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I walked out of Winter Soldier genuinely convinced that the Zola Algorithm was the Clairvoyant. These two episodes really add to the impact of Winter Soldier with seeing how the reveal impacted the people within SHIELD.
Some cool things. Fitz designed the thing Fury used to escape the crashed car in the winter soldier. Last episode, one cool little thing is that when Coulson conveniently meets Garret down in the basement (we now know why), but the great thing is that Deathlock shows up and when he scans them, only Coulson turns red indicating an enemy, not Garret. Its something easily missable on the first watch, but it’s a great detail on rewatch. And of course, the episode title “Turn, turn, turn” Turn 1, Hand is not the Clairvoyant. Turn 2, Garret is the Clairvoyant. Turn 3, Ward is Hydra.
funny backstory of turn, turn, turn. the cast didn't know ward was going to be hydra. at the table read, chloe said " yuck, i kissed him". ming pipes up with :i f**ked him!". it's just so nice to know that until they started to film the episode, the actors didn't know who was hydra and who wasn't!
Now we are here I can say this: When Coulson, Fitz, Garrett and Ward breach the Guest House facility in 1x14 "T.A.H.I.T.I." you will notice that it is only Garrett and Ward that use lethal force on the two guards.
Or in Yes Men, Ward takes the shot at May after Lorelei has the voice barrier on. I know some reactors pointed out that it was really weird editing....and no it wasn't lol
Also during the Lorelei episode. Not sure if intentional, but Ward pulls the trigger on May even after Sif put that inhibitor on her. Good thing that May disarmed the gun before hand.
I usually recommend paying attention to the writing when you rewatch this season to see the details in the twist, but you already caught most of it since you remembered the twist already 😂
This episode released the same week as Winter Soldier, so I ran to the movie theater to watch it before watching this episode. And it paid off. This episode is a perfect companion to the movie and made me like Winter Soldier even more. Also, watching the movie first helped me to not be spoiled by the end of the episode. 😂
SAME! This episode elevated the movie and the movie elevated this episode SO MUCH. It was all that AOS (and the subsequent shows) were meant to be but never became. It was such an amazing thing to see this in real time! And exactly why the idea of that connected universe not being implemented was so tragic. The connections could've been THIS good all throughout the MCU.
The main hint about Ward that I feel like nobody talks about is in 1x10 Coulson says a bunch of stuff to Ward in the scene where they're driving around in Lola, then the next episode the girl in the flower dress repeats a lot of that stuff back to him and he's confused how she could know it because it's not in his file. There's a specific phrase, "Dinners at the Richmond" that she repeats verbatim that Coulson said to Ward the episode before.
Oh damn... I missed that. But I figured Garret was the link there since he and Coulson was somewhat close. I can see him mentioning to that Garrett in the past. Also, those Shield's files are extensive like any spy organization. They go deep into your psychology. And to understand a person's psyche, u have to know the ppl in their lives.
Something that's great about the Ward reveal. Despite there being evidence sprinkled in the background, nothing in the performance gives it away. This is because Brett Dalton, the actor, wasn't told the twist. Not until this or the last episode I believe.
My recollection is that Brett Dalton was told during filming of the previous episode, and that the rest of the cast were told during production of this episode - either before the script was handed out, or the last pages of the script were held back and they were told before those last pages were given out. And the meeting to tell the rest of the cast was called in Elizabeth Henstridge's trailer, because it was always the cleanest one. So for every actor, up until the previous episode, none of them knew that Ward was a traitor, so it could not have tainted any of their portrayals.
Agents of Shield is one of the rare shows that is better on the rewatch. Every fan of the show KNOWS that!! If you had watched the whole thing in real time, you would have been impressed!😎
So yeah, Ward is Hydra. Its kinda cool watching season 1 already knowing that, like you kinda did. You noticed some things, but im just gonna put them all here, for both you and anyone else who wants to know. So here are all the hints, easter eggs, forshadwoing etc that ward was hydra/evil just to show you how amazing this show is: First of all, lets go back to the beginning, the pilot. In this episode its clearly set up by Maria hill that ward is a very good agent, he is in fact the greatest in espionage just after Black widow (Which used to be an evil spy, hint hint). This is important, because why would such a skilled spy and agent, be put on Coulsons team? That’s suspicious to begin with. Well now we know why. It was to infiltrate them for Garrets sake and help him find out more about how Coulson came back from the dead. And you can see him clearly asking for more information, like with May in the car in episode 15. But beyond that lets go episode for episode periodically. In the pilot sky says something like: "Just because your with shield, doesn't mean you're an evil, faceless, government, tool bag". Another hint of Ward being hydra or with Centipede in ep 1 is says this to protect Centipede and throw Shield off their cent: Ward: "Something turns up... like this Chitauri Neural Link... we get to it before someone bad does." Hill: "Any idea who Vanchat was planning to sell it to?" Ward: "I'm more interested in how this Rising Tide group found out about it." In episode 5 there are two pieces of dialogue that’s important. First there was one line he said to Coulson after the team found out about Skye's Rising Tide boyfriend, something along the line of "It must suck knowing someone you trusted stabbed you in the back." They are talking about sky, but now that we know this, its also obviously referencing to the eventually betrayal this episode by ward himself. Later on after they make Scorch blow up, Ward says “You cant save people from themselves”, to which Coulson responds: “You can if you get to them early enough”. Now I especially love this line, its such great writing. Because they are obviously talking about Scorch, but they are also referencing sky, but behind that again its also referencing Ward himself. So great. These next two is where the fact that Ward was next best after black widow is important. Because also in episode 5 in the beginning they are tailing Miles. Moreover, ward as a dufus, stands out in the street looking suspicious and obviously gets spotted. Now we as the audience just ignore it, thinking that he made a mistake. But if we remember the beginning, Ward got top grades in espionage, no way would he do such a beginner mistake. Now we know he did it. Because he wanted Miles to get away, because he is of course working for centipede and doesn’t want shield to find them. (He also says in episode 6: “Everyone looks clean on their first go around.”) Same thing in episode 10. Ward positioned himself weird, because he loses line on sight of the meeting because of a big thank or something, letting Raina take Coulson, which is weird since you figured he would have noticed that way earlier and found another spot. Again it makes sense when he is working for the clairvoyant just like Raina and them getting Coulson would be a big win for the cause and for Garret. Also in episode 10, Ward and Coulson is talking in Lola on their way somewhere, and Coulsons talks about the Cellist to Ward, which is how Raina knew that in episode 11. In episode 12 Sky looks at the memorial for all the fallen shield agents, when there is a voiceover by Coulson talking about how much evil, death etc is in the world, and the camera pans to ward. Coulson was talking about Donnie and said “Sometimes its not a bad seed, just a bad influence”, which would both work on Sky and ward. In episode 13 may says to not blame himself that sky was shot, and he says that he is not blaming himself. We are supposed to think that he means Coulson, but now we know of course that he was actually blaming Garret. In episode 14 when we first meet Garret, he says to the crew (talking about Ward) : "You wouldn't believe the things I've talked him into doing". In episode 15 when Ward is fighting May, and Sif fighting Lorelei, Sif gets the collar on her, then the shot cuts back to Ward and May. Ward still pulls the trigger, and as soon as the gun fails to fire is when he puts his hands up and says he's free of Lorelei's control. The way it was cut, you assume that it just takes a couple of seconds for the spell to wear off, or that the whole thing was edited a vit out of synch, but rewatching it, you see that this is on purpose. When Ward was going to shoot/kill May he was no longer under control, he had gotten his free will back, but he was using this opportunity to try and take out his biggest threat if he were to come out of the Hydra shadows, and then use the mind control as an excuse. So letting Lorelei touch him and control him was not some dumb mistake, n\but on purpose because it gave him an exuse to possibly hurt the team, specifically may, without blowing his cover. He even says "Its nothing personal", which why would he say that if he was still under mindcontrol. This next one is obvious right now I guess, but still. Episode 16 has Ward killing what turns out to be the fake Clairvoyant out of nowhere without getting ordered to. It was not because he “threated” sky, it was because he was part of the real Clairvoyants scheme to put Shield of his trail. And the camera also shows ward when Nash has the voice over of “someone will betray you, Coulson” or something like that. And finally in this episode, episode 17. Just a small thing. There is a scene where Garret "catches Ward up" to whats going on and says that the team now thinks Hand is the Clairvoyant. This is so that Ward knows who they are blaming. It's such a great piece of very hidden writing. The last main thing is how Ward takes special effort to win the favor of every member of the team, in their own way. He does the “vulnerable man who needs help” thing for Coulson, acts as a supportive SO for Skye, becomes Fitz’s friend, sleeps with May, and jumps out of a plane to save Simmons. Every person demanding something different, but necessary to earn their trust, and funny enough the audiences trust. There is probably some more little things I have missed, but that should be most of them.
My favorite is I think it's episode 6 when the team is talking about how the victim of the what turns out to be the chitari virus has a clean record and ward goes "everyone looks clean the first time round" or something and we think it has to do with the miles thing from the episode before but it really reigns true for him
For what it's worth, Coulson wasn't bluffing about his gun not being an icer. He had taken the Icer that May was holding. You can kinda tell an icer by looking at it. Looks like the barrel's modified or something. My favourite little easter egg in this episode is that Fitz's "mouse hole" is used by both Fury and Hill during Winter Soldier. I guess Garret was right that they hog the good stuff for themselves.
16:15 Apparently this take with Brett Dalton (Ward) reacting to John Garrett being Hydra was shot with a long lens down the hall, and Brett Dalton thought it was a rehearsal and they weren't filming, and it's the take they used.
I got to meet Brett Dalton at a convention several years ago (when this was in season one or two, I think) and he was super cool. Him and Haley Atwell were making jokes and taking a ton of photos with little kids (despite the supposed $20 charge they weren't collecting from kids). I overheard one girl with her friends talking about how it was her birthday and I mentioned it to him- and he thanked me and got Atwell to take pics and do autographs with that birthday girl. Super cool guy.
Ahhh I've been waiting for this moment. Definitely a Winter Soldier moment and even now, as of 12/6/23, none of the movies have tied in THIS WELL, to the tv shows and that sucks. This was SUCH a great follow up to Winter Soldier and such a great moment in time. I can honestly remember seeing "The End of the Beginning" before...being confused yet intrigued...watching Winter Soldier and being mind-blown....and then watching this episode, being SO EXCITED for the future of the MCU and TV. Everything about the execution was "chef's kiss" and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say, it changed the direction of the show, forever, in such a good way.
I’m a little surprised that no one told you in advance that Winter Soldier fit in between eps 1x16 and 1x17. One fun thing to try: watch AoS 1x16x, Winter Soldier, and then AoS 1x17 all in one sitting since they all happen simultaneously.
No matter how many times I see it that cold blooded Ward scene still hits just as hard. I like that you still have a lot of questions even with knowing the big bombshell already! Obviously can't get into all the details of why but Grant Ward is my all time favorite marvel character.
The reveal of May's assignment is one my all time favorite scenes. With all history shown as the series goes on I highly recommend going back to re watch. The horror and heartbreak on Coulson's face gives me chills every time. Really a great script all around. I remember being so blown away that Hand would have thought Coulson was Hydra till her spiel and then thinking well those are good points. Only thing that would improve this episode is when Skye decrypted the message it should have said heil Hydra not just Hydra.
someone once pointed out and i find it interesting that in that Asgard's girl ep, Lady Sif solves the problem and Ward shoots May. looking back, it seems that Ward tried to unalive May at that moment 👀 also Ward and Garret and Skye and Coulson are two sides of the same coin. they have many parallels with each other and it's a dynamic worth attention in my opinion.
The sense of completion that came from this episode after seeing Winter Soldier opening night is indescribable. Thank you for the reminderful! Wonderful!
I always forget throughout the day that today is Agents of SHIELD day and then I refresh YT at some point and am so surprised and excited ESPECIALLY with THIS episode
When the episode originally aired there were people upset by Victoria Hand's death for a completely different reason. The comic book version of the character was one of the few prominent lesbian characters in Marvel at the time, so her death on the show was seen as a possible use of the "Bury Your Gays" trope, as TV Tropes calls it, writers seeing LGBT characters as "expendable". Supposedly the showrunners avoided mentioning her sexuality on the show specifically to avoid association with the trope.
2:23 - 😂😂😂 *_Well of course "Everybody has secrets": SHIELD is a super-spy agency! (Many people forget that as they watch the show. So yeah, like Tony said of their Director, Nick Fury: "His Secrets have Secrets!"_* 😜 12:06 - *_Yup! AoS has some wicked, badass fight scenes (Highly underestimated by many viewers!); at least one big one like this per seasons (Sometimes, more than one). So do look forward to them coming around every once in a while_* 18:04 - *HAIL HYDRA!* 😝👍 *_Yup, pretty much figured you knew Ward was HYDRA; but it's ok. And the answers to your questions will be coming. But its ok if you remembered that or anything else: A lot of reactor get on this show years later and have some elements spoiled because they have been in the social media sphere for a long time (Still gonna look forward to when we get to the next season and others, when you have no idea what is coming, but even if you still know more about Skye, there is still TONS to discover!)_*
Glad you reached this point. The cast was kept in the dark about Ward until the last minute. There are some funny stories about their reactions at comic con panels.
I love Trip so much! I love how quickly he trusted Jemma. It was a relief to know that he was a good guy in a time when you didn’t know who to trust. He was a stand up guy from the jump and he became a favorite of mine very quickly. He's one more amazing character in a whole cast of them. This show will always be at the top of my favorites list because of how much I love these characters. Except Ward. I never liked Ward. But I loved to hate him. Lol
I think the very first instance of who Ward is, or what his allegiances are, is literally his first scene where he is asked “what does that mean to you?” (The full name of SHIELD) and his immediate response is “like somebody really wanted to spell the word SHIELD”. It seems like flippant Marvel comedy at first, but then you find out he is HYRDA and it takes on a new meaning.
I think I read that Jemma was considered as the mole. I could be remembering that wrong, but the fact that she didnt do anything during Hand's test I think was to make us a bit suspicious. I'm sure others will correct me if i'm wrong. Also, I love your reaction style and appreciate you holding back what you know. I'm following another reactor that is a bit ahead of you and he's constantly theorizing and guessing. And when he gets it right, he acts like it's a win. Like dude, us watchers know what happens and we want to see the reactor learn about it and be surprised and let the writing do its work! Guessing right just makes it disappointing. Also, May is such a force, but I always forget how good Ward's action sequences are, esp for a TV show on a major network. Great reaction!
The showrunners did say that Jemma was considered as the mole. I suspect that was fairly early in Season 1 or even just in pre-production, it isn't my impression that the idea of Jemma as the mole was kept alive for very long into production.
@@dondumitru7093 Yeah, could have been a red herring for productions like this. Since they probably knew the Hydra twist was coming, planting little seeds. But Ward definitely has more (though to be fair, I haven't rewatched with Jemma in mind). She's so self-sacrificing I can't see it 😅.
I don’t know how long this twist was actually planned (I don’t think it was the goal the whole time, I think they got told a bit after they had been going that this would happen and had to adapt) but I do think that they got really lucky with Ward if that is the case. There are some things upon a rewatch that you can point to and be like “Omg hints this far back” that could just be luck or could be planned. Either way, I love how it worked out.
This episode turned shield into a (mandatory) weekly tradition for me, I never missed an episode before this, but I really never missed an episode after this one ha from this point forward spectacular series
Ward's reveal at the end is, of course, one of my favorite moments that I love watching others react to. You may have already known, but I don't think you really understood the implications until he put two into Hand. He is, according to many, the best agent since Romanov. Except he's Hydra.
This episode came out four days after the Winter Soldier, so they happened almost simultaneously. I love that so much. The people watching both must have flipped.
My main experience with Bill Paxton before this was the Movie Twister as that is a DVD that I have popped in on a lot of nights. So going from that to this was quite the surprise.
Lol we all knew what you knew 😂 As I've never seen any Marvel films, i had no idea who/what Hydra was so this episode was a bit lost n me on my 1st time through 😮
The showrunners have said that this period of the show, up to the Hydra reveal, and then the fallout afterwards, was intended to be a much more in-depth portrayal of how SHIELD members were impacted by the reveal of Hydra. That Winter Soldier and other movies could never have spent as much time focusing on characters being impacted by those events, and Agents of SHIELD was going to do that. So the period before the reveal gets the viewers invested in the characters, and then the reveal and the period after is bringing the viewers along with the characters as they experience the betrayal and rebuilding.
A really good episode, which I think saved the series. It was pretty good up until this point, but this, along with Winter Soldier, changed it and made it so much better in my opinion.
Did I suspect Ward? No. Not much at least. How the episode before ended with him shooting obvious fake Clairvoyant of course made me suspicious something was up. But before that: no. And I still couldn't really believe anyone on the team was actually Hydra before Ward offered to go with Hand on the plane to deliver Garret. Then alot of warning bells rang. But I still couldn't really comprehend the show was going to make one of the main cast a villain before the treachery. I saw it coming at that point, bust somehow just couldn't comprehend. Network shows just did not do that.
Finally it's our and it's just as I suspected. You knew Ward was Hydra. This was the one thing I thought would be impossible to forget. Coulson's brain surgery...ok....the alien floating in fluid and that GH325 was its blood...ok But Ward Hydra? That was such a big and enraging reveal. I mean enraging because I couldn't believe it and was furious at Ward's betrayal. I literally cursed at my TV. FUCKIN WARD!! Especially after he jumped from the plane to save Simmons. He seemed like such a good guy. He's not, he's a psychopath. Ward's betrayal will get worse. I guess the only mystery now is, how did you give up on this show? It just gets better from here, reaching its zenith in season 4. That doesn't mean 5,6&7 aren't good...they're great. It's just that 4 is so incredible....IMO
Damn it I wish you didn't know about Ward when I was watching this episode on TV i started getting a bad feeling about him when he asked to escort Garrett
IIRC This was one of the last times Perlmutter & Loeb were able to align AOS w/ the MCU. Production of movies & TV show production work at different timelines and Feige was hesitant to let Marvel's future plans be known. After Hydra takes over SHIELD, AOS started breaking off into it's own Timeline, less connection to the MCU
Not true. There’s a lot of links to AOU. Helps when you have the Whedons working on something. There’s later things that people say that AOS didn’t know about and a lot of that has been discredited by the creators. The TV division were only allowed to use the characters that the movies didn’t want to. And there is a character set up later who was then pulled by the movies.
@@jspettifer "ONE of the last times" The dislike between Perlmutter and Feige has been well known, didn't Feige get Perlmutter released from Disney once he was given full reign? I remember at that time AOS fans were looking for any opportunity to link the TV show to the MCU. It was easier for the TV show to script a story to align w/ the MCU than vice versa mostly because of the long range way Marvel scheduled their movies at the time. Feige didn't trust Perlmutter to let him in on the plans for the MCU. They were not friendly in any way
@@HaleysTusk Nah, they knew lots about the plans. Feige and Perlmutter did hate each other but the TV guys knew all about what was gonna happen in IW and Endgame. The movies clearly always took priority over everything else. Unfortunately Feige has been extremely arrogant in his TV plans and completely screwed it up with the D+ shows which has then negatively impacted the movies through the interconnected nature. People don’t want to have to watch multiple TV shows on a streaming service to understand the next movie and people like long TV shows to grow familiar with characters.
@@jspettifer I doubt that was on Feige, Investors demand a return, their greed ended up teaching ‘society’ they could watch ‘mid’ movies free as part of their subscription, and unfortunately for Disney, most of their movies under his full control were ‘mid’. Investors were literally printing cash so more is better, right? AOS never acknowledged IW or the blip btw so I doubt they knew what was a very closely held secret at the time who’d die.
A worse show would have revealed Ward to be a traitor at the end of the pilot, when we wouldn't have given a shit. Kind of like Gotham killing Bruce's parents in the pilot. Like, where's the rush? Give us a few episodes to get to know and maybe even like these characters. The fact that they had to wait 17 episodes for the Winter Soldier helped the storytelling immensely. A bunch of dum-dums may have fallen off during that time, but those of us who stuck around were rewarded with the best superhero show ever. And it's not close, in my own personal opinion.
