The cast and producers of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD gathered on the Disney lot Monday night, for a screening of the show’s Season 2 premiere, as well as the second episode, airing next week. While I have to keep mum about that one, I will say that it’s another strong episode, following up on the season premiere, and underlines SHIELD’s new dynamic and vibe moving forward.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD: Season 2 Premiere Review

Kree in a Box?

Off the Grid

Down in the Basement

The Trouble With Fitz

Daddy Dearest

New Recruits

Don't Say It

Getting the SHIELD crew to reveal secrets is notably tough – they teach them well at Marvel Academy – but a few interesting tidbits were revealed in the Q&A that followed.Spoilers for the Agents of SHIELD: Season 2 premiere follow.Eagle eyed viewers will note that the flashback to 1945 that opened the episode not only included the introduction of the original 084, the "obelisk", but also another box briefly opened by Dum Dum Dugan that contained a blue… something. Which seemed to be a human form.So will we be learning more about that? Said executive producer Jed Whedon, “I think you know us well enough that we don't put anything there,” with fellow Maurissa Tancharoen responding, “It's not just for kicks.” Meanwhile, star Clark Gregg ("Phil Coulson") couldn’t resist exclaiming “That's un-Kree-lievable!”Was Gregg telling us exactly what was in the box? Maybe, maybe not. But on the heels of that other (or was it the same?!) blue body seen in Season 1 in the present, and the introduction of the Kree in Guardians of the Galaxy, it seems something is brewing in the MCU...The producers all seemed to be enjoying the show’s new dynamic, with a much smaller SHIELD operating as a fugitive, vigilante force. Said EP Jeffrey Bell of the differences from Season 1, “It’s really hard to cheer for the NSA. 'Yay! They can listen to everything. They have everything!' The team are much more underdogs this year. 'This is what we have, how can we make it work?' The stakes are much higher because of that and for us, we think it's easy to cheer for the team. That's part of why we did it and we do like how it feels texturally too. It's a way to start fresh.”Bell also noted, “Last year there was the Triskelion, which is down and we were off on a little plane by ourselves. And now, in essence, the Playground, our headquarters, is the center of SHIELD, so Coulson’s the director. There's got to be much more going on, not just with us, but around the world that he has to take track of.”We got a look at the traitorous Grant Ward in the season premiere, and while the SHIELD crew wouldn’t give any details, they did offer this ominous hint.You saw he was in our basement..."“When you have a monster in the basement, generally there's a problem.”Regarding the reveal that Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) not only was having trouble remembering things, but was imagining Simmons speaking to him, EP Jeph Loeb noted, “The writers had a long talk with [Iain] about where Fitz was headed. We didn't just make it up. You spent a lot of time researching what happens after you've been deprived of oxygen for awhile and where that goes.”Said De Caestecker, “A lot of the work was really done for me beforehand. They'd done a lot of research on it before me and I did a little bit as well and looked up on it. With something like that, that's really affected people in real life, I suppose there's a bigger deal of responsibility towards it sometimes.”Meanwhile, the producers and Elizabeth Henstridge all promised we would learn where Simmons went.We know we’ll meet Skye’s mysterious father this year, and that he’ll be played by Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks, How I Met Your Mother). While there is plenty to learn about who or what he is, Tancharoen remarked, “Coulson is essentially Skye's father figure, so it will be interesting to see what happens when that father comes into play.”Added Bell, “For us, that's the big thing. You've got the man who's been her father and then you've got her biological father. The whole team operates as a family, but to be able to play that is pretty cool.”The SHIELD cast has expanded, with the team now including B.J. Britt as Antoine Triplett, Henry Simmons as Alphonso 'Mac' Mackenzie and Nick Blood as Lance Hunter. Said Whedon, “It gives us more options as storytellers in terms of where we can go and how we can divide things up, and more voices. We're pretty much in love with all the characters at this point, so we always try and find something for each of them.”Said Tancharoen, “It may seem like we're adding a lot of new people but it's just an example of what SHIELD is now. We're seeing a guy like Mac, who might have been a mechanic at the Triskelion, but we never would have heard from him before - but now he is part of our team. “One of the more amusing moments during the conversation occurred when a discussion about whether the show has any less network restrictions in its new 9:00pm timeslot, leading to a tangent about words they can and cannot use and this awesome exchange:Honestly, we cannot say dick.And it really, really bothered us that we couldn't say dick.You could say douchebag but not dick, which seems wrong.Dick is the most natural thing ever, right?!

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