'Agents of SHIELD' Star Jeff Ward Promoted To Series Regular

The folks over at Zima are probably ecstatic this morning — their pop culture spokesman in Deke Shaw (Jeff Ward) has been promoted to a series regular on ABC's Agents of SHIELD.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly before an autograph signing at San Diego Comic-Con with a handful of Agents of SHIELD cast members, Ward himself revealed the news in the presence of a few of his coworkers.

"I'm very excited because all of these people are incredible and very good at what they do," Ward said of his new opportunity. "I'm sorry I rehearsed this and it's not going well. [laughs]"

Last seen in the season five finale giving a motivational pep talk to Chloe Bennet's Daisy Johnson, the grandson — from a dystopian future — of Leo Fitz (Iain de Caestecker) and Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) left to see the a world he was new to. Ward ended up appearing the majory of season five episodes — nineteen, to be exact — after the main SHIELD crew met him after they were teleported into the future. It was then revealed that Deke was the grandson of Fitz and Simmons, proving that they made it through the adventure alive.

Although the show has been renewed for an abbreviated sixth season, Agents of SHIELD showrunners Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon admitted that they had written the season five finale as if it were the series finale.

"We'll never end something without the potential for more story," Tancharoen said at the Agents of SHIELD 100th episode premiere. "That's how we've ended every season because, whenever we've come to the end of all the seasons past, we go into that mostly not knowing until the very last minute, so we're basically doing the same thing to close out Season 5. It can fit well as a possible series finale, and it can fit well as just another season's end."

Whedon added, "You always want to leave the idea that there's more stories, it's a question of whether or not we will tell them. We have our end, and we'll stick to it regardless, and we think it'll work either way."

"What we don't want to do is get to the end of the series and have gone off of something where you're like, 'Well, now it makes no sense. We want there to be a sense of resolution for the audience and a reward for the audience for being on this whole journey. We don't want to leave them hanging with something that didn't get paid off. That being said, not everybody is going to die in the finale, so those people will live on with stories to tell."

Are you excited to see more of Ward in his role as Deke Shaw? Are you looking forward to Agents of SHIELD's shortened sixth season? Let us know in the comments below!

Agents of SHIELD returns for a thirteen-episode sixth season next summer.