The Agents of SHIELD midseason finale went big, revealing the Marvel Comics-based identities of both Skye and her father, “The Doctor.” But that wasn’t all, as Skye and Raina made it into the chamber in the mysterious hidden city where a mist would transform them into something… Inhuman.
Yes, it’s true! On the heels of plenty of fan speculation, the Inhumans have made their first appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, years before their 2018 movie, via Agents of SHIELD. While they may not have said the words Inhumans or Attilan, any lingering doubts as to what we’re dealing with are cleared up by executive producers Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon in my post-midseason finale chat with the duo, who confirm those are indeed Inhumans and also discuss the reveal that Skye is Daisy Johnson (and her father Marvel’s Calvin Zabo/Mister Hyde), how they decided Agent Antoine "Trip" Triplett wouldn’t survive the episode and more.
IGN: Daisy and Cal! But let’s just get out of the way for those with any doubts, since we didn’t get their full names… We can say Daisy Johnson and Calvin Zabo here?
Tancharoen: Yup. You can say it all you want!
Chloe Bennet as Skye / Daisy Johnson in Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.
IGN: When you introduced Skye, was it pretty firm from the get go -- because fans were throwing out every single name they could think of in Marvel -- but did you always know she was going to be Daisy?
Tancharoen: That was our goal from the beginning. We always knew we wanted to evolve her into something else. But we’ve been big fans of Daisy Johnson and Secret Warriors. I think that’s been pretty obvious in the series to date. So when we were given the go ahead to move forward with Daisy Johnson pretty early on, we were thrilled.
IGN: It’s not a hard leap form there to who her dad should be, given the comics gives it to you, but you approach Calvin in a different way from what we’re used to.
Tancharoen: We’ve done that with a lot of elements in our show. We’ve pulled from things that exist in the Marvel comic universe and given our own sort of twist to it so it can fit in our mythology. But yeah, we’re just excited to have those two characters in our world.
Whedon: Kyle [MacLachlan] playing it… One of the things that appeals to us about the character is not just his relation to Daisy, but the idea of someone struggling with himself, which we think Kyle plays brilliantly. He’s fast becoming one of our favorite characters to write.
Tancharoen: Oh my gosh. He’s everyone’s favorite character to write, for sure.
Kyle MacLachlan as Doctor Calvin Zabo in Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.
IGN: How did Trip end up being the one to unfortunately prove what would happen if the wrong person went into that chamber and was exposed to what was in there?
Tancharoen: That was a very difficult decision to make. We knew we wanted to make… Essentially at the end of [episode] ten, you’re witnessing Daisy’s origin story. We always knew that we wanted it to be a very emotionally complex experience, juxtaposing that incredible image of her bursting through all the petrification and then having her witness her dear friend’s death at the same time and it always has such a great impact when you take a beloved character and see their end. It’s not something that we… It wasn’t an easy or fast decision to make. Trip is a character that we’ve established over the course of last season and this season and the audience has grown to love him as much as we do but it’s a way to confirm that this life that they all live has stakes and consequences and every day they’re taking a risk and all of them are at risk. To have that present while we’re witnessing Skye’s, well Daisy’s, new power, that’s just something that we wanted to capture in one moment.
B.J. Britt as Antoine "Trip" Triplett in Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.
IGN: Now we pointedly didn’t see the full reaction for Raina. We saw the encasing. But we didn’t see what happens next. Anything you can say about Raina and what’s going to happen for her?
Whedon: You will know very… Tune in when we come back and you will know!
IGN: Raina’s been such a fascinating, wild card character since she has very different motivations than almost anyone. Is it all sort of observational for her because she’s just so fascinated by what’s occurring?
Tancharoen: All her actions until this point, all her actions have lead to this moment. All the dealings with Hydra and every step she’s taken is because she wanted to get to this place where she goes through the mist. So now she’s done it. We’ll see what that brings her.
Whedon: It was her life long dream. And we’ll see what happens to her emotionally when it comes true.
Ruth Negga as Raina in Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.
IGN: Thank you for using the word “mist” before I did! Now you didn’t say the name of the city they were in, but there are so many different clues that would make us think a certain thing about a certain Marvel property getting a movie down the line.
Tancharoen: Well we did say the name of the city… It’s Puerto Rico! [Laughs]
Whedon: We can’t comment on what the films plan to do. In terms of the theories on what city that is, I’ll just say that we’ll know what our characters know when they know it and as they learn about it, we’ll learn about it.
Tancharoen: But yes we are diving into Inhuman territory.
IGN: Oh, okay! To clarify, is that just a word you’re using or this is officially The Inhumans?
Tancharoen: We can officially say that.
IGN: You can officially say that! I’m sure you’re very excited for that, probably more than I am, even. So that being said, that guy at the end with no eyes I assume is another Inhuman and he has another Diviner. Hydra still exists, but should we presume the second half of the season will be more Inhumans-related than Hydra-related, since the first half was a bit of a mixture?
Whedon: Yeah, we killed one of our beloved villains and we’ve obviously launched a whole new world, so how we start to unravel that and peel away the layers of that onion. You’ll have to wait and see. But Hydra’s always out there and now we something else is too.
IGN: The inhumans is such a big aspect of Marvel with the potential to be even bigger. Is it exciting for you to get to introduce this whole other layer to what is going on in this huge Marvel Cinematic Universe?
Tancharoen: Yes, we’re thrilled to be able to dive into the introduction of the Inhumans. Everything, as we know, everything is connected in the Marvel universe. Much like the way SHIELD, the organization, you got to see glimpses of it throughout the films, now we’re doing it the other way. And one will always effect the other, so we’re just excited to be the first to have the opportunity to start exploring that territory.
IGN: You’ve got a very interesting pairing here with Ward and Agent 33 out there. Can you talk about exploring that dynamic and these two characters who are very damaged in different ways?
Whedon: Yeah, and actually damaged in a similar way. They’re both people who had their… Who were gutted from the inside emotionally.
Tancharoen: And who have suffered at the hands of others so we’ll see.
Whedon: We’ll see if there’s a connection to be made there.
Source- IGN
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