I haven't seen the Captain America movie, but want to be spoiled. Is Nick Fury dead, and is it REALLY dead or possibly Coulson dead?

See, now, I had figured that at least ONE of the team on the bus had to be HYDRA, just on the probabilities. My quasi-hope was Simmons because it was so damned unlikely, thus leading to major HSQ.

But Ward turning at the very end was impressive, especially once they'd done the whole Skye kiss thing--OTOH, it's a very Joss thing, to throw the grenade once the romantic ground looks like clear sailing.

I far prefer Ward as a HYDRA plant, although he didn't say "Hail HYDRA", either.

I dunno. I hope he really is a die-hard HYDRA believer, because that's far more awful than tragic brainwashing subject.

I'm also totally on board with bringing Triplett onto the bus. I like him lots more than Ward, although his "make Simmons scared" bit was pretty mean and cheesy.

Frank:

No on both counts.

One thing that stood out was the vulnerability of The Bus's glass.

paraphrasing what Andi said that if in Winter Soldier, Nick's SUV can withstand punishment, why did The Bus have tinkly glass?

Holy fucking shit, what an episode. That was intense as fuck.

Well, my least favorite character suddenly became more interesting.

RIGHT? When the Bus was under attack, I said, "Nobody die! Except maybe Ward."

Also, people who hadn't yet seen Captain America are now kind of spoiled.

Hoo boy. I thought they did a really good job of making the episode accessible to people who hadn't seen the movie. With the exception of the awkward and random Captain America reference at the end, the references to major continuity effects (HYDRA, Fury's death, Sitwell, etc) were elegantly done.

I also feel really sorry for Hand.

Seriously. She became ten times more interesting to me in this episode and NOW SHE'S DEAD.

Oh, I thought that was just, like, his true self that is all into the Hydra scene and evil.

That's what I thought too. I hadn't thought about brainwashing, but that certainly happens a lot in comics (especially with HYDRA), so I wouldn't be surprised, but...I'd rather Ward be evil. Even though I find it hard to reconcile his actions with it. Then again, that's HYDRA's whole thing: they make you trust them, make them think you're their friends.

OTOH, it's a very Joss thing, to throw the grenade once the romantic ground looks like clear sailing.

Yep. That was a very Jossian twist.

I far prefer Ward as a HYDRA plant, although he didn't say "Hail HYDRA", either.

I noticed that too.

I'm also totally on board with bringing Triplett onto the bus. I like him lots more than Ward, although his "make Simmons scared" bit was pretty mean and cheesy.

Man, I spent the whole damn episode flipping back and forth on him, and that scene was so cheap I figured he had to be clean. But when Garrett revealed himself, I was afraid again. Loved his reaction.

Even though I find it hard to reconcile his actions with it. Then again, that's HYDRA's whole thing: they make you trust them, make them think you're their friends.

Well, you know, unless they had big secret HYDRA meetings, I bet a lot of HYDRA SHIELD agents didn't really know who was who until the end. Having a secret handshake would have been too obvious, after all.

By which I mean: it's all a lot more interesting if the HYDRA folks aren't EVIL, just members of a club with a really fucked-up political philosophy. EVIL en masse doesn't work for me, because it rather justifies that kind of black-and-white us-or-them no-redemption/kill-them-all mentality one finds in, um, superhero movies. (And the Lord of the Rings.)

But getting back to Ward: I love the idea that he has been playing them all along, and that he killed the guy they thought was the Clairvoyant in order to throw them off the track, and his whole thing with May and now with Skye was just him using his social-engineering skills, because he's a TRUE BELIEVER. Just in a really shitty thing.

Postmortem with Jeph Loeb and Jeff Bell:

JEFF BELL: We’ve known what Captain America: The Winter Solider was all about since we came together a year ago. And so we knew that we were doing a show called Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and that in the movie, S.H.I.E.L.D. gets blown up. And it’s full of the “H word” [Hydra.] And so we’ve been working with the studio from the get-go towards this moment. Our challenge was that we couldn’t say the “H word” until after Captain America 2…so we had to have an ongoing threat that we’ve called Centipede, that we’ve called The Clairvoyant, that we’ve called other things, because we could not say the word Hydra. What wasn’t a challenge was coming up with twists and turns, and making you think it was this person, because we work very hard to hopefully hide the ball with who it is.

He also says they did have this plan for Ward from the beginning (which is better than, say, what they did in Dollhouse).

BELL: Let me put this on another level: Ward had put Garrett on this plane for a reason, and so he had to come in and be accepted to this team. And so if you’d look at how he related to everyone — Coulson loves projects. Here is a guy who didn’t have people skills. So Garrett says, can you help this guy Ward round off some of the rough edges? So he comes onto the team. Coulson is now vested, because he’s got a project. Who is Ward’s greatest threat? May. What does he do? He seduces her. Who is the one unknown on the team? Skye. He becomes her S.O. How do you get everyone rally around and trust you? You jump out of a plan trying to save someone else. Now, he had a parachute. Let’s say he failed to save Simmons, he would’ve been fine. Everything he’s done has solidified how people feel about him over the course of the season.

LOEB: And what was the next thing he had to do after he saved Simmons? He had someone on the plane who was jealous of him: Fitz. And what did they do? They went on a mission together and they had a really good time together. And a bromance was started. And that took care of that.

WARD YOU JERK.

Lot of good stuff in that interview, worth reading.

And here's another one.

Loeb: How much fun is it to, in the pilot, have Coulson look at Ward and say, "I haven't seen scores like this since Romanoff [Scarlett Johansson]," and have everyone in the audience go, "Oh, that's so great. He's a good spy." No, what that means is he's somebody who can work at the same level as somebody who's done nothing but fool people about her identity from the very beginning. The clues were there, you just didn't know where to look.

I just totally assumed he was going in deep undercover and it's some stupid secret plan with Coulson. In other words, Ward's still not all that interesting to me.

Great article, P-C! Thanks for linking.

You are using "evil" very differently than I am, Consuela.