Agents of SHIELD: Midseason Finale Review

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.

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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.

Chloe Bennet as Skye / Daisy Johnson in Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.

Kyle MacLachlan as Doctor Calvin Zabo in Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.

B.J. Britt as Antoine "Trip" Triplett in Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.

Ruth Negga as Raina in Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.

Yup. You can say it all you want!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.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.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.Oh my gosh. He’s everyone’s favorite character to write, for sure.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.You will know very… Tune in when we come back and you will know!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.It was her life long dream. And we’ll see what happens to her emotionally when it comes true.Well we did say the name of the city… It’s Puerto Rico! [Laughs]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.But yes we are diving into Inhuman territory.We can officially say that.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 know something else is too.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 affect the other, so we’re just excited to be the first to have the opportunity to start exploring that territory.Yeah, and actually damaged in a similar way. They’re both people who had their… Who were gutted from the inside emotionally.And who have suffered at the hands of others so we’ll see.We’ll see if there’s a connection to be made there.

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @EricIGN , IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at Facebook.com/TheEricGoldman