'Agents of SHIELD': Five scoops from the set

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. type TV Show network ABC genre Superhero Where to watch Close Streaming Options

Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD is notoriously one of the most tight-lipped shows on TV. But on Thursday, a trip to the show’s top-secret homebase location revealed a few juicy scoops that are sure to excite fans.

Here are the highlights. [Warning: Spoiler-phobes will want to look away.]:

Mike Peterson is…Deathlok. Yup, after much speculation, which has taken place ever since J. August Richards debuted as Peterson in the series pilot, producers confirmed that the Feb. 4 would reveal him to be cyborg Deathlok, a character who this year is celebrating its 40th anniversary. The reveal, says head of Marvel TV Jeph Loeb, comes after the show has dropped a number of “breadcrumbs” along the way, many of which were picked up on by the show’s hardcore fanbase, some of whom have anticipated Deathlok’s debut since episode 4. “Our fanbase is so strong and so in love with what we’re doing on the show, that what’s happening is they’re actually figuring out the path that, with any luck, we’ve laid out pretty well,” Loeb said. The character’s debut on SHIELD will mark the first time Deathlok has never been shown on TV or film, said Loeb. “It’s something we’ve had planned since the beginning,” he said.

Lady Sif will face off against Lorelei. We already knew that Jamie Alexander’s Lady Sif would be paying a visit but Loeb also announced that SHIELD would introduce villainous Lorelei in the same episode. Smallville alum Elena Satine will play the character, who in the comic books is the sister of Thor villain The Enchantress. And fans should look forward to an epic fight between the two in the episode.

Simmons and Coulson are father and daughter (during an undercover mission). The Feb. 4 hour will find the two characters going undercover as a father-daughter duo, but as anyone who watches the show knows, undercover ops are not necessarily Simmons’s (Elizabeth Henstridge) strong point. “She’s not good at role play,” says Henstridge. And despite feeling prepared for the mission at hand, she teases, “you’ll see things start to break down and don’t necessarily go according to plan.”

An exciting cameo! One thing that did go according to plan, though? A guest spot from comic book legend Stan Lee, which takes place on a train during a confrontation between Simmons and Coulson’s undercover characters. And even at 91, says Henstridge, Lee wowed the cast and crew by never missing a beat. “We were filming on a moving train. He had to stand up, walk to his mark, gets lines out…and I was struggling to stay balanced on the train but he was just skipping along,” she says.

Bill Paxton will wow as John Garrett As previously announced, Paxton will appear in several episodes as Marvel character John Garrett, and exec producer Maurissa Tancharoen said the writing team had been “interested in the character of John Garrett for a while” when the finally decided to pursue it. “He’s a smaller character in the Marvel universe, but we knew he could bring him into the fold…and we wanted to show an old cohort of Coulson’s, someone he’s been in the field with,” she said. “They sort of have different perspectives on how they approach things. Garrett is a little more rough-and-tumble, has swagger.”

Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD returns Feb. 4