part of.

We kind of got to know and love the character — I hope that the audience did? So he carries with him all the history of the entire first season. I think it’s kind of cool that we get that for free every time he’s on screen; we get all the cool stuff he’s done in the past. It’s fun. I’m blessed. Hashtag blessed. [Laughs.] Don’t print that! Don’t print that!


'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' Star Brett Dalton on His Character Development
SuperFan Live host Khail Anonymous turns the attention to the character everyone loves to hate, head of HYDRA Grant Ward, played by Brett Dalton. In addition to joking that opening a pizza place called Hydra Hut was his first plan of action as head of the organization, Dalton also shares insights into the shifts his character has gone through in the past few seasons.
So this is an entirely new guy? Do you have an idea of how much Ward is left in there, or is it all this Hydra god?
Well, I wouldn’t say a total reset. Will was also playing this particular character in Episode 10; he was being occupied by this thing as well. I wouldn’t say he’s the most outgoing, affable, [or] got a great sense of humor, but enough to convince somebody like Fitz to get him to where he needs to be.

In a way, they have a similar skill set. It’s convincing enough for that being to get the job done. Ward has a lot of these things, too. He’s just charming enough to get access to this thing, and then he’ll punch you out, and that’s it. I just needed to be charming enough to do that, to get the job done.

So yeah, it gets exciting. It’s really exciting; we’re all figuring this out together. As I said, Malick is now asking the same questions that the audience did along the way. It is Ward, but it’s not Ward. It’s Ward and all of the iterations of every other host that have happened before. It’s this very intriguing combination. We’re not going to see — I don’t think we’re going to see — him winking and jumping out of planes and having quite the delight; it’s a different version of Ward. It’s very exciting. I know a lot more, and I’m trying to not say stuff. I wouldn’t say it’s Ward Lite, I would say it’s Ward 2.0.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns Tuesday, March 8 on ABC.

[The Romulan Republic]

Just a reminder- Agents of SHIELD will return on Tuesday. Also, the Agents of SHIELD Facebook page states that the show will be getting a fourth season.

[The Romulan Republic]

So, I saw tonight's episode.

There's still some unevenness with pacing, and I'm still not happy with some of the decisions Coulson/SHIELD are making. But that tends to be the case with shows like this, because of my discomfort with clandestine unaccountable agencies engaged in "necessary evil".

We got a bit more on the question of what SHIELD's current standing with the government is- Coulson meets with the President (I think its the same guy from Iron Man 3, so nice continuity their, even though I wonder how he kept power after the Winter Soldier cluster fuck). Officially SHIELD doesn't exist because the public hasn't gotten over the events of Winter Solider. Unofficially, the President tolerates them and works with them and they can do stuff he can't. The new head of Rosalin's people is General Talbot, now reporting to Phil Coulson.

Coulson's resorting to some fairly unethical tactics to track down Hydra, and is still determined to get vengeance for Rosalin's death. However, he does seem to be bothered by what he did on the alien world. And some of his team members, particularly Lincoln, don't seem entirely on board with his choices.

But Coulson owning Malick at the end and dismantling much of his network, with May's help, was bad ass.

The new Lantina Inhuman lady is awesome. And it adds some more diversity to the cast.

The end was pretty obviously setting up the couples going forwards. In addition to Hunter and Bobbi, it looks like they're going for Daisy/Lincoln, Mack/new woman (I'm afraid I don't recall her name), Fitzsimmons, and Coulson/May (I pretty much called the last one after the last episode). I wonder how long until they add a gay couple. Wasn't one of Daisy's inhuman team supposed to be gay?

The Fitz/Simmons scene at the end was quite touching.

Also, looks like zombie Ward has some more power than he originally appeared to. The idea seems to be that the inhuman in question was starving, barely scraping by on the alien world, and so wasn't at full strength. It seems to have some sort of ranged attack. The effect wasn't shown, but it seemed to be implied that it was some sort of mind control/possession type of thing.

[biostem]

I have to say... them basically going the route that Hydra was explicitly formed and operated over all these decades/centuries, for the sole purpose of rescuing this Inhuman that took over Ward, is a bit anticlimactic for me. He supposedly existed on this foreign word all this time, and basically existed as a force of nature, but when he returns to Earth, he's practically bed-ridden?

The left off with him having "consumed" 4-5 people to return to full strength, so I hope we'll get to see him in action soon. I hope we get to see more of Mae actually kicking ass.

I hope that "one heartbeat superspeedster" makes another appearance - her and Mack had some good chemistry, IMO.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'd like to see more of May in action too.

I'm not a big fan of the purpose of Hydra revelation either. It seems hokey and ridiculous and at odds with how Hydra was previously depicted.

However, its a safe bet that we'll see more of his powers than what he was initially capable of.

Missed the last episode, so I can't say how the new Inhuman performed. But they seemed to be hinting at some sort of mind control when it unleashed something on that Inhuman lackey of Malik's, so I'm guessing its going to build an army of Inhumans to fight Daisy's Inhuman team.

I'm kind of expecting and hoping that this is a build up to a season finale showdown between Daisy and Hive in Ward's body.

[FaxModem1]

If I were to guess, it'll probably be some sort of tie-in with the events of Captain America 3.