Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Is Ward Really A Traitor?

With Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. earning its spy genre wings a little bit this week, we have to wonder whether the picture we’ve been given up to this point is inaccurate, or at least incomplete — and whether it may be another series regular besides Melinda May who is actually working with the enemy.With Victoria Hand revealed as working against Coulson and his team, and photos from “Providence” that seem to show John Garrett working closely with Raina and Ian Quinn, the battle lines for this brave, new, post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier world seem to be drawn.Most definitively on the “other side” at the moment is Melinda May, who was cooperating with outside forces, reporting on Coulson’s activities and the progress of his dual investigations into the secrets of his resurrection and Skye’s origins.But…I don’t buy it.First of all, even if Joss isn’t technically the showrunner, his name is all over the project and what’s a Whedon family project if it doesn’t have a kick-ass female lead? neither Simmons nor Skye is in a position to step up to the plate and replace Hand as the team’s “tank” at the moment, so from a practical point of view, that makes me think that May’s objections — “I have no idea what’s going on here” and “you have to believe me” — are true.It’s my suspicion that May has been reporting back to the same person who was most aggressively trying to keep that information private: Nick Fury. He’s not likely to be played as the bad guy in the show, though, and as we all know going into today’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, there are a elements within S.H.I.E.L.D. that we can’t be so confident about.Garrett is a big question mark; while it seems too easy to take those “Providence” photos at face value in much the same way it seems too easy to believe May is working with one of the bad guys, it’s a conversation he had with Skye that made us doubt not just Garrett, but Agent Ward as well, during “The End of the Beginning.”