Clark Gregg Teases Bloody 'Agents Of SHIELD' Episode With Lots Of Goodbyes

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. star Clark Gregg, who steps behind the camera for the first time on the Marvel series Friday, teased a "bloody" episode with "big moments."

"It's a bloody episode, with a bunch of people saying goodbye," Gregg told EW. "I read it and I was squealing. 'This is going to be fun!' and it was."

Gregg, who has two features under his belt as director, admitted he was "so nervous" about stepping behind the camera on the fan-favorite Marvel series, now in its fifth season.

"They had mentioned a couple of times asking if I wanted to do one, but I was too daunted by the whole prospect," he said. "I wanted something kind of nuts and fun, and I think they forgot the kind of part because there are two crazy fights, and some really big moments between characters that we've all been with for almost 100 episodes."

"'Please don't mess this up,' was in my head more than once," Gregg joked.

"The show has been firing on all cylinders, so I was just hoping to live up to the incredible stuff that [writer] Brent Fletcher had served up on the page with the reunion of Fitz and Simmons potentially, and this incredible fight."

Gregg said he was both anxious and excited about directing his co-stars, calling it a "bit of a trust exercise."

"Normally I'm their fellow actor, so to let me come in and say, 'Let's try this' and get into that collaboration, I was nervous about it, but it ended up being really special," Gregg shared.

"There's a different way that we get to collaborate, almost like as doubles partners, who are both tennis players, as opposed to a coach and a tennis player. That ended up being really thrilling. I felt like our shorthand allowed us to find some subtext in some of the moments that was fun and exciting."

Season five of S.H.I.E.L.D. puts Coulson and his team in 70 years in the future, in a world where superpowered Inhuman Daisy (Chloe Bennet) has apparently destroyed the world and humanity's last-surviving beings are enslaved by blue-skinned alien race the Kree on a neighboring station called the Lighthouse.

The episode, "Fun & Games," airs Friday at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.