Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD: Season 2 debuted on ABC a couple weeks back, on the heels of the DVD and Blu-ray release of Season 1 of the series.

It’s been an interesting year for the first TV series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which had a ton of attention when it debuted – and its fair share of criticism. Many -- myself included -- felt the show began to notably improve in the second half of Season 1 and got a big boost from the Captain America: The Winter Soldier plot twist regarding Hydra. And so far, Season 2 has been very well received, as its introduced a very different dynamic to the series in a compelling and involving manner.I spoke to two of the shows creators and executive producers, Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, about SHIELD’s story so far and how the show has evolved. The husband and wife team discussed how the Hydra twist affected the series, the big changes to the team in Season 2 – which has turned SHIELD into a vigilante force, wanted by the government – the upcoming introduction of Bobbi Morse/Mockingbird (Adrianne Palicki) and more.Spoilers follow for the first two episodes of Agents of SHIELD: Season 2.

We would have approached it differently. We knew from the get-go that that was in place, so it was always in the DNA of what we were trying to create.It would have been a completely different show.Truthfully, we probably would have done something along the same lines in terms of some sort of conspiracy within the agency, you know, spy versus spy.I don't think there's really any time to explore the "What if...?" of it. [Laughs] Our brains are already fully occupied by the task at hand. But I do think, yeah, within a spy organization, the theme of "trust no one" is something that interests us. I think that would have been inevitable for that to come up, regardless of the Cap 2 fallout.We had fleshed out the characters, but we knew at some point someone was going to have to turn and, early on, decided it was Ward. But we didn't create the character -- you know, we tried to create the team to fill in different pieces of the puzzle or the pie. I felt like we didn’t set out to have him be the baddie, but pretty early on, we knew that someone was going to turn and we figured it would be him.Because of the amount of episodes, a procedural is easier. [Laughs] We always, even still, want a little bit to split the difference in that we want every story to have its own beginning, middle and end, and not be completely dependent on having to know the mythology. That being said...I think we'll always have a serialized element to every episode, even if an episode may feel a bit more standalone. It will still be part of the overall mythology, you know, laid within it.You'll see coming up, we'll reveal more of her story. It was never really a debate in terms of how quickly we'd move with it, because we knew where we wanted it to land. But yeah, some things are slow plays, and some things are long plays, and this was a long throw, so now we're starting to get into the meat of it.I do think coming into Season 2, Skye's character is one where you notice a shift. She has the most drastic shift in her character. We also put her through a lot in Season 1. Now, coming in to Season 2, there's this mystery surrounding her that we'll fully unravel.That they have to be patient? I don't know what you're talking about, man! [Laughs]Yes, we knew there would be a lot of eyes on it, and we knew that we couldn't please everyone. We were also battling -- especially early on -- the fact that this is the first live-action television program that Marvel has made. It was marketed so aggressively to tie in with The Avengers. "After The Avengers comes the --" We knew there was going to be an expectation there that was going to be hard to live up to, so there were a lot of eyes. It was a blessing and a curse to have everybody watching the show, for sure.And I think at the end of the day we made a show that we set out to make from the beginning and wasn't adored by everyone right away -- not necessarily, but enough people tuned in every week that it got us here to Season 2. So we're just happy we're here telling the story that we've been planning to tell all along. We're excited for everyone to see where it goes.Sure. I mean, it's very much fun. I think we want things to keep feeling new and keep feeling good for us. This was a great excuse to do that. I can't imagine this show ever falling into a pattern of episodes where you know what you're going to get each week. We're having a blast with the new paradigm.Yeah, it's a different role, and for someone who's always been the "never leave a man behind" kinda guy, this position won't sit too well with him.Right, I think these decisions he has to make definitely take a toll on the kind of man he is. We'll see that over the course of this season. But yes, being director, he's faced with a hell of a lot more. It's not just his ragtag team on the plane that he needs to protect. He always had the mission at hand that was there for the greater good of things, but now he truly is in charge of the greater good. So he has to weigh the options.

Continue to Page 2 as the SHIELD creators talk about Hunter and Mac, Mockingbird and more.