IGN has been all over the Marvel's Agents of SHIELD coverage lately, and that continued today with an exclusive interview with the show's executive producers, Jeph Loeb and Jeffrey Bell.
WARNING: This has lots of spoilers for the most recent SHIELD episode "Turn, Turn, Turn" as well as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, so stop reading now if that doesn't interest you.
I'd strongly encourage you to check out the whole interview over at IGN, but here's some of the highlights:
Regarding Agent Ward's defection to Hydra and the show "resetting" about ¾ of the way through the season, Loeb responded, "Yeah, I'm not sure if any of us thought of it as a reset, but simply as where the story was going all along. If you go back and take a look at things we set up in the pilot and that we continue to pay off as we go along, this was always the plan. I think it's what Jeff, Jed and Maurissa like to talk about a lot -- you know, this is the challenge of telling a 22-episode season. You have to make these kinds of bold choices in order to keep your audience off their pins."
About Ward's expression at the end of "Turn, Turn, Turn" having a lot of different potential meanings, Loeb simply said, "Exactly. Yes there is." Lots of rumors going around that maybe Ward is under some sort of brainwashing/mind control, so that answer just kind of perpetuates that rumor.
On whether they let Agent Ward actor Brett Dalton know about his turn to Hydra ahead of time, Loeb responded, "Brett is a terrific actor, and he's so much fun with the 'ships' [Editor's note: as in people 'shipping' May and Ward or Skye and Ward], but it was absolutely something that we spent a great deal of time talking about, because we needed him to be as honest as he could be and be that person for as long as he could be and not have to ever worry about, 'Am I lying in this scene? Am I not lying in this scene?' So in a way, when you put an actor through -- particularly when it's a new show and people are getting to know each other and getting to know their relationships with each other -- you want that to be as honest as can be. So it felt like the right thing to do." Interesting to know that the actor had no prior notice. That was smart by the production team.
When asked if Agent Garrett is indeed the Clairvoyant, Bell said, "We love the fact that you're still questioning it, but let me put it this way: you'll know after next week the answer to that question..." So, I'm going to go ahead and take that as a "Nope, we've still got another twist in mind as far as the Clairvoyant goes." (I'm still convinced it's Arnim Zola is his computer simulation.)
Not really worth quoting, but Ward definitely killed Agent Hand and the two other agents on the plane. Loeb said Ward didn't use "icer" rounds, he "iced her in the old-school version of 'iced her.'"
About how the cast reacted to the seismic shift of the show after Winter Soldier, Bell said, "They were super excited about it. They loved the movie. We had told them how we were tying into it, both leading up and coming out of it. So I think they felt a part of that fabric in a bigger way and love that aspect of the show. The fact that Marvel for the first time ever was to tie together a big network TV show with a major motion picture and have those stories cross over in real time was a feat that took a lot of people working very hard to pull off. I think our cast really rose to that and loved being a part of that."
And about trying to keep the huge plot twist under wraps, Bell divulged, "There are literally hundreds of people who managed to keep this a secret. It's so hard to do nowadays. We were thrilled this week, the fact that it started to air, and then, 'Okay, this has not gotten out. Spectacular.'" That's really cool, because there really has been nothing in the way of leaks about the Marvel properties. It certainly made Winter Soldier awfully exciting, and now SHIELD is also quite exciting.
What about the Avengers themselves, who were devastated by the loss of Agent Coulson in the first Avengers film? Do they know he's alive? No, according to Bell. "Yes, at this point, the existence of Phil Coulson is one of the secrets that's being kept from them. How that transpires and what happens in the weeks and months to come has yet to be overturned."
Those are the highlights, but there's definitely a lot more to read on the three-page interview at IGN. Check it out, and let us know your predictions for the series!
