Daisy and her Secret Warriors took center stage in the "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." midseason premiere and used their combination of powers to rescue Bobbi and Hunter. As more and more Inhumans pop up, the Secret Warriors are playing a greater role, but will they soon make the need for human S.H.I.E.L.D. agents irrelevant?
Showrunners Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon are saying no. They described the Inhumans group as an extension of S.H.I.E.L.D. and not a separate team. The two groups will work together to take down Hydra and any otherworldly enemies.
"We've been asked that before, and it hasn't felt like we've been trying to juggle two separate teams," Tancharoen said. "It feels like it's just an extension of the team that we have, a new dynamic within."
The focus of that new dynamic is Daisy's (Chloe Bennet) skills to lead and bring together her growing team. No matter how helpful to S.H.I.E.L.D., her squad's abilities will still have some team members on edge.
The Secret Warriors element "is more about trying to reflect Daisy's pursuit of this idea, her desire to bring people like her together," Whedon said. "And that does create complications, as you see [in the winter premiere] - Hunter saying, 'Bloody powers.... How can we compete?' And everybody who's human in the field [last week] gets kidnapped because they can't compete. So it's definitely creating a dynamic within the team."
Any conflict between team members won't extend to Daisy and Coulson (Clark Gregg), Bennet assures.
"They definitely balance each other out," she said. "I think that her loyalty, overall, isn't necessarily to S.H.I.E.L.D. but really to Coulson. I think that's what she really believes in, her relationship with Coulson."
The director has yet to weigh in on the Terrigenesis antidote that FitzSimmons (Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge) discovered during this week's episode, "Inside Man." The formula could prevent potential Inhumans from experiencing their "awakening" either by choice or by force, if it were to fall into the wrong hands.
Daisy and her boyfriend/fellow Inhuman Lincoln butted heads over the antidote's use. For Daisy, obtaining her quake powers gave her a purpose, but Lincoln (Luke Mitchell) isn't so sure he can control his electric powers living in such an unstable environment working for S.H.I.E.L.D
Human or Inhuman, the S.H.I.E.L.D. team will need it all next week when they face an Inhuman who can traverse walls and move at super speed.
"Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." airs on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.
