Agents of SHIELD Star Jeff Ward on Deke's Future, Becoming the Face of the Citrus Industry, and More

At the end of Agents of SHIELD Season Five, Jeff Ward was promoted to a series regular; fast forward a year and Ward's character Deke Shaw has been absent from the show throughout its first three episodes. Thankfully for our collective sanity, Shaw finally ends up showing up this week during "Code Yellow," an episode that largely focuses on what he's been up to since last season.

ComicBook.com spoke with Ward in the lead-up to his Agents of SHIELD Season Six debut about his role in the show moving forward, and here's what he had to say.

ComicBook.com: We're three episodes into the season and Deke's nowhere to be seen. You kind of have some people online worried about our Zima-drinking buddy, you know that?

Jeff Ward: Yeah... he's definitely been bummed to miss everyone, but he's out there getting his fill of Zima in the meantime, so that is good that you're concerned for that.

When we first see him, he's getting pretty situated with the current timeline. One, he's technically not supposed to be there and two, he's using stuff he probably shouldn't to his advantage. How's that going to affect his story arc, moving forward into Season Six?

Ah, yes. So he's taken a lot of his knowledge and understanding of certain unpatented technology from the future back into the present and has figured out a way to profit off of it, and I think, especially at this point, he's super wrapped up in figuring out his place in the world and kind of trying to carve out his little niche, or big niche in this case, and is not too caught up in what the ramifications are going to be for the future that is still so far away, his future and his contemporary timeline.

But he definitely is aware of it and I think that things that happen throughout the season kind of force his hand into being a little more concerned about that, but at this point, I think he's kind of a kid in a candy shop, just going crazy and having fun. But it's something that he'll probably become more attuned to later.

At what point did you find out your return's going to be starring right alongside the boss lady herself, Maurissa Tancharoen?

I found out when they told me about the episode. They kind of told me what the episode was going to be and they pitched me that opening scene of me running around and shooting all these aliens and it dissolving into virtual reality, and I was just so excited for that. Then they were like, "Oh, and also, Maurissa is going to be playing your girlfriend, and her name is Sequoia." I was just so excited, because I love Maurissa so much, and she's so ridiculously talented and so much fun and such a great collaborator.

I think everybody in the S.H.I.E.L.D. family — everybody who's a fan of the show and everybody who works on the show — everyone knows that Maurissa is more than capable of doing something like that, so everybody was kind of impatiently waiting for what it was going to be that she was going to finally going to appear in something. And when I found out it was going to be as my girlfriend, I was very excited and honored that I was going to be the one that got to act with her and she does not disappoint. I mean, she's amazing. She's so funny.

You bring up that opening. You played your best John McClane.

100%! [laughs] That's what I was going for, so I really appreciate you saying that.

All of a sudden now, by the end of the episode, Deke's thrust back in the life of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Is he going to be distressed more by the fact that his startup's been disrupted by the S.H.I.E.L.D. life or is he going to be more distressed by the fact that Daisy is about as far away from him as humanly possible?

I think that that is always a driving factor in Deke's thinking, be it subconsciously or consciously, and I also think that it's the same with any painful love or any unrequited love. I think people just do their best to kind of shut that down and move on and find their own thing, and then when that keeps getting dredged up and kind of coming back into the fold, it's picking at a scab a little bit, and Daisy is definitely a weak point for Deke and a point of sensitivity. So I think the prospect of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team coming back sort of spells that for him, sort of spells Daisy maybe coming back into his life.

But I also think he's a guy that, like, doesn't want to die for no reason, and I think he's still getting his head around the fact everybody's attitude is that of being so selfless and ... you know, they're all heroes. Deke is sort of used to looking out for himself, numero uno, so I think at first, he's probably a little like, "ugh, God, you people again?" But hopefully, that will shift based on stuff that happens. Deke is Deke, and he was raised in a place where you've got to look out for yourself before anything else, and I think that's very much in his DNA, so he's at odds with that.

Totally off-the-wall question, has your team ever been contacted by any lemon farmers looking for a face for their company yet?

Not yet! [laughs] I've got to tell you, I'm anxiously awaiting that phone call because I'm ready. I don't even know who the major lemon distributors are, but tell them to call me up. Let's do this.

We still have a few more episodes left in the sixth season. Do you have an elevator pitch on Deke's arc the rest of the way?

He's very much a loner, but I think underneath that, in a subconscious desire, he wants to belong somewhere and have some kind of family or group or partner or whatever it is that has. I think all of us are looking for that unconditional love and unconditional support and I think he sees that the team has that for each other. He says that at the end of the fifth season, like, "I've never seen people do this for each other before."

And I think that kind of keeps rubbing off on him, and it keeps informing kind of the way that he is and whether or not he does want to be a part of this crew. And is he a part of this crew, really? Does this crew care about him? So I think it's going to be a lot of coming to terms with who he is to himself, who he is to this group, and I think there's a mutually beneficial need for everyone in order to be able to survive, so it'll be some of that, I think.

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What'd you think of Deke's Agents of SHIELD return? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or by tweeting me at @AdamBarnhardt to chat all things SHIELD!

Agents of SHIELD airs Friday nights on ABC starting at 9/8 p.m. Central.