Agents of SHIELD: Season 3 - Discussion (SPOILERS LIKELY)

[Crow T. Robot]

My thought is dead people are cold to the touch, he can control dead people. You would agree with that much, at least, right?

Except he can't control dead people. He can personally inhabit a corpse and take it over after abandoning his previous shell, but he has no (known) ability to remotely control a dead body he's not personally skinriding. His ability to possess/influence others is limited solely to (living) Inhumans.

If he had that ability, he'd definitely have used it many, many times by now. Least of which with Malick.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Is there anything that says he can't inhabit more than one corpse at the same time?

 

[Christopher]

Is there anything that says he can't inhabit more than one corpse at the same time?

Only logic. If he could do that, there's no shortage of humans he could've killed and possessed -- Malick and his daughter included. Instead, we've only seen him kill and disintegrate humans. He clearly wants to possess multiple beings, as he's done with Inhumans -- so why would he waste so many potential human hosts if he could do the same with them?

 

[sojourner]

but he has no (known) ability

Can't that be said for every ability he's exhibited before we saw him use it the first time?

 

[Crow T. Robot]

Can't that be said for every ability he's exhibited before we saw him use it the first time?

True enough. But then, this is the sort of power he would definitely have used if it was in his portfolio.

 

[Gaith]

Catching up on the last two eps...

When Talbot said, "The head has been cut", my first thought was, "And two more shall take its place!"

"HYDRA always comes back." - John Garrett

Not to mention those of us still demanding Black Widow 1...

You mean The Winter Soldier?

... So Lincoln wins SHIELD loyalty points for not accepting Daisy's escape offer, but wasted a perfectly good opportunity to play along, then zap her unconscious. More handsome than smart, I suppose?

Always nice to see John Hannah. Hell, with the way his career's been lately, how about some Brendan Fraser sometime, too?!

Having gotten my preference with the Arrow death, I gotta say, I don't really have a preference this time around, other than one of the Secret Warriors would be lame. But I certainly don't want to lose Phil, May, FitzSimmons, or Mac. I could probably give up Daisy, but that's not happening. Of the core cast, I'm afraid May's most vulnerable, as we've already lost two black heroes. Or Fitz. Wait, of course, let's lose Lincoln! I don't loathe him, but he's definitely not great. I'd even forgotten about him for a minute while doing my count just now.

 

[Reverend]

I doubt it'll be any of the new characters as I can't seeing that having very much of an impact. Daisy is pretty much the central character besides Coulson, so she's pretty safe. I suspect they're going to want to continue tormenting Fitzsimmons for a while longer, so killing one of them would probably be too merciful for the writers to consider. I hate to say it, but May might be the one in the cross-hairs.
Mac too, but as has been pointed out, killing him would start to look a little too much like a pattern. I mean this isn't 'The Walking Dead'!

I'm curious to see if they're going to find a way to keep Ward around after this or are they finally done with him? Having him come back after Hive is dealt with would be really pushing it. I suppose if they want to keep the door open they could toss Hive back into another portal to the arse end of space, so they have the option for him to show up again down the line.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

I doubt it'll be any of the new characters as I can't seeing that having very much of an impact. Daisy is pretty much the central character besides Coulson, so she's pretty safe. I suspect they're going to want to continue tormenting Fitzsimmons for a while longer, so killing one of them would probably be too merciful for the writers to consider. I hate to say it, but May might be the one in the cross-hairs.
Mac too, but as has been pointed out, killing him would start to look a little too much like a pattern. I mean this isn't 'The Walking Dead'!

I'm curious to see if they're going to find a way to keep Ward around after this or are they finally done with him? Having him come back after Hive is dealt with would be really pushing it. I suppose if they want to keep the door open they could toss Hive back into another portal to the arse end of space, so they have the option for him to show up again down the line.

I don't think the show is that concerned with making every single death/character switch have maximum audience impact. Tripp was around for less than a season before he died. Ward went evil in half a season. Andrew only appeared a handful of times before he turned into a monster.

They could theoretically kill May, but I kind of doubt they will. I pretty much expect it will be one of the secret warriors (most likely Yo yo or Lincoln). Especially since this whole season has been promoted and built up as if its all about them, and we've still only seen them together once. So they've got to play a major part in the final arc.

 

[Mr Light]

I could definitely see them killing off May. Aside from her Lash arc, the character doesn't really have a purpose on the show.

And I fully expect Ward/Hive to be gone by the end of this season. I really hate it when shows keep a popular villain around long after he realistically should have been killed off. *coughs*Spike*coughs*Sylar*coughs*

 

[The Old Mixer]

May has been the best thing on the show, IMO, but they have gone out of their way to turn SkyeDaisy into Mini-May, so this line of speculation has me concerned....

 

[Star Wolf]

I don't think the show is that concerned with making every single death/character switch have maximum audience impact. Tripp was around for less than a season before he died. Ward went evil in half a season. Andrew only appeared a handful of times before he turned into a monster.

They could theoretically kill May, but I kind of doubt they will. I pretty much expect it will be one of the secret warriors (most likely Yo yo or Lincoln). Especially since this whole season has been promoted and built up as if its all about them, and we've still only seen them together once. So they've got to play a major part in the final arc.

However the entire promotion for the second half season is one will fall, taking out a newbie wold be like cheating and make further promotions down the line harder to sell.

I stand by my bet that Ming Na as she ages will have a hard time keeping up the Melinda May image and to save her body and health in her middle ages may have been the one to pull the plug just like Kobe Bryant just did in basketball.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

However the entire promotion for the second half season is one will fall, taking out a newbie wold be like cheating and make further promotions down the line harder to sell.

I stand by my bet that Ming Na as she ages will have a hard time keeping up the Melinda May image and to save her body and health in her middle ages may have been the one to pull the plug just like Kobe Bryant just did in basketball.

Maybe. But at this point, Lincoln's been around almost as long as Mac. He's not a newbie anymore. And I think May does bring something to the table in terms of Shield command/Coulson's inner circle that really couldn't be replaced by anyone else. But, hey, this is a show that likes to reinvent itself. Maybe they don't want to replace it, but simply grow into a different area.

 

[Mr Light]

Mac's been around since the start of Season 2; Lincoln appeared in the back half of Season 2.

My preference would be Lincoln. I don't think he's particularly interesting, but he's been around long enough to be a "major" character. Plus, he's a white dude.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Eh, seems like Lincoln's barely joined the team...killing him off would be softballing it.

OTOH, it could have some dramatic oomph in how it would affect Daisy once she's back on the team...especially if it happens in a way that she'd feel responsible for.

 

[Christopher]

I could definitely see them killing off May. Aside from her Lash arc, the character doesn't really have a purpose on the show.

Of course she does. This is an action show, and she's the best fighter. She's the show's Black Widow equivalent, the badass human agent who can hold her own alongside superpowered characters. That role was somewhat duplicated by Bobbi when she was around, but Bobbi's gone now, so there's no one to pass May's mantle to. Coulson's clearly not in the same league, Fitz/Simmons aren't even in the running, Mack can hold his own in a fight but is basically a mechanic, and Daisy and Lincoln have powers. They'd need to add a new combat-specialist character to take May's crucial role on the team, and that would be contrived.

I stand by my bet that Ming Na as she ages will have a hard time keeping up the Melinda May image and to save her body and health in her middle ages may have been the one to pull the plug just like Kobe Bryant just did in basketball.

Except she has stunt doubles, so it's not like she has to do all the strenuous stuff herself. She just has to stay in shape. And come on, she's only 52 -- just 17 months older than Robert Downey, Jr. And Downey's slated to keep appearing as Tony Stark through 2019 at least. Nobody seems to think his age is a problem. Even Jackie Chan, who put his body through hell over the course of his career, didn't begin dialing back on his stunt work until he was around 58.

See, that's the difference between sports and stunts. In sports, you have to achieve everything for real, you have to get it right the first time, and you're up against people trying to stop you. In stunt work, a lot of it is illusion, you get do-overs until you get it right, and everyone around you is trying to help you and make it easier on you. Not that stunt work isn't genuinely strenuous and hazardous, of course, but it's designed to be less rough on the body than it looks.

 

[Kemaiku]

Is there anything that says he can't inhabit more than one corpse at the same time?

The fact that he is a single tentacle in his true form, living like a tapeworm that needs to ingest a large amount of fresh organic matter (living cells from sacrifites) to keep one host body alive at a time. When he inhabitied Will, without another body to eat from, Will's damaged leg just continued to die and blacken.

It would start looking like Beast with a Billion Backs from Futurama if he tried to puppeteer multiple host bodies.

 

[Christopher]

The fact that he is a single tentacle in his true form, living like a tapeworm that needs to ingest a large amount of fresh organic matter (living cells from sacrifites) to keep one host body alive at a time.

I don't think that part's true. That was the visual impression when Hive first possessed Ward, but we've since learned that Hive is actually a colony of tiny parasitic insect-like beings, a literal hive mind. Presumably the "tentacle" was a concentrated mass of the parasites. It controls Inhumans by infecting them with some of the parasites, so its mind literally inhabits them. And it kills humans by emitting parasites that swarm over them and devour them to the bone. Again, I think the fact that it only consumes dead humans rather than possessing them is strong evidence that it can't possess more than one at a time.

 

[Kemaiku]

Then what keeps slithering around inside the corpses from the audiences point of view? that mass that slimes around inside and bulges the skin?

Whatever came out of Will was one solid mass, Ward didn't see that part, and his head expanding was from Mallick's.

 

[Christopher]

Then what keeps slithering around inside the corpses from the audiences point of view? that mass that slimes around inside and bulges the skin?

As I said, a concentrated mass of parasites working as a unit. Think of the ant species in Ant-Man that cooperated to form pseudo-solid structures like rafts and bridges out of their own bodies. Hive's parasites are microscopic, so a collective mass of them like that would appear like a solid, squirming body to the naked eye.

 

[Kemaiku]

The problem there is, it looks like a telepathic link to them only works on Inhumans. Human bodies get eaten up at an incredible rate, there might be something about terrigen that coats an Inhumans cell membranes that stops the reaction. Except for neural tissue, which still looks bruised and slightly damaged.

I think Fitz would have noticed a mortal wound or other fatal reaction on her body, as the little Hive-ites can't repair cells, only add them to existing mostly healthy ones. Given what happened, I think he'd notice if something other than her hands were cold too.