Now that you are calling Ward the Big Bad, is there any end for his story other than death? Is that too morbid?
[ Laughs] It's not too morbid. It's something that's certainly the fear of any actor. I've had that fear since I started "SHIELD"; it's a Joss Whedon [show], and I know not all his characters survive. That's just the reality. I would much rather have him come to end in an interesting way rather than have him just be a fixture on the show that is just kind of there. If it serves the story and it makes the most interesting story, then maybe that's it. But they've been teasing the whole idea of if he's a good guy or if he's a bad guy for so long. He is, I guess, officially a total bad guy now, and the head of the bad guys, but I think there's always that chance. I think what keeps you tuning in every week is there's still that chance that he might still be a good guy underneath all of that.
What do you hope for Grant Ward in Season 3?
I feel what we have now is someone who really has crossed the line, who has nothing to do anymore. That's a really fascinating place to be. One of the things that the director was talking about was [Ward's] so far gone that his pulse doesn't even change. ... He has a plan, he knows how to execute it, and there's a kind of coldness in there that is scary that I'd like to really explore in Season 3; somebody who doesn't have those questions, who isn't in a relationship with someone else, who is just a man with vengeance on his mind. I think that's fascinating to play, and that's where I think Season 3 will hit the ground running. This is just the beginning of a whole other chapter, and that's what I think is so exciting. When you do have a character that is this far gone, to see a glimmer of maybe he is still a good guy, that would be fun too just to remind people -- or just to confuse them even more.
[ Laughs] It's not too morbid. It's something that's certainly the fear of any actor. I've had that fear since I started "SHIELD"; it's a Joss Whedon [show], and I know not all his characters survive. That's just the reality. I would much rather have him come to end in an interesting way rather than have him just be a fixture on the show that is just kind of there. If it serves the story and it makes the most interesting story, then maybe that's it. But they've been teasing the whole idea of if he's a good guy or if he's a bad guy for so long. He is, I guess, officially a total bad guy now, and the head of the bad guys, but I think there's always that chance. I think what keeps you tuning in every week is there's still that chance that he might still be a good guy underneath all of that.
What do you hope for Grant Ward in Season 3?
I feel what we have now is someone who really has crossed the line, who has nothing to do anymore. That's a really fascinating place to be. One of the things that the director was talking about was [Ward's] so far gone that his pulse doesn't even change. ... He has a plan, he knows how to execute it, and there's a kind of coldness in there that is scary that I'd like to really explore in Season 3; somebody who doesn't have those questions, who isn't in a relationship with someone else, who is just a man with vengeance on his mind. I think that's fascinating to play, and that's where I think Season 3 will hit the ground running. This is just the beginning of a whole other chapter, and that's what I think is so exciting. When you do have a character that is this far gone, to see a glimmer of maybe he is still a good guy, that would be fun too just to remind people -- or just to confuse them even more.
Source:
I'm so angry I could scream. 2B, especially the finale, was filled with so many out of character twists to get the plot twists to work they didn't even see the plot holes. How much time passed in 2B? Like a month? Ah yes, Ward and Kara's unhealthy weird co-dependent relationship would so lead to him wanting to get revenge for her with same organization that tortured her in the first place. Makes so much sense.
ReplyDeleteDon't even get me started on the amount of victim blaming towards both Grant and Kara this season. It's so disgusting I can't even stand it. They villainzed two abuse victims and blamed them!
Cal gets away scot-free by blaming everything on his evil wife (a WOC) who he then murders for a redemption when he's a comic supervillain and then gets TAHIT'd (still against it because of what happened to Coulson). In what world is that fair?
They've killed six POC since 2.10 (three WOC in the finale) and Jiaying got screwed over so her white man husband could get a redemption arc.
This post is spot on (minus the Bobbi hate because she too got screwed over by the shitting writing) so I recommend reading it
http://lynngvnn.tk/post/119112313042/so-the-abuse-victim-not-only-had-his-abuse
I know your angry but you keep repeating the same thing in every post.
ReplyDeleteYeah, and I'm going to keep repeating it until everyone sees how wrong it is (and it was only like what, three posts since Tuesday?. LOL). I am that pissed about all the victim blaming and how none of that finale made sense that I'm just going to keep ranting about it. Am I sick of it? Yes, but as long as I open someone's eyes, I'll be glad to do it.
ReplyDeleteThe complaining about "Plot twists and out of character moments" kind of falls flat when KG has admitted she's either been blanking out things like the 2A murders (guards, family etc), or thining that Coulson was rnning an op with Ward the whole time.
ReplyDeleteBluntly for KG, she is having difficulty with the end result, as she's been creatively rewriting the show that you watch to fit her view. Now that it is clear that you can't do that she have a problem.
If you tie it back to 1.05 Ward even predicted his future "you can't save someone from themselves". Ward killed because he choose to do so, For Kara Ward got to see himself as "the good guy" even while doing bad things. Am I comfortable with the relationship, no as it was clearly never one that Ward wasn't manipulating.
And the sad reality is that while some abuse victims do move through their abuse and escape, others don't, they become abusers themselves, that's reality. Ward couldn't escape his past and allowed it to lead into being the person we've seen since the Fall of Shield.
The finale was brilliant for me, and pretty much everyone outside of the element of Ward shippers.
ReplyDeleteI have seen multiple Ward haters who said they're now on his side because the finale made no sense.
ReplyDeleteReceipts http://grootmorning.tumblr.com/post/119017465667/aos-writers-ward-is-going-to-be-the-big-bad-he and http://agentverbivore.tumblr.com/post/118973952248/aos-writers-ward-is-going-to-be-the-big-bad-he (just two examples so far)
I'm honestly baffled at how bad this show has become, I loved season 1 and it just went rapidly downhill for me in season 2. Ward has always baffled me the most though, he was my favourite character and they just destroyed him with what was truly horrible writing imo. Most characters got screwed by bad writing but Ward got screwed the most imo by far. I'm still sticking with it for now but they better make some big changes in season 3.
ReplyDeleteI'm excited to see how the character of Ward plays out in season 3. I think Brett Dalton is a brilliant actor and like he said, now that he has picked a definitive side I think the writers can really set up a solid storyline for him, one that isn't so sporadic and ambiguous like it was in 2B.
ReplyDeleteI liked season 2 better than season 1 of course. As far as Ward goes I just don't think he can join the team again it just doesn't feel right. Write him however I guess but season 3 for him will be interesting
ReplyDeleteGive me reasons as to how exactly the writers destroyed the Ward character. I honestly need to see what you're seeing that I'm not because Ward was always going to be evil ever since we realized that he was a freaking Hydra mole.
ReplyDeleteKeep on spreading your righteous truth then, but really eventually you will need to let go of the show if its pissed you off this much.
ReplyDeleteMe too. One of the best finales I have ever seen IMO.
ReplyDeleteYeah the whole cuttin a man's throat and then kissing a woma, like nothing happened might have been a clue as to where mentally Ward always was in my view.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. It's getting really annoying clicking on a SHIELD thread and coming down and reading the comments just to see the same thing over and over again. We get it! You're pissed off at what they did to Ward/Kara/2B etc. but you don't have to write a freaking short essay repeating the same thing. If you're THAT pissed off, I think it's time to just stop watching. I know I would.
ReplyDeleteIt was better than AoU because there were real stakes, our heroes all lost something important, and even the main cast was not immune to bad things happening. Also, thanks to the omega-3 pills, SOS probably had a greater influence on the MCU as a whole, then AoU. I was wondering how they were going to have a massive influx of superheroes before Civil War and now I know.
ReplyDeleteWhen you consider we had Skye's development Arc come to an end, the set up for why the Superheros Act is going to come about, potential for more Inhuman action either way next season, May actually emotionally functioning again in a way we haven't seen, Mack staying (which I figure is going to create some nice tension between Coulson/Mack/Skye next season if shes setting up a gifted team). I could have lived without the Simmons twist, but I really want to see what is going to happen next season for that.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, I instantly started tuning out when you brought up a POC argument.
ReplyDeleteHey, they already threw their worst at me so what does it even matter? COME AT ME, SHOW. It really can't get worse at this point and I love the actors and characters so much that it's hard to give up.
ReplyDeleteSee agree completely, if it had been Hawkeye that went down in AoU, then I would say they did a good turn in AoU (as the death would have vastly more connect to the rest of the team, instead of just Wanda).
ReplyDeleteYeah, I love that a show with an extremely diverse cast (not just white, but American, English and a Scot, along with the other ethnic minorities). Hell of course POC's die, it's a show that has a wide range of POC's...
ReplyDeleteWhy? Because the show killed six since 2.10 and three WOC were killed in the finale alone. Even if you dislike me and disagree with me about certain things, it's still very valid and disgusting what they did in those regards.
ReplyDeleteIf Ward is the big bad of season 3, meh.
ReplyDeleteLet the games begin and may the odds be ever in your favor (I don't know if it is like that but you get the idea lol)
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I'm all for a villain Ward, I think he going truly dark makes me even kinda like him and everything. I just hope he's not the big bad guy of the season and we have other bad guy. Or girl.
I honestly don't understand those saying that the writing of the finale or this character has been awful. This show has actually been one of the few ones with good writing, good character development, good arcs, the plot has being constant and interesting... What's not to like about season 2? Most of the people I see saying S2 is bad are the skyeward shippers and the #StandWithWard fans. I'm not attacking anyone, just pointing out a fact, so don't eat me please!
And I'm very happy that the writers to this show don't give the fans exactly what they want and that they actually use logic and don't go around tumblr and fan fiction like others have done. Not saying names, you know what I mean.
Exactly, SHIELD is an ensemble with characters/actors that have many different ethnicities. I hate that freaking argument that the show is killing POC/WOC because they're racist/misogynistic. The show is killing them off because it's important to the STORYLINE, not just for the hell of it.
ReplyDeleteWard is just a psychopath. Being abused does not make his actions okay in ANY WAY. All it does is allow you to see and understand how and why he got started on this path, but everyone has choices in life and it is within everyone's abilities to grow. He's an ass.
ReplyDeleteExactly, when they created the situation to get Ward on the bus, I honestly did think they were going to strong arm a return with Ward having done nothing to deserve it. Instead they create a wonderful twist while showing how the original team had changed (Skye being a BadAss, May no longer trusting Coulson, Jemma willing to kill).
ReplyDeleteI loved the whole season to be honest.
Season 2 has never been less than twice as good as s1 and IMO it's increasingly got better every couple of episodes. If it keeps this up season 3 is gonna be fantastic. Hopefully Ward is dead and gone by 3B though.
ReplyDeleteOf course the abuse doesn't excuse his actions but the amount of victim blaming towards both him and Kara is gross and unwarranted. Neither of them were to blame to what happened to them. May was completely out of character for her comment in 2.20 about Kara having her face because that wasn't her fault.
ReplyDeleteRead the link and see why the victim blaming bothers me. It's pretty enlightening.
The reality is that because AoS has so many POC's that without question they are going to be deaths within that. The alternative is simply not having any which is worse. Instead they get arc's some of which have been over a season in the making that come to natural conclusions.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest I think you are just throwing this in the water to try and stir up more support for the view that the finale was "wrong". And frankly I'd still rate May as a superhero as well.
At this point he's just on the show to satisfy all the people who are inexplicably obsessed with him. The worst thing they can do after going this far is trying to redeem him, I'll never believe he can be a SHIELD agent again. The most redemption I see him accomplishing is maybe realizing what a dick he was and sacrificing himself to save people, he's too evil to be both redeemed and alive though.
ReplyDeleteIf they casted all those characters as white, they would be eviscerated for monotone casting. I find it very annoying when people only see a character in terms of their race or ethnicity, and only see the character as something valuable because they represent a minority group. And I say this as somebody who has a degree in civil rights and cultural diversity.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I said anywhere Ward being evil was my issue. I didn't mind him being evil but his whole Agent 33 storyline was horrible imo. And maybe your not seeing it because you liked it, whereas I didn't, everyone has different opinions. That's the one big thing I'm not understanding here, fans seem to be operating under the assumption that one side is wrong and the other is right but that's not the case, it boils down to each persons likes and dislikes. I hate that his motivations are based off someone he supposedly loved, and this whole 'closure' excuse just makes me think of him as Sheldon from TBBT...I don't like it at all. I also hate that my favourite character is not my favourite anymore because of how they've written him.
ReplyDeleteHere we come evil Ward! Finally. I'm so glad the writers stuck to their word when they said that we will finally see his true allegiance in the finale. I can't wait to see Coulson's team/SHIELD go head to head with Ward/Hydra next season. When there's heroes there are villains and Ward is it. Just like Jiaying, he too is too far gone and there's absolutely no way he can come back from this (also after just rewatching the finale, he actually did kill Buddy the dog, not Garrett so my hatred for him runs for miles and miles)
ReplyDeleteFor me the only episode that was above average in season 2 was the finale. I hope they kill Ward or send him away too so i can easily forget his storyline ever happened and move on.
ReplyDeleteThis, so much this. I enjoy the diverse nature of the show, and when a character dies I don't say, 'oh he/she was this ethnicity". I don't care about what their ethnicity is, I care about how good a character they have been and does their death make sense.
ReplyDeleteTo me Raina's death was so moving considering how she had grown, Gonzales I felt bad for as for the first time he moved beyond the characture we'd seen, Jiaying was just sad but so moving when you see Skye's quest come to an end just for example.
Like you said, we all have personal feelings, for me Skye's whole arc was brilliant (and allowed us to see the growth of a superhero in a different way then usual imo).
ReplyDeleteSo what do you think of the Ward haters who are now on his side because of the shitty writing? That says it's not just the Ward fans who have issues with the finale.
ReplyDeleteJemma was all over the place this season because none of her trauma was addressed at all, she killed someone and had no issues with it, and then got sucked into an alien rock (hopefully to fix the mess that season two became).
Why did Coulson have to lose his hand? Shock value.
May bounced right after Coulson lost said hand to be in a relationship with her ex-husband who had someone in his life last we knew and that's not her.
Fitz isn't reckless enough to unlatch the Kree Stone so Jemma could get eaten by alien blob (and why didn't it get him).
Skye learned how to control her powers a little too quickly and she got screwed over by the parents she spent her whole life looking for.
One white man died in the finale compared to the three WOC. That's a disturbing pattern.
Read the link in my first comment because my main problem here is the victim blaming.
I would have hated it but I would understood villain Ward more if the narrative was actually cohesive but it wasn't.
Several of my friends tried to figure out the 2B timeline and at most, a month and a half passed. None of it makes any sense.
And look at the link in my first comment because it goes into depth about why I have issues with victim blaming in regards to both Ward and Kara.
Skye was the highlight of the season for me, I really enjoyed her story this season as well.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same, that they were going to force him back, I believe I even had that conversation with you, I'm glad they did what they did with Ward and the team, it's like life itself, things happen in life that make you change, for better or worse, you never stay the same and I think they show it perfectly.
ReplyDeleteSkye is more serious, more professional and a badass. May's walls have come down a little and she doesn't follow Coulson blindly. Jemma is not a sweet and scared girl anymore, she's become tough and a little cold hearted. Fitz is not so innocent and he understands being different. Ward has become what he was trying to run from in the beginning. And Coulson is a real lider now. Like I said before, good character development on this show.
Yeah I think we did have the conversation, I was so sure that they were going to force the issue but they didn't. They have refused to just go down the lazy expected routes so many times which is why I love the show.
ReplyDeleteThe sixth characters that are perceived as persons of color were all slated to die
ReplyDeleteeventually when they were created. Rain wasn’t even supposed to make it more
than an episode or two and she made it all the way to the end of season two.
The same with Trip, but because of his performance he stayed on longer than
intended.
Would you prefer that they only cast individuals of European ancestry for those roles
since the characters were going to die anyway? I think an open casting call
shows more progress and we know it’s an open casting call because in the comic books Kara was perceived as white. The same with Skye’s mother, in the comic book character was white. Actually, if they stuck to the comic books Skye and Mack would have to be played by different people.
See when I look at characters, I judge them by what they do not by their appearance or the
color of their skin. I judge them by the content of their character.
Grant Ward did bad things. Yes, he was the victim of abuse, but I doubt a court of law
would accept that as an excuse for murder. I know a lot of abuse victims. My
own mother was the victim of domestic violence from her first husband. But she
survived and did not let herself be defined by her abuse. My niece was raped at
13 and became pregnant by the 19-year-old brother of one of her friends. Eight
years later, she’s a single parent and in grad school on scholarship. Neither
one use what happened to them as a justification to do bad things.
People are neither good nor bad. They’re just people. They are not purely defined by the
circumstances they must contend with, but the choices they make despite those
circumstances. The world isn’t black or white. It’s a rainbow. Morality is
subjective and there are no absolutes.
To be honest, not just Skye, as I've said before Chloe's acting has come on so much when you compare season 1 to 2 (rewatching 1 at the moment kind of funny when you know how things are going to change). I'm so looking forward to next season...
ReplyDeleteI agree, him being redeemed and working to help SHIELD seems unlikely. It would be incredibly far fetched and difficult to achieve in a way that would be supported by viewers, myself included. Ward sacrificing himself would be an interesting twist, it would give his death more of an impact, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm so happy with the work the writers have done with this show. If I didn't live across the planet, I would go to LA and congratulate them myself for being so awesome lol
ReplyDeleteFor Jemma, for most of the season till other Shield came up, Coulson didn't have the numbers to bench someone that was in need of counselling (hell the entire agency needs counselling).
ReplyDeleteFor Coulson, given who he was fighting one of the three Humans in that room SHOULD have died. That they didn't and only a hand was lost given the scale of the battle and risk, he's lucky.
May, she's finally actually growing emotionally, and clearly Andrew had signed off on Coulson, most likely she told Skye to keep an eye on Coulson and finally is dealing with the aftermath of Barhain. I have to wonder if Andrew was actually in a relationship, we never saw the picture, for all we know it could have been May's picture and he just didn't want to get pulled into Shield again.
Skye, I don't think she's anywhere close to having full knowledge of her powers, not too mention she got screwed over by 1 of her parents, Cal didn't screw her over at all.
Like I said, I think you are throwing the issue of the characters ethnicity out just to cause another issue. They were good characters that had reasons for their deaths.
I LOVE that Ward is a baddie for good! He's not only a fantastically twisted character but also this time is HYDRAs leader.
ReplyDeleteCome on, if that's not badass then what is?
Plus I heard this very compelling theory of Ward actually being Taskmaster, wich would just be fitting in my eyes
I don't want him redeemed, he's so much fun as a bad guy.
ReplyDeleteI could do without all the Skye drama...in fact cut Skyes Inhuman arc and have a full on SHIELD vs HYDRA battle with each team racing to exploit a superhero quicker.
hahaha, I haven't watched a single episode yet, but I am gonna start first thing tomorrow. I was saying about Ward being a psychopath before the second season started and a certain someone was trying to hard (obviously affected by other factors..) was playing the victim card who was abused and brainwashed etc..Like I said before any episode aired, there's no redemption for him. Only death.
ReplyDeleteWard's abuse doesn't excuse his actions at all - I've been saying that for well over a year - but the VICTIM BLAMING towards both him and Kara is something I have a huge problem with.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought all the Ward arguments among the fans was about shipping, and to a certain extent that's probably true but when I actually payed attention I saw it was much more than that. It's actually nice to see people discuss the deeper elements to each story, even if it is blown way of proportion a lot of the time.
ReplyDeleteHellfire looks more likely than Taskmaster at this point but I didn't want villain Hellfire Ward. I wanted Ward started on his redemption arc as Hellfire.
ReplyDeleteI may get hate for this but I love evil Ward....I actually enjoyed this finale!!!
ReplyDeleteAtworse you could say May might be guilty with her issues with her mask. But since in the finale we got to see the full extent of the brainwashing Ward had put her through and the fact that she was willing to kill...
ReplyDeletePlease read this link to see my issues with it because it's spot on (minus the Bobbi dislike because she too fell victim to shitty writing)
ReplyDeletehttp://pieces-solving-a-puzzle.tumblr.com/post/118952875931/about-the-finale
Plenty of people love evil Ward (though the torture scene was hard to watch). I've said time and time again, Ward became a great character once the Fall happened. He came alive, and as he's gone darker Season 2 he's become better.
ReplyDeleteI was feeling like I had read everything wrong this season until I saw that the Ward haters also felt something was off about this season and Ward's characterization in the finale because it's not just us.
ReplyDeleteJust because he's HYDRA that doesen't mean that he won't at some point become a neccessary evil for SHIELD.
ReplyDeleteGood guys are boring and at times even turn annoying because of their self-righteousness (best example: Skye, I would love to throw her off a helicarrier these days. Give me Mockingbird and May, I can do without Skye)
Ward being a bad guy with semi-good intentions is certainly going to be fun.
Hellfire sounds likely but I really wouldn't want his end to be Wards. Taskmaster is just wwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cooler ;)
Maybe he's being built up as a huge character this season only to be killed off in the premiere, just like Lucy Lawless' character was. One can only hope.
ReplyDeleteagreed, evil Ward is fun.
ReplyDeleteA show without great villains is not worth watching and AoS just got itself a villain interesting enough to keep me watching despite its annoying flaws!
I'm not watching Arrow for Oliver Queen, hell no. I'm watching for Merlyn!
Did I watch TVD for the annoying MF gang? Nope. The Mikaelsons kept me watching until they left.
Villains ftw!
and if someone's pissed about HYDRA being "nazis": don't worry, HYDRA has abandoned its nazi routes, it's not about racism with these guys. They only want world domination regardeless of your race, gender or species ;)
Well, they already changed Daisy Johnson's story to fit Skye's so it makes sense that they could do the same for Hellfire and Ward.
ReplyDeleteI love all the main characters, tbh, and that's never going to change no matter how many plot twists they try to throw at me. LOL.
well...Lawless was introduced in the episodes she got killed in.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to comment on Ward as I feel others have covered that, but I have to disagree with some of your statements about WOC. Jiaying had an incredible arc as an anti-hero. Pretty much the entire time I was more or less on her side, or at least completely understood where she was coming from. Just because she was killed off doesn't mean her story wasn't incredible; IMHO her plotline was better than Cal's. Some of the best character arcs end in death. It sucks because they aren't on the show anymore but that doesn't make it any less beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI get that, I'm less attatched.
ReplyDeleteThere're a few main characters I could never hate (Elijah, Merlyn, Cas, Veronica, Sookie, Rebekah) but all other mains within every show are fair game to me. Skye just became too much of a focal point (to me) this season and she really isn't the character made to lead a plotline IMO
A little darkness isn't a bad thing, Deadpool isn't fun because he's doing good...hell no, we love him because he's a loose cannon
I would not say anything Ward did was ooc honestly, it just seemed like he did not belong there to me, like they are trying to force him into the plot. But I did not see anything wrong with his actual actions though.
ReplyDeleteI do prefer him as the bid bad though, they just need to work on what hes doing actually being coherent with the rest of the plot because he always seems out of place to me.
Okay..thought everyone wanted his redemption and him back on the squad.Im also looking forward to what they have in store for him in S3!
ReplyDeleteI meant in terms of media interviews and buzz and such, but yeah.
ReplyDeleteYeah, completely ignoring the fact that most of the people they've killed over the entire course of the series has been white. The problem with the way you're putting it is that you're only counting characters that have made multiple appearances, and you're completely ignoring all of the white characters who died like redshirts.
ReplyDeleteIn television shows, white people have a FAR higher death rate. Viewers are so used to watching white people die in television that when a show starts to even out the numbers a little bit, it looks like an agenda when it's really just them treating POC equally.
You're also completely ignoring the fact that most of the POC who died were villains. The chances of them dying are a lot higher. You're seeing a problem where non exists because you are only choosing to see what you want to see.
And for the record, I disagree with you, I don't hate you.
Agreed on Jaying, I didn't like her and saw her turn coming miles ago (resurfacing parents are ALWAYS evil, that's like a rule with superheroes) and I got where she was coming from.
ReplyDeleteHowever she was a bit of a megalomaniac...not that I don't love that aspect but I generally dislike the Inhumans
I've had people who clearly hate me because I am a Ward fan disagree with me on valid points so that was more of a general point. Not directed towards so I should have clarified that. Sorry! My bad.
ReplyDeleteBut please read this because this person is on point with my problems this season http://atomic-ray-gun.tumblr.com/post/119132717633/chloe-bennet-motor-city-comic-con-2015-may-16
I'm kinda hoping for him to become the devil they know. After reassembling all of HYDRAS assets and rebuilding it as good as he can he could turn to the place the main characters go after SHIELD let's them down.
ReplyDeleteSHIELD isn't just a shield protecting you from evil, in return it demands its sacrifices (casualties of war). Not everyone's going to be cool with that. If Fitz dies in the Civil War I could easily see Gemma (or vice verse) join Wards side.
Given his genuine dislike for SHIELD he could prove to be the perfect anti-pole
Never going to hate you for being a Ward fan, I LOVE the guy myself.
ReplyDeleteOh come on, you really think they'll kill the newest HYDRA leader?
ReplyDeleteEven if you don't like him you've got to admit that what he potentially brings to the table is too good to get rid off already.
Aw, thanks. That's sweet. <3
ReplyDeleteNo, at worse I wanted a redemption that would take in excess of a season to carry out, but I vastly prefer evil Ward being Evil.
ReplyDeleteAmazing! I thought I was the only one that prefered season 1 over season 2! Aside from Skye and Fitz, I hated what they did to all the other characters and I often found myself downloading 3 or 4 episodes before watching them. I still have to watch the finale... I hope that now that they have settled who's good and who's evil, it get's better.
ReplyDeleteId be ok with that direction if they just wrote it properly, though I might be in the minority on this he seemed like they just did not know what to do with him in the second half because he seemed to always be an afterthought in 2B. Nothing specifically ooc, just like he did not belong there at all. If they fix that im open to almost anything with him.
ReplyDeleteYou're definitely not the only one! I've come across a few others who prefer season 1 as well.
ReplyDeleteThat's a fair point, think it would have flowed better if they had just killed himoff by Skye in 2.10...
ReplyDeleteGonna hate him in S3 BUT I feel him. So sorry he lost his Kara. Can't wait. Hope Licoln is back.
ReplyDeleteSeason 1 had a lighter tone to it without question, but that kind of lightness wouldn't fit season 2 with the Fall of Shield and Hydra fully operational.
ReplyDeleteNot all Ward haters have switched sides (I still loathe him with every fibre of my being) and not all Ward haters think the finale sucked. You are not speaking for the entire fandom. People will feel how they feel but it's never going to be a true reflection of haters or lovers of the show because one will still exist despite the other.
ReplyDeleteMay has been pissed about her still having her face since she found out that she still had her face in 2.10. She made a point of talking to Coulson about it. She was just carrying through a preexisting viewpoint, just like I've pointed out before about other aspects.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I mean how many dead on the Carrier? I mean even assuming AoS handwaving there should be thousands of crewmen on board...
ReplyDeleteOkay, but my point was that if even some Ward haters are seeing the problem with the finale (and the season as a whole), then it wasn't just me. LOL, that's literally it.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing is I normally prefer a darker tone. But in SHIELD's case I felt they tried to make it darker while keeping the light comedic tone of season 1 at the same time and it wasn't working for me. As well as that, the relationships the team had in season 1 were a big part of why I enjoyed it, and in season 2 a lot of those relationships were broken and still haven't been mended.
ReplyDeleteThe show is not perfect, I know that. After two whole seasons I'm still not a fan of how Skye's story seems to eat up most of the episodes but I have made peace with it because they did better with the character this season. Coddling Ward doesn't automatically make the show perfect, it only makes some fans happy and some fans (including me) very angry that they are doing so. Trying to make some fans happy over one villainous character doesn't make the show good. Great writing, producing and acting makes a great show. The show has been a hundred times better and more engaging in all of season 2, including the last episode.
ReplyDeleteI get that, but the relationships were always going to change from S1, Fitz's damage alone would have made that happen, Coulson being the boss, Jemma dealing with the pod fallout...
ReplyDeleteYeah the relationships are different from 1 but the disruptions I feel fit the growth and changes in the characters. For example, yes Skye is more serious than S1's Skye, but being betrayed, almost killed, seeing a best friend badly hurt all combine to make her more serious.
True. But I still felt so bad for Wanda. I don't even think she saw it happen but she most definitely felt it.
ReplyDeleteSkye is a big weight on the show, no question, it has been since she moved from just a consultant into an underlying story arc. But when you tie AoS into the coming Civil War, something was going to move AoS into superpower/gifted just to give reason to the Registration Act (as up to this we haven't seen enough powered in the MCU). So it makes it easier for me to deal with Skye, and yes she as a character has grown massively this season. I wonder if next season if we have her running a team, a trade off process (1 episode for the normal, 1 for Gifted+some of the team)?
ReplyDeleteOh I feel sorry for her as well, to have lived through everything that they went through...
ReplyDeleteBut my point is that for the Avengers, the loss isn't massively deep, they didn't know him. Whereas if it had been Hawkeye, Tasha, Cap, the entire team would have been effected (imagine a scene of Romanov having to go tell his family).
Yeah, I do think the AoS finale had more widespread fallout, everyone I bet was affected by what happened to Bobbi, Coulson and May with Skye...
I really didn't like Jemma this season, I thought her actions were way ooc. Overall this season felt like a lot of characters were suddenly psychopaths. Skye was the one character who I loved all season.
ReplyDeleteThis is like saying The Red Wedding episode in GoT sucked and was terrible just because they killed some Starks and their men. The finale was a great episode, almost every review praised it but obvious some fans such as yourself are disappointed because you didn't get what you wanted. My only gripe in the episode, in fact in the whole season is that Ward was even there in the first place when the show could have easily done without him all season. Brett signed a contract for a number of years and the show runners didn't want to get rid of him just yet but they still wanted to use him and so they shoehorned him in S2. Every episode he's been in, his presence added not one single valuable thing to the overall plot of both 2A and 2B. Ward was on the show simply because Brett was a regular and they are too scared to cut him loose (the character not the actor).
ReplyDeleteI even see people saying they preferred the finale over the movie. AoU was a foregone conclusion that the good guys would win with no serious casualties. Nobody was as invested in Pietro as they could have been had they seen him over the span of more than several minutes, a few cocky lines from just one movie. the finally was more engaging and even more rewarding in terms of entertainment. It may never be big budget with state of the art CGI and million dollar movie stars but AoS delivered in every way possible.
ReplyDeleteI actually have no idea what they will do with her character and Project Caterpillar. I guess that's a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI am currently rewatching season one, mostly because I am working on the timeline again, and it is quite different if you actually care about the characters on screen. Plus, some scenes are just hilarious or heart-breaking in hindsight. Like this conversation:
ReplyDeleteGrand: "You can't safe everyone from himself."
Coulson: "You can if you get to them in time."
I even enjoyed the episode with the berserker staff this time around, and I hated it back then. But now it is quite interesting what it tells us about Ward.
Here's someone figuring out 2B's timeline and why it's an utter mess http://cptnjkirk.tumblr.com/post/119138522083/ok-before-any-one-comes-at-me-saying-that-the-salt
ReplyDeleteHere's someone who figured out that 2B's timeline was an utter mess. We've been spending hours trying to figure this out
ReplyDeletehttp://cptnjkirk.tumblr.com/post/119138522083/ok-before-any-one-comes-at-me-saying-that-the-salt
She gets better material now.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason S1 was light was because TWS events hadn't happened yet. After the Fall and the pod dropping into the ocean, no way any of these character could ever resemble their pre-1x17 episode selves, no way! This is natural progression for all concerned, Hydra literally bulldozed the entire organization, nobody was left the same.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I wonder how they will develop it, though there will have to be more Gifted in Season 3 just to build up the pressure for Cap 3...
ReplyDeleteBut the show isn't completely dark. It does still have it's comedic moments albeit toned down several notches. It's difficult to expect people who have suffered like some of them have to remain the same. Change was inevitable.
ReplyDeleteYeah or the time Ward goes at Skye or May for "betraying" the team. Or even Coulson's off hand "084" comment to Skye and we can go, you have NO idea...
ReplyDeleteThat has improved as well, but I think her ability has improved as well, her emotional scenes in 2B where far deeper than any display I can think of in 1...
ReplyDeleteThis, the scale of the changes along with the gutwrenching issues that the team suffered through was going to change everything.
ReplyDeleteI have always felt that he's presence in S2 was cut and pasted just because they didn't have a clue what to do with him. Now it looks like they've given him purpose in S3 and I won't find him completely useless.
ReplyDeleteHow does that change the fact that May had shown issues with the MAy Mask long before 2.20?
ReplyDeleteDepends I suppose. I really don't think Ward has the skillset to run Hydra. He's always been a lacky rather than a leader, maybe he has that skillset but we haven't seen anything to show that...
ReplyDeleteIt just shows that there's multiple issues with this season alone.
ReplyDeleteAnd what May did is still victim blaming because none of it was Kara's fault. I don't blame her for it but I do blame the writing.
Just went through repairs...May's "Let the girl go" has now a really different meaning....
ReplyDeleteThis, if it had been Hawkeye, then it would have been a major twist and would have had both the audience and the Avengers reeling from it. But as you said outside of Wanda, nobody is going to be hurting hard from the death.
ReplyDeleteYeah the AoS finale was top of the game for me.
Oh yeah I just watched that during the week, the whole position of Coulson and May in dealing with a mentally gifted makes SO much more sense. Hell you even feel for May when Skye is making her digs when you know the wounds she has. And Raina, just her entire interactions now have so much more meaning...
ReplyDeleteIf you think about it, if Barhain happened 7 years ago in the MCU, you could even suggest Coulson's dealings with Dr. Foster could have been affected by it...
He doesn't. Although his time with Kara has proven different, I believe he's a follower with a penchant for attaching himself to whomever willing to use him. He's not a leader any stretch of the imagination. At the moment he's driven by revenge so who knows how far he will get to pay back May/Bobbi/SHIELD? He had several opportunities to stand up to Garret but he didn't and be his own person without any strings but he stayed because that's all he knew. He assumed he was still a member of the team during that last conversation he had with Coulson before leaving the playground. Ward doesn't know how to be alone. His poor attempt at an apology was to say how he missed being a part of the team, not actually apologising for any of his actions against the team.
ReplyDeleteI think that what pissed people off is that they said at the ebggining that Ward was gonna be redeemed and then they just trow that option off in the final episodes and they make hima character that it's just there but not doing anything for the main plot.
ReplyDeleteWard as a vilaling is a great plus but for the love of god, give him a propper storyline.... and making him head of Hydra just RN it doesnt make sense to me. I dont feel like he has the same evillness? that Whitehall or any of the others HYDRA's head had I hope im wrong and Ward does something really huge next season to make him the big villain im hoping for.
I will give you Kara because what happened to her was atrocious but nobody's victim blaming Ward for anything. The man was very much aware of his actions, the difference between right and wrong and he still made the wrong choices.
ReplyDeleteAs for May, I hardly think anyone would ever be accepting of any situation where someone was walking around with their face. That's tantamount to identity theft and it's not like Kara was using May's face for altruistic purposes, it makes sense for May to be hurt over that even if it was against Kara's will to be turned into fake May.
Yes I know that was my problem, the fact they tried to do light and dark at the same time. It did get less and less light as the season went on though and by the finale I liked the balance they had.
ReplyDeleteHate to say it but Kara's probably better off, at least she's not being used and manipulated by Ward anymore, that stuff was sick. I can't believe anybody can actually defend Ward in any way after his and Kara's little arc, ugh.
ReplyDeleteThe only person I feel sorry for is Kara because she didn't ask for any of this and Ward manipulated her for his own gratification. He may think he loved her but he never really did.
ReplyDeletePlease, seriously for the love of god I'm so sick of it, we all know that Ward isn't an angel, we got it, can we move on now?
ReplyDeleteWell, since apparently that's the fault of the writers, rather than being a good story arc, I guess we aren't going to be moving on anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, I posted a bit prematurely as I'm doing this in between taking calls at work, ha. But yeah, Kara had issues but I felt for her, she really just wanted love. Ward "loved" her ONLY because she was easily manipulated and it was more ownership, not love in any way. They COULD have helped each other grow as people, but Ward was only interested in furthering his own agenda and having someone there to stroke his ego. In a way Kara was willfully blind to it IMO but still, I don't blame her, she was looking for affection and Ward victimized her and took advantage of it.
ReplyDeleteyeah but seriously as much as I love the show I got bored about all that stuff.
ReplyDeleteWard is an emotionless killer. I don't get all the 'he's so great as a bad guy'. AoS is just one disappointment after another. I can't believe that here we are reading another interview and they all read the same 'it's so interesting having my character do xxx'...same rhetoric before except they talked about how Ward had a long road for redemption. If my love for all things sci-fi wasn't so strong I'd just toss it in the 'done' pile and move on but because of my love for Marvel I might still tune in next year at the start to see if the other aspects of the show are enough to keep me around. I didn't watch much of S2, I thought it was not well done even aside from the Ward issue. There was a lot of potential and I think it was wasted.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you can certainly feel for Kara, and yes the relationship was distrubing to say the least, but it certainly showed Ward's manipulatiive nature as well.
ReplyDeleteOh I'm well sick of the argument. I love Ward being the Evil SOB he's shown himself to be. He plays it perfectly and has much more impact (and yes he wasn't fitted in to the season as he should have been)
ReplyDeleteHe is better as a villain and at least he will have a reason to be on the show now.
ReplyDeleteWell the focus was more in Skye this season so they didn't have much time to explore him more.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but as has been commented on in this thread and others it did feel "tacked on" at times rather than well integrated into the storyline...
ReplyDeleteIt is the question I have about this as well to be honest.
ReplyDeleteExcept for that time he was accused of lying about his abuse and then Coulson tried to hand him over to one of his abusers.
ReplyDeleteRead this, please from someone who's on point with the season two issues http://pieces-solving-a-puzzle.tumblr.com/post/118952875931/about-the-finale
Yeah I know what you mean, like the writers desperatly tried to make Ward sl being a part of the whole thing (well it didn't work)
ReplyDeleteOkay, stop. Just stop.
ReplyDeleteI had to look for what those acronyms meant, that's how far I was.
And I don't give a damn about people skin's color, and of what I've seen here, most people don't give a damn either.
You are the one putting barriers here. And I can't let that go.
What ? you think they said "Hey this character is a Chinese woman lets kill her !" Well to even think that is beyond stupid. I am sorry but it is.
You have in this cast people with legacy from every continent. There's more diversity in this show than in most. So yeah it might seems to you that more coloured people died.
For suggesting that skin coulour is even a factor, excuse me, but you deserve a slap. You really think they think about the skin color when they write a script ? That idea is just preposterous.
And you've completly forgot about Gonzales, and a lot of Shield Agents that died (by wards hands or Jiaying's or under her orders).
So please avoid starting a discriminatory war that does not exist.
To be honest, I wasn't excited at all to watch the final, but at the end of it, I just wanted the season 3, right away. .
I don't think the writing have been
perfect at all this season, especially with Ward.
I
found the Jiaying and Cal, storylines majestuous this episode. The
woman was vivisected and then resewed by Cal. It's not that suprising
they both went insane. Admittedly I was surprised that Jiaying crossed
the Skye line. They wanted the shock and tragedy, Cal killing his wife so Skye don't have too. Scenaristic choices
Those death aren't the result of some discrimination. It just the story and the character, It's just scenaristic choices. Having Ward kill Kara, for example, a smart move, that's what makee him officially cross the line he stepped on a long time ago.
It royally sucks for Kara though, But it sucked for her since she's been brain washed. At least she is liberated from anyone's grip now.
Raina's death is probably the one that moved me the most, though. Because she
probably knew she was going to die, She choose to die so that Skye could
see what her mother had become. She could have saved herself but
didn't. It shows how far she went. Like I said, scenaristic choice.
You are the one seing the world in Black and White here. I don't even
see the difference between the two anymore. You don't know how good that
feels.
Skye was the highlight of the season for me as well. She has really come a long way.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think if they didn't kill him off in 2.10 it would have been better for them to send Ward and Kara straight into Hydra rather than the halfway house thing that was going on...
ReplyDeleteFor Coulson and the survival of Shield in the face of NATO coming after them, Ward was an acceptable scarifce for the Director to make (and yes that's cruel but Coulson's options were zero), not too mention Coulson had ZERO reason to trust Wards comment on anything.
ReplyDeleteInstead for handing Ward over Coulson gets Shield back on the "good side" of NATO and the US military, no small concern by far for the director. Hell if it had been Gonzales in Charge I think Ward would just have been shot for his crimes.
Totally, in less than 3-4 episodes they turned the Ward/Kara to an unhealthy relationship (whiwh came out of nowhere) and ruined his char (also hers and look where she ended it: Dead)
ReplyDeleteThen May acknowledged that abuse in front of everyone (and no one claimed otherwise) by saying it wasn't an excuse for his crappy behaviour afterwards and it was all true and they all felt that way. No matter what, abuse doesn't define who we become, choices are make define us, our actions and Ward's choices, his actions make him a villain now, not what happened to him fifteen years ago. At the most abuse explains why some people end up victimising others and why some end up being the best people they can be in an effort not to repeat the cycle. Ward falls into the former group of victims becoming perpetrators, unfortunately. And as someone said in another thread, no court would ever use childhood abuse as a reason not to punish criminals of every kind.
ReplyDeleteI think you missed the whole point of the Ward/Kara relationship. Ward's greatest wish is to find some place, ANY place to belong, to feel wanted. He had that with his twisted father/son relationship with Garrett, tried to shift it to Skye only to be literally shot down and got it again with Kara. Yes, he fell in love with Kara and Kara with him and it was gag-worthy, but it served an important purpose: with her death the wall he erected around himself keeping his emotions in check crumbled. He's still psychotically violent, yeah, but he's arguably no longer an unreadable enigma or a psychopath, he's acting very much on emotion now, that's very much clear in his final scene where he decides to create his own Fail-Hydra.
ReplyDeleteWith Kara's death he feels he's lost everything that was good in his life, revenge is all he has left which is why he's forming Fail-Hydra to strike against SHIELD. We all know Coulson will crush it with ease on season 3A and when that happens Grant Ward will be left with nothing, completely broken. When this time comes he'll finally be ready to begin a redemption arc, because really, it's either that or death.
I'd argue it didn't came that much out of nowhere. Ward's goal in life has always been to find a place to belong, to feel wanted, to feel loved. He had that in his twisted father/son relationship with Garrett and tried to shift it to Skye when he died only to be literally shot down, but then he found it again when Kara offered him help to heal his wounds. It's not that much of a surprise that people as damaged as Ward and KAra would blur the line between healthy relationship and unhealthy one and think their mutual "love" will get them "closure".
ReplyDeleteDid Ward ask to be turned into a human weapon by John Garrett? It's the same thing. Both Ward and Kara were damaged people, lost, and John Garrett and Grant Ward, respectively, offered them help and they took it.
ReplyDeleteWard and Kara's lives parallel a lot, it's the very reason he was drawn to her and her to him. Yes, it was an unhealthy relationship, that's self-evident in how much they escalated their warpedness with Bobbi's torture and twisted scheme to kill Hunter, so for Grant's sake it's a good thing Kara's dead. He may not have realized it now, but her death arguably tore down the wall he erected upon himself to keep his emotions in check, turning him basically into a functional sociopath. He's no longer that - but still psychotically violent, I must stress -, that's self evident in his last scene where he forms his Fail-Hydra, he's very much acting on emotion, on him missing Kara in his life.
Wasn't Ward looking for affection when he accepted John Garrett's offer? Seriously, I don't understand how people can't see that what drew Ward and Kara together is how both lifes parallel each other's nicely.
ReplyDeleteHis abuse doesn't excuse his actions (as I have stated multiple times). And the situation isn't black and white - Ward was both a victim and a perpetrator here.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there's the fact that it wasn't just childhood abuse - John Garrett kidnapped a vulnerable teenage boy and then proceeded to physically and emotionally abuse Grant until the day he died. The fact that the show refused to acknowledge it this season is infuriating.
They had a clue, it's just that anything more than we got in season 2 would necessarily cross into his big season 3 storyline, where they'll finally reveal what was so wrong in the life in the Ward homestead that screwed him up so much. No, that's not something I took from an interview, it's a guess based on my analysis of how the show have been structuring the seasons so far and how the pieces for season 3 were set.
ReplyDeleteyeh, shows and character motivations are a bit jumping the shark moments on shows these days for me. But Ward they obviously did not care about him this season and the entire thing could have gine on without him. Though I don't mind the oath they chise for him they just were struggling to write that properly.
ReplyDeleteThough maybe they just struggled to get him here. It might be good from here on out. But as others have suggested hes probably better as rogue type character and not a reguler.
To be redeemed one needs some scrap of humanity. Ward has shown none. I'm done with that character totally. He plays the victim card, kills without remorse, and the final straw was how he shot Kara/May - he thought that was May, a team member, a woman he slept with, and he killed her with not even a glimmer of emotion. The only emotion was when he realized his current obsession was actually the one he killed. I don't even know why they kept him alive and continued his story. It's been like watching a train wreck. You know it's going to be bad but you can't help but watch anyway.
ReplyDeleteWrong. He has shown very little scrap of humanity, it's almost nonexistent, but that's still a lot more that none. The tears he sheds when the Berseker Staff reminds him of The Well, of how he wronged Thomas that day by pushing him there, is an unquestionable display of true, genuine emotion, arguably the only one he does before Kara's death, You may like it or not, but he very clearly loved Kara and Kara loved him. It was a twisted love and gag-worthy, but they loved each other and that's why he feels her death.
ReplyDeleteStop thinking like Kara is one poor little girl that was destroyed by Grant Ward, her status post-brainwash is no different than his post-fire and pre-John Garrett, they were both damaged individuals looking for some place, ANY place to belong, to feel loved, and Garrett/Ward gave that to Ward/Kara, respectively, so why should we single out one as a poor little victim and the other as an irredemable monster? She's as much at fault there as he was.
I'm not sure why people fear voicing love for evil Ward when it's clear they're the majority who post here in SpoilerTV. :o
ReplyDeleteOK, I didn't really read all of this discussion nor rewatch the series but:
ReplyDeleteMay had a big problem with Kara using her face the whole season and I'd say it's completely understandable.
Ward dropped Kara there, that's why they didn't trust her (or at least one of the main reasons).
Who, where, when blamed Kara for anything, besides talking badly about her when they were pissed off? I don't remember any such thing. Kara was a victim of Hydra first, then she became a victim of Ward and his psycho morals. Bobbi even spent a lot of time trying to explain Kara Ward's using her. The whole "hunt for closure" was never about Kara, it was all about Ward. That's why Bobbi didn't apologise and mocked them instead - she didn't want to give Ward what he wanted (and get killed right after that). She did regret what happened to Kara, yet I believe her she didn't regret revealing the safehouse because it could've been empty. The regret might have been the reason why she didn't apologise to Kara at the base - it was too hard for her and Kara didn't even remember, so she didn't want to open that. Was that right? No. Was that human? Totally.
LOL, don't worry - I wrote an essay the other day so I totally get you.
ReplyDeleteI would love a redemption arc but unfortunately I can't see how that's even possible at this point because I can't trust them to do it right after everything that happened this season.
When exactly did the team forgive Kara, though? When May complained about Kara having her face to Bobbi or when they locked her up her actions while brainwashed?
This person eloquently explains the issues with the season so I recommend reading it (I agree with everything except the disliking Bobbi part because she too fell victim to the writing) http://pieces-solving-a-puzzle.tumblr.com/post/118952875931/about-the-finale
I do love the idea of Evil Ward for Season 3 but he needs better material to work with.Brett is an amazing actor and he should go out with a bang if they're gonna set up his character as the big bad.
ReplyDeleteHe is always looking hot to me.LOL!
ReplyDeleteI did read it, actually, and I stand by what i said. I understand where you are both coming from to a certain degree, but it frustrates me sometimes, when I'm trying to write, to see people accuse writers of bigotry or ignorance because of how their work was interpreted. For example, I was writing a gay character who, though not the only lgbt character in my story, is easily the most prominent. The character has to die for the story to work, but in no way does his death have anything to do with his sexuality. I love the character, and hopefully that comes across. Still, I've seen writers blasted for homophobia for lesser reasons and it's upsetting to me how, should I ever be lucky enough to publish my work and get it out to a wide audience, I'll be opening myself up to the same types of comments.
ReplyDeleteI think the issue with Ward is that he confuses redemption with forgiveness. I do not see how the other characters are going to forgive him any time soon, nor do I think they should. But if the Lincoln=Thomas theory is true, I can see that as a way to bring Ward back from the brink. Honestly, I don't care what they do with Ward, or any other character, so long as it's well written. His arc this season, while in many ways tragic, still made sense to me.
As for Kara, maybe 'forgive' isn't the right word. More like they're open to giving her a chance. It's the smart move to keep her locked up at first, seeing as they don't know if she's still brainwashed or, as turned out to be the case, was working with Ward. And May's comment, while perhaps a little insensitive, was understandable. It was disturbing for May to have someone running around with her face. I got the sense that she was lashing out more at that than at Kara personally. But as I mentioned before, none of the characters are perfect. Even if May was wrong, her feelings on the matter made sense.
One of the things I love about the show is the way it continues to go in directions I never expected. I think the main reason I'm okay with where they took Ward is that I've seen shows go the redemption route more often than not and I sort of thought it would be a forgone conclusion that he'd get one this season. I'm glad they went another way because this feels new and exciting to me. Like I said, I consider Ward to be a villain, but a compelling and human one, one who is capable of redemption, or of becoming even more villainous. I have absolutely no idea what the endgame is for him anymore. Because I sympathize with him, to a degree, I hope he eventually redeems himself, but then again, my favorite villains are the ones whose perspective I can understand. So as long as he keeps that spark of humanity, and as long as his actions have understandable motivations, I'm also fine with him being an antagonist. He sort of reminds me of Jaime from game of thrones, or Scorpius from farscape. Just because they're antagonists, it doesn't mean I don't like them.
ReplyDeleteI was disappointed a bit by season 2, just because, after season 1, I'd really hoped the show was going for a redemption arc. They didn't, which is ok. Just not what I particularly wanted. But I'm pretty interested in seeing what they do with Ward as a Big Bad.
ReplyDeleteIKR? I'm so bitter about the finale. It was like a slap in the face to Ward fans. Ward's choice in the finale didn't make sense and was so OOC. I don't know how they can possibly redeem ward now :(
ReplyDeleteI thought the finale was phenomenal and the entire second season was great. Top 10 show for me this year. Reading down this comment thread you clearly don't like the show and haven't for some time yet you continue to watch it. What's the point of watching something you obviously don't enjoy watching?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm hoping that will change once season three starts.
ReplyDeleteI CAN'T BELIEVE THIS HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was supposed to be the Wesley from Angel of this show, a brief tenure against but then get back with them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletevisit.. http://goo.gl/CkxGCc
ReplyDeleteHe's the one excusing his actions because of his abuse. It's never his fault because His family, Garret and eventually Coulson made him do it. Now we gonna have to add May and Bobbi to the growing list of people making him do bad things.
ReplyDeleteIn which episode did the mention that it happened 7 years ago?
ReplyDeleteI think he really loved Kara. Yes he manipulated her but a part of him really felt something for her. Otherwise why keep calling her baby even after she died? Why holding her dead body & look sad? Why keeping her photo with him? Yea I don't defend him thou.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading the comments on this site for a while now, but this is
ReplyDeletethe first time I've felt compelled to add my own. (This turned into an
essay, sorry about that.)
Yep, me too, or rather it is the first time I "interfere" in the Shield Battlefield department of this site. I wrote in other part of this site before. Anyway, my post above turned into a little essay as well. Admittedly yours is way more compelling and eloquent than mine. :)
Klutzy_girl comments about character's death linked to their ethnicity... Just no. I really couldn't let it go either.
I laughed out loud when Kara said "no matter what he does, I will always stand with Ward." That was a brilliant wake-up call for that fandom, a bunch of people who are too damn blind to see what's actually playing out on screen in front of them, choosing instead to make up excuses and twist everything or take it out of context in order to paint Ward as some kind of special snowflake who never meant to harm anyone. It's unbelievable how ridiculous most of their arguments are, and how even after this finale, they're acting like the show "betrayed" them and "ruined" Ward instead of opening their eyes. I guess they really are a lost cause.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, Brett is scorchin', especially when he's sporting that three-day beard.
I honestly can't remember the showrunners, or even Brett, ever saying "Ward WILL be redeemed", as a certain thing. Why would they, anyway? They're always keeping everything close to the chest and giving away precious few details. Stand With Ward fans are disappointed with the direction the show took with him in the finale, and that's perfectly understandable, but the way some of them are acting like the show "promised" them something and then took it away is simply BS. The showrunners have always been ambiguous about what will happen to Ward and never committed to a redemption, much less to his return to SHIELD.
ReplyDeleteAnd trying to say that his character was screwed over in the finale or that his actions came out of nowhere is completely absurd. Ward was going to kill May in "The Only Light in the Darkness" before he realized she was leaving the base anyway (so there was no need), he captured FitzSimmons and took them to Garrett in "Ragtag" while knowing full well that Garrett would probably kill them - and then dropped them into the ocean, he led Hydra to the Bus in "Ye Who Enter Here..." while knowing full well the likelihood that Whitehall would order the plane to be shot out of the sky. So what's so surprising about his willingness to torture Bobbi or to kill May in "S.O.S."? I'll agree that Ward preferred not to kill members of the team if he could help it (hence opting not to kill May when he saw she was leaving Providence Base, or not ordering the shoot-down of the Bus himself), but if it was necessary, he certainly had NO qualms about it.
So really, the SWW fans are just kidding themselves and acting like entitled brats who didn't get what they wanted instead of facing the reality of who the character has been ever since the end of "Turn, Turn, Turn".
I stopped feeling sorry for Kara after the S2 finale. The torture of Bobbi was pretty sick but at least she had the excuse that Bobbi ruined her life by selling her out to Hydra (the same reason why I'm going relatively easy on Ward for killing his family - they were his abusers). But setting a death trap for poor Hunter, someone who never harmed Kara any? There's ZERO excusing that. So as much as what Ward did to Kara was disgusting, in the end, she made her own choice to do horrible things. It's just that karma caught up with her a lot faster than it is with Ward.
ReplyDeleteNo, Evil Ward (or at least Grey Ward) can be amazing. The only reason I've ever voiced so much negativity towards his character is his blind Stand With Ward fandom which deserves some kind of award for its ability to twist everything around and ignore all inconvenient facts to somehow paint him as a poor, misundestood hero who deserves to be redeemed and get the girl (Skye). If only the showrunners had been willing to make their intentions clear all along, I would've been able to enjoy his character a lot more in S2 - but they elected to play the ambiguity game in order to string the SWW fans along. I can understand the practicality of it, but it WAS annoying.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy that the S2 finale cemented his character being on the dark side, and hopefully he's going to be a lot more fun in S3, now that I don't have to worry about his ridiculously returning to SHIELD to appease a bunch of delusional stans.
The problem is that you expected his road to redemption to have been easy when the show really wants to do it in a way that doesn't offend those who enjoyed his turn to villany, which is very a much a turning point to the character, making him actually worthy being on the show. The moment he ended season 1 unable to speak, to utter an apology for what he did to Coulson it was very clear to me Ward as a villain would be around for a while, it was just a case for me whether he was going to REALLY be one or just be seen as one by Coulson and team.
ReplyDeleteAs we saw, choice one won and it's clear why: they don't want redemption for Ward to be about Coulson, Skye or even Skyeward, it is and has always been about Thomas. It was him wronging his little brother that set him in this destructive path, so it's only logical that the moment Grant Ward finally makes the right choice and prevents Thomas from being an abuse victim again then his life would have come full circle and he'd be redeemed at last.
Yeah, I rewatched all of Season 1 during the summer break and the early episodes are certainly more enjoyable the second time around, when you can recognize the little breadcrumbs left by the writers.
ReplyDeleteIn "Seeds", Skye mentions Bucky Barnes while looking at the Wall of Stars at the SHIELD Academy - total offhand comment in an episode that aired a short time before CA: TWS, right? :) And during Coulson's voiceover in the end about "evil and lies and pain and death", the camera pans away from Skye, looking at the Wall of Stars again, to Ward standing behind her.
Eh, this isn't exclusive to SWW, I saw it a lot with Damon Salvatore and Captain Hook back when I still watched Vampire Diaries and Once Upon a Time! Damn ships, hahahahahaha! :D
ReplyDeleteIn "Melinda", I believe the flashbacks had a "7 years ago" subtitle, which would mean the incident in Bahrain was roughly around the same time as Iron Man and the beginning of the entire MCU.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you talking about? Season 2 was phenomenal and was incredibly better then season 1. It'll be a top 10 show for me this year and it barely cracked the top 25 last year.
ReplyDeleteBrett did say that "it's good being bad" at Comic Con last year, so I can't wait to see him really play evil to the max! And now that the writers are free from the shackles of having to string fans along and stay ambiguous about whether or not Ward will be redeemed, they can have him do some REALLY evil, twisted shit - the torture of Bobbi in "S.O.S." (sick and disturbing as it was) may just be the beginning...
ReplyDeleteGotcha!
ReplyDeleteI now think that having Ward back on the Bus and with the team, plus that phone call to Coulson and allegedly helping Kara by bringing her back to SHIELD, near the end of the season was pure sleight-of-hand. JUST when you think the writers are really going for it with the Ward redemption... surprise! He goes more evil than ever with the Bobbi torture and becomes the new Big Bad/leader of Hydra. Pretty neat twist.
ReplyDeleteIt's the opposite for me, it was top 10 for me last year but this year it's at the very bottom of the list of shows I watch.
ReplyDeleteI think Simmons changed because of both what happened to her best friend and the time she spent at Hydra. She is certainly no psychopath, but she's more jaded than before and not the sweet, innocent girl of Season 1. I think the change is believable considering what she's been through, even if it did make her unlikable at times (her attitude about Gifteds and Skye's powers).
ReplyDeleteFor someone who keeps acting like a Social Justice Warrior about the topic of abuse, you don't seem to have any idea what the term "victim blaming" means...
ReplyDeleteNo one is blaming Ward or Kara for the abuse they SUFFERED, which would constitute victim blaming. They're being blamed for the abuse they PERPETRATED by kidnapping, torturing and killing/trying to kill people. And that's more than justified.
Unless, of course, you think any person who has suffered abuse forever gets a get-out-of-jail free card on all and any bad things they proceed to do (which all of your comments on Ward certainly suggest)... in which case, sure, holding Ward and Kara responsible for their actions is victim blaming. I guess if we find out that Hitler had an abusive childhood, saying stuff about the Holocaust will become "victim blaming", too. (And before you say it - no, I'm not claiming that Ward is as bad as Hitler, I'm not crazy. However, the general principle still applies.)
I'll add that Ward is a white male, and if HE'd been killed off in the finale, there would be complaints about THAT too (whereas WOC Jiaying is a character the original commentator kept insisting is horrible and evil long before the finale), so the whole Social Justice Warrior act here is pretty fake.
ReplyDeletePlus, the reason AoS even kills off people and women of color is that there are so many of them with important roles on the show to begin with. If we had a 90% white cast, like so many shows, there wouldn't be POC deaths - would that be better?
The one reservation I do have about Kara's death has little to do with her being a WOC, and more to do with the fact that she was essentially fridged - a female character done in to facilitate the angst of a male character.
Can't disagree at all, I've stopped watching both shows in question. Damon Salvatore and Klaus Mikaelson are two characters whose portrayal as romantic heroes/heartthrobs pretty much nauseates me, on top of setting the women's movement back about a century.
ReplyDeleteNo offense, but trying to say that his character was screwed over in the finale or that his actions came out of nowhere is absurd. Ward was going to kill May in "The Only Light in the Darkness" before he realized she was leaving the base anyway (so there was no need), he captured FitzSimmons and took them to Garrett in "Ragtag" while knowing full well that Garrett would probably kill them - and then dropped them into the ocean, he led Hydra to the Bus in "Ye Who Enter Here..." while knowing full well the likelihood that Whitehall would order the plane to be shot out of the sky. So what's so surprising about his willingness to torture Bobbi or to kill May in "S.O.S."? I'll agree that Ward preferred not to kill members of the team if he could help it (hence opting not to kill May when he saw she was leaving Providence Base, or not ordering the shoot-down of the Bus himself), but if it was necessary, he certainly had NO qualms about it.
ReplyDeleteSo there was nothing OOC, here.
I applaud you. You're an example of someone who understands the complexity of Ward's character and his suffering but doesn't use it to whitewash his actions, or to vilify other characters for their hatred of Ward and their own actions in retaliation for his. If only a lot more Stand With Ward fans were willing to be this objective and not allow their love for the character to completely cloud their judgment. (To be fair, there are people who hate Ward so much that THEIR judgment isn't too sound, either - like those claiming that Black Widow is better than Ward simply because we've never seen her crimes on screen, unlike his.)
ReplyDeleteI'm 99.9% sure that victim blaming = blaming someone for the what they've suffered. For example, claiming that a woman was only raped because SHE wore revealing clothes and flirted with her would-be rapist at a bar/nightclub.
ReplyDeleteNo one on the show ever claimed that Ward or Kara are to blame for the horrible things that happened to them. I saw Coulson and Skye not believing Ward when he claimed to have been abused, but that's different; they had no objective evidence of that, only the word of someone who'd been lying to them from day one, about a million different things. Can they really be blamed for not believing him?
These two characters are abuse victims, yes, but the actions they're being blamed for are the abuse THEY inflicted upon OTHERS. That's not victim blaming at all, and KG is just one of those Stand With Ward fans who think that if they twist everything and take it out of context enough, he'll come out smelling of roses.
Taskmaster is also a potential future villain for Captain America, so I never really saw any chance for Ward to become him.
ReplyDeleteBeing accused of lying about his abuse makes perfect sense. Coulson and Skye had ZERO reasons to believe a man who had been lying to them for many months, stabbed them all in the back and tried to kill two of their teammates on top of several other SHIELD agents. Yes, Coulson previously believed Ward in Season 1 but that was before the betrayal. Knowing that Ward had been a Hydra mole all along retroactively cast doubt over everything he'd ever told them.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, the attempt to hand him over to his abuser isn't as bad as you make it out to be when it's clear that Coulson didn't BELIEVE Ward had truly been abused by Christian - he assumed it had been a play for sympathy by Ward. Was Coulson wrong here? Yes, of course, but I really don't see how he was supposed to know any better.
You clearly have no idea what "victim blaming" means. It would've been victim blaming if Coulson DID believe that Ward had been abused, and his response had been, "Well, it's Ward's own fault because... [x,y,z]".
And as has been stated many times, Coulson had no reason whatsoever to BELIEVE that Ward had really been abused by Christian - why should he believe the word of a traitor who tried to kill two members of his team, with zero outside evidence? So from Coulson's POV, he WASN'T handing a victim over to his abuser, just to a family member who happened to be with the government.
ReplyDeleteWard took Skye to meet Cal in 2A, so his presence was very much needed there. He's arguably not that much necessary in 2B, but the Ward/Kara story, while unnecessary to that half's plot and gag-worthy, was an important stepping stone for season 3 so they had to do it one way or another.
ReplyDeleteI guess people like KG would rather the show had a 90% white male cast to begin with? That way there wouldn't be too many POC and WOC to kill off.
ReplyDeleteAoS is probably one of the most diverse shows on television in terms of race and gender. The team is half-female, not to mention that all of the biggest badasses on the show are women. The Big Bad of the season finale was an Asian woman. The main character alongside Coulson is a half-Asian woman. Even after the massacre in the finale, we still have May, Skye, Mack, Mike, Weaver. And hey, if you're mad that they aren't kiling off enough white men to "settle the score", how about we start with Grant Ward, the single most superfluous character in the main cast?
Ward does seem like that this season, doesn't it? Lucky for me I have great hopes for his story in season 3, can't wait for him to be reunited with Thomas! :D
ReplyDeleteThat would certainly be interesting, if you're on the money about Ward having fallen into this path because he wanted to avenge Thomas' death, realizing his little brother is alive would basically be a realization that everything he's done has been for nothing. That would be pretty earth-shattering, I can only imagine the breakdown that would follow...
ReplyDeleteIt's funny: not to start a debate about Marvel vs. DC, but look at Arrow. Diggle on Arrow, as likable as he is, is the epitome of the "token black guy". He doesn't ever get anything important to do, or a personality beyond being a nice dude. He stands there in the Arrowcave with his arms folded and supports the team. That's about it. The show is probably not going to kill him off any time soon because they need ONE main character of color - but is he a well-written and developed one? Not really.
ReplyDeleteI'm much rather have multi-dimensional characters of color like Raina or Jiaying who get an actual character arc and play an important role in the story, even if it ends with their deaths.
Yeah, you can keep repeating the words "victim blaming" in irrational and out-of-context ways over and over and over again, it's not going to change the minds of anyone who actually pays attention to the show and isn't dead-set on defending their favorite character against all reason. But hey, if you're enjoying it, good for you.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
ReplyDeleteThe chain of abuse can be never-ending: Kara was abused by Ward, who was abused by Christian, who was abused by Mama Ward, who was probably abused by Papa Ward/one of her own parents/whoever... in the end of the day, it's up to one of the victims to stand up, STOP that chain from continuing and get help instead of inflicting harm onto the next victim. Ward was not that person.
Again I reference GotG and the characters of Gamora and Nebula, "adopted" sisters (kidnapped and rainsed by Thanos). They both grew up in the exact same hell. Yet, one remained a villainess through and through, while the other rose above all of her suffering to become a heroine. There's always a choice, no matter how hard it is... and we are always accountable for the choice we made.
I feel the exact same way. AoU was a typical popcorn feel-good movie: one death of a character we barely knew or cared about, and otherwise it's a Hollywood happy ending. In AoS, the characters were broken by consequences of the dark reality they live in: the mother Skye searched for her whole life turning out to be a monster, her father having to have his memory wiped to live in peace (after killing said mother), Coulson losing his hand, Bobbi in clear trauma from the torture and near-death experience and ready to leave SHIELD, whatever happened to Simmons.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I enjoyed AoU, I had higher expectations from it. AoS, on the other hand, truly went for the jugular with its finale.
Now that we are over with second guessing whether he is going to be redeemed or not I think this arc is going to be interesting
ReplyDeleteAlthough doubt he would be getting to much screen space I'm pretty sure project caterpillar is going to be a crucial event and the inhuman team vs (rock possessed) Simmons is a more important event.
I do believe he will live till the civil war movie airs after that its just streching it
For a show that just introduced an Asian avenger I have absoltuley nothing but respect which is why all the whining about killing the black guy or killing POC get on my nerves. The show gives a lot of respect to Asians and various ethinicites
ReplyDeleteHell raina was redeemed before her death isnt that way better plus the only true blue Americans in the team now are Bobbi and coulson I love how diverse it is something I actually don't even give deep thought till I see complaints on message boards and think how ridiculous those arguments are
I think Disqus should start billing you for the use of exclamation marks.
ReplyDeleteAh, thanks, that is one of the episodes I didn't work though yet, I am still busy with 2013.
ReplyDeleteI know, all of those little nods to what they knew was coming, even Ward talking about "Bad Seeds". Like I've said when you know the end of Season 2 with Ward full Hydra and Skye a Shield Team Leader... It just makes the origin stories of Season 1 so much more meaningful, to me anyway.
ReplyDeleteWhich as I've said kind of makes his whole douchebag approach to Foster make more sense. Figure what 2 no more than 3 years since Barhain and May being shattered by an "084" event.
ReplyDeleteIt is well worth it when you get to it, makes May's approach to the woman much more meaningful.
ReplyDelete