Agents of SHIELD. Season 1 Discussion Thread

[gblews]

Just speculating, I don't think Ward is innocent but from the sound of things, Natasha has done far worse in her day, yet she was forgiven and wasn't a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent at the time. Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't care so long as the killing machine is on their side and their heart's in the right place.

But Natasha not being a SHIELD agent is the key difference. She didn't betray any oaths to them when she did those bad things, and she wasn't part of an enemy actively undermining them from the inside. Generally people see traitors within their own ranks as being even worse than outright enemies. So SHIELD might be a lot less forgiving of Ward than they were of Natasha.

Well, they could just give him new memories.

True, Ward has a very slim chance to redeem himself without dying.

Although, of course,

Spoiler: TWS

SHIELD doesn't exist anymore, so that's kind of a moot question.

Spoiler: in response to your spoiler.

AoS has a few episodes left so we'll see.

... if it is true that Ward is actually really a bad guy, it would truly be groundbreaking for network T.V. Ward is the hunky male lead who you know will get with the "cute" female lead eventually. I don't know if turning this guy bad has ever been done before on network broadcast T.V. This would be like Will Ryker turning out to be a Romulan agent, or Chacotay turning out to be working with the Borg or (those people with the crazy hair).
...

TNG did it with Ro.

No they didn't. First of all Ro Laren wasn't a "hunky male lead", nor did she stay bad (assuming at this point, Ward stays bad).

Agreed. It's way more interesting for his betrayal to be genuine.

Have to say though I'm confused as to why people are having such a hard time accepting that a person we've known all along was a trained killer, adept at infiltration, subterfuge and working solo undercover...is a lying two-faced murderer who fooled everyone around him. Logic error?

I think because if it is true that Ward is actually really a bad guy, it would truly be groundbreaking for network T.V. Ward is the hunky male lead who you know will get with the "cute" female lead eventually. I don't know if turning this guy bad has ever been done before on network broadcast T.V. This would be like Will Ryker turning out to be a Romulan agent, or Chacotay turning out to be working with the Borg or (those people with the crazy hair).

As hard core as nuBSG was, they chose to keep Lee Adama human and loyal to his Dad. If this turns out to be what it appears to be, AoS may have done in it's first season what most, if not all network broadcast dramas, have not had the guts to do.

Buffy kind of did it with Angel.
Though Angel was redeemed by having his sould reinstated. At least by the show's rules.
He had 2 distinctive personalities.
Curiously that wasn't true of Spike.

Actually, I thought about Wesley on Angel. since they allowed Angel's hatred for him to be real and never changed what he did to Angel's kid. They did, however, allow the two to somehow manage to repair their relationship.

 

[Trekker4747]

Well, I've watched episodes up through the one where Sif appears. Very interesting set of episode with some interesting changes and possible directions in the remaining episodes I've to watch (and that are left in this season.)

 

[DEWLine]

Bear McCreary's got a new blog entry up for his musical work on the series.

http://www.bearmccreary.com/#blog/blog/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-turn-turn-turn/

 

[Christopher]

Bear McCreary's got a new blog entry up for his musical work on the series.

http://www.bearmccreary.com/#blog/blog/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-turn-turn-turn/

I wish either a) that post had audio clips or b) I weren't so rusty at reading sheet music. I used a "Virtual Piano" app and laboriously picked my way through the notations, but the only themes I recognized were the Coulson/Main theme and maybe the Centipede theme.

 

[DEWLine]

The last music clip he uploaded re: the show was the orchestra recording one of the themes of "The Magical Place".

 

[Christopher]

I just realized it wasn't the Centipede theme I was remembering, but a leitmotif from Stu Phillips's score to the original Battlestar Galactica that has almost the same first ten notes.

 

[dansigal]

I think because if it is true that Ward is actually really a bad guy, it would truly be groundbreaking for network T.V. Ward is the hunky male lead who you know will get with the "cute" female lead eventually. I don't know if turning this guy bad has ever been done before on network broadcast T.V. This would be like Will Ryker turning out to be a Romulan agent, or Chacotay turning out to be working with the Borg or (those people with the crazy hair).

Dollhouse did it, which coincidentally, was another Whedon show.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Remember when Lila (on Angel) showed up to congratulate the good guys for ending world peace by killing Gina Torres?

His choice was World War III or work for Hydra in secret.

Again, S.H.I.E.L.D. was Hydra.

Everyone on the Bus was a Hydra Agent, but most of them just didn't know it yet.

Their missions and orders came form Hydra.

Their agenda and parameters came from or were approved by and paid for by Hydra.

HAIL HYDRA!

(Right up to the point they planned a holocaust.)

 

[bbjeg]

I think because if it is true that Ward is actually really a bad guy, it would truly be groundbreaking for network T.V. Ward is the hunky male lead who you know will get with the "cute" female lead eventually. I don't know if turning this guy bad has ever been done before on network broadcast T.V. This would be like Will Ryker turning out to be a Romulan agent, or Chacotay turning out to be working with the Borg or (those people with the crazy hair).

TNG did it with Ro.

No they didn't. First of all Ro Laren wasn't a "hunky male lead", nor did she stay bad (assuming at this point, Ward stays bad).

I meant they had similar stories. In "Preemptive Strike" Ro, after being with Starfleet for some time, joins the radical group, the Maquis.

Ward, after being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent for some time, joins the radical group, Hydra.

 

[Christopher]

I meant they had similar stories. In "Preemptive Strike" Ro, after being with Starfleet for some time, joins the radical group, the Maquis.

Ward, after being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent for some time, joins the radical group, Hydra.

Doesn't work. Ward didn't "join" HYDRA, he was revealed to have been a HYDRA mole all along. This is more like DS9: "For the Cause," where we learned that Commander Eddington had been a Maquis spy all along. Or VGR: "State of Flux," where the Bajoran Maquis member Seska turned out to be a disguised Cardassian mole.

 

[bbjeg]

^But is Ward already Hydra or was he protecting his old CO?

 

[The Old Mixer]

We don't know that he was Hydra all along yet...it's likely, but hasn't been confirmed on the show. We should know more in a couple of days.

 

[Christopher]

The producers have confirmed in interviews that they've been dropping hints to Ward's true affiliation all along. For instance, in episode 10, Coulson told Ward about his ex-girlfriend the cellist, and in episode 11, Raina "somehow" knew about the cellist. And there was a scene where Coulson was talking about how there were lies and evil and danger in the world, and they cut to a shot of Ward's face when he said "lies and evil."

And it's not hard to see that Ward's killing of the fake Clairvoyant was not motivated by concern for Skye as he claimed, but was part of Garrett's plan to make the team think they'd resolved the threat of the Clairvoyant. Coulson even asked in that episode if someone had given Ward orders to shoot the guy. And a lot of posters last week were complaining that Ward's action seemed out of character, that it didn't make sense. The only way it does make sense is if he was working with Garrett all along and if killing the fake Clairvoyant was always part of the plan.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Well, a couple things that explain it alternatively:

The "lies and evil" is more properly seen as foreshadowing, which doesn't mean that he had to be a HYDRA mole at that time, just that they were saying he would eventually be one. Information about the Cellist would likely be in his file as well. Ward could have been told to kill the Clairvoyant by Garrett shortly before without necessarily knowing Garrett's reasons. Alternatively, he could have been legitimately manipulated into doing it because Garrett knows how to push his buttons.

I'm not saying I believe this, of course, just that it's best to see the next couple episodes to make sure.

 

[Christopher]

Well, the producers and actors are talking in interviews as if Ward was really evil all along. Of course, that could be misdirection, but I'm inclined to take them at their word for now, because it feels right to me. Heck, I seem to recall that several posters were conjecturing weeks or months ago that Ward might turn out to be working for the bad guys, so evidently they felt there were hints in that direction.

In fact, I'm remembering now that there were concerns about a mole on the team as early as episode 2, and that's when the speculations about Ward started. Then we found out that Skye was a mole for the Rising Tide, so we figured that plot point had been resolved... but now it seems that was lulling us into a false sense of complacency because there were actually two moles. Heck, three if you count May.

 

[bbjeg]

Adding this here (too) but it contains CA:TWS and AoS spoilers.
[yt]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vdDOhL-rC7s[/yt]

 

[gblews]

I think because if it is true that Ward is actually really a bad guy, it would truly be groundbreaking for network T.V. Ward is the hunky male lead who you know will get with the "cute" female lead eventually. I don't know if turning this guy bad has ever been done before on network broadcast T.V. This would be like Will Ryker turning out to be a Romulan agent, or Chacotay turning out to be working with the Borg or (those people with the crazy hair).

Dollhouse did it, which coincidentally, was another Whedon show.

Who was that character?

TNG did it with Ro.

No they didn't. First of all Ro Laren wasn't a "hunky male lead", nor did she stay bad (assuming at this point, Ward stays bad).

I meant they had similar stories. In "Preemptive Strike" Ro, after being with Starfleet for some time, joins the radical group, the Maquis.

Ward, after being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent for some time, joins the radical group, Hydra.

Still not what I was talking about. I meant a character who, like Ward, is a show regular, first or second male lead, the character who will be involved in the the show's main romance, in short, is the big macho stud on the show. That is who Ward is and that is who they are potentially turning into a bad guy, (presumably) for good. Of courese this is IF this is what is really happening.

Maybe it's been done before, but I sure can't recall it.

 

[Trekker4747]

As said above, I've watched some more episodes to get caught up (just finished the Lady Sif episode last night) sort of back into the "vibe" of the series and interested to where it goes post Captain America 2. But a really good sequence of episode and really liked Bill Paxton's appearance and hope to see more of him in the future should the series continue.

The "controversy" some fans had over what the team did in the medical facility I can certainly understand. Not sure how I feel about what happened there but, at the same time, we don't know who or what exactly was going on there. And the "alien" found in the cryo-chamber looked to me like a Frost Giant.

 

[trekkiebaggio]

Well, the producers and actors are talking in interviews as if Ward was really evil all along. Of course, that could be misdirection, but I'm inclined to take them at their word for now, because it feels right to me. Heck, I seem to recall that several posters were conjecturing weeks or months ago that Ward might turn out to be working for the bad guys, so evidently they felt there were hints in that direction.

In fact, I'm remembering now that there were concerns about a mole on the team as early as episode 2, and that's when the speculations about Ward started. Then we found out that Skye was a mole for the Rising Tide, so we figured that plot point had been resolved... but now it seems that was lulling us into a false sense of complacency because there were actually two moles. Heck, three if you count May.

And I think it's more interesting if he has been HYDRA all along. There was another quote in an interview another poster shared upthread, in which the producers shed some light on Ward's actions.

He knew that Coulson liked projects so he opened up to him.

May was the main threat so he seduced her.

Skye was the unknown so he became her SO.

He jumped out of the plane to save Simmons to gain everyone's trust, but at the same time he was wearing a parachute so he wasn't actually risking his own life.

When he noticed that Fitz was getting jealous he started to form a little bromance while on a mission together to nip that in the bud.

 

[Guy Gardener]

There's a %50 chance that if there is a third world war fought with Atomic Weapons, that America will have started it.

Any one want to argue with that?

Anyone further, think that America needs to be stopped before it starts or participates in an Atomic War that will cause the cessation of society and the end of the human race?

All those that disagree with the above comments want to explain why they think that the radioactive extermination of mankind is a jolly idea?