Last week’s episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. brought some major new developments for the series. The mystery of the Inhuman killer Lash deepened when Daisy learned that the character could transform into a normal human, and a S.H.I.E.L.D. ally seemed to meet his end.
ComicBook.com had a chance to pick Executive Producer Jeff Bell’s brain about Lash’s history, future, and our own fringe theory about he and the recently departed may be connected.
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SPOILERS for last week’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., “Devils You Know,” follow.
Looking back at last week’s episode, it seems like we may have seen the last of poor Andrew. Is that it for him, might there still be more to learn?
JB: We will certainly clarify the vagaries down the road. We will definitely do that. You will know exactly what happened, and the outcome of that, and why it did in future episodes. I’m not trying to be coy so much as…it’s much more about making it emotional for our characters. Honestly, the fallout of Hunter’s decision – and how that effects May and Hunter and everybody else – is in many ways, for us as storytellers, a larger, more ongoing, more complicated set of stories to play than, “Oh my god, Andrew’s dead, which is terrible,” or “oh my god, he’s not dead, that’s good.” Those are both interesting notions, but in terms of our storytelling, how that effected May and Hunter and the other characters is more interesting.
Around the office, we’ve been discussing a theory that Lash and Andrew are connected, and that learning that Lash can transform and Andrew apparently dying in the same episode wasn’t a coincidence. Is there anything to that idea?
JB: I’ve seen people have theories about a lot of those people. I’ve seen people mention him, I’ve seen people mention certain people in the ATCU. I think our job is to, if we do things right, set things up so expectations run wild one way. I did a one season show called Harper’s Island, and the whole point was, “Who’s the killer?” And the whole thing of trying to convince somebody, “Oh, it’s absolutely, positively that person” and then it’s not, that’s maybe half the fun of what we do here. So we have to set things up so that people will have different theories. Some will be right, and some will be wrong, and some people will go, “Theories about what? I was getting popcorn.”
A long way of saying, “Interesting. We’ll see what happens.”
Do you enjoy watching people guess?
JB: That’s the whole point, right? Our whole job is to make you think, “Oh, its Banks,” “Oh, its Andrew,” “Oh, it’s this guy over here,” “Oh, that person’s not really dead.” That’s the fun.
At the least, it seems like Lash’s origins have been tweaked a bit from the comics. Is there still a chance we might see Orollan, or was Afterlife enough secret Inhuman city for one show?
JB: For us, in this Marvel Universe, it’s hard to have a hidden or magical city. All that’s really been established with Inhumans to date, at least, it wasn’t a city so much as a small halfway house in the middle of nowhere. If we’re going to Orollan or Attilan or any of that, because Lash’s agenda certainly tied into that, that would be a rather ambitious thing for us to undertake here on television. But Lash’s agenda can certainly remain true to what it was in the comics. I mean, if you’re someone who judges whether people are worthy or not, if you take that on yourself for a variety of reasons, I think we can connect the Lash of the comics to the Lash that we have.
So his mission may still be the same, even if he isn’t necessarily from the same hometown.
JB: Correct.
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.
