Ding-dong! The Ward is dead. Coulson got his revenge and hopped back through the portal with Fitz just in time. But if the S.H.I.E.L.D. director killed his nemesis, who was that guy that looked a lot like Ward standing in the middle of the road back on Earth?
The third season midseason finale of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." ended by revealing that the monstrous Inhuman trapped on another planet had made it to Earth just as Hydra wished. But this Inhuman exists by taking the form of its host's body like it did to Jemma's (Elizabeth Henstridge) interplanetary love, Will Daniels (Dillon Casey), and now in what used to be Grant Ward (Brett Dalton).
Not only does this Inhuman now look like someone Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. know well, it also retains the memories of its previous hosts, even before Ward.
"The idea with this new iteration is that it's a collection of a lot of different memories of all the different hosts that have come before Ward. So, of course, there's still some Ward there, but it's 'Ward and' rather than 'Ward but.' It's kind of 'Ward and Will' and Ward and the Host Before Will,'" Dalton explained to TV Insider about his character's new identity.
Back at S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) believe Ward is dead after Coulson crushed Ward's chest under his prosthetic hand. The director-turned-agent will struggle with the emotional consequences of taking his former colleague's life in the back half of season three.
"Where Coulson is now is a much darker place having lost someone who clearly meant the world to him in a way he didn't know he could feel again. The fact that Ward took Rosalind away from his enraged him in such a way that he compromised his character, albeit in a very cool, epic way," executive producer Jeff Bell told The Hollywood Reporter.
He continued, "I don't think anyone would argue that Ward didn't deserve to die after the way he'd been behaving. But how it happened, Coulson doesn't feel great about that. That's going to be something he'll have to figure out and come to terms with in the back half of the season."
"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." will return on Tuesday, March 8 at 9 p.m. on ABC following the second season of its sister Marvel series, "Agent Carter."
