When the brief hiatus is over and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns in April, the remainder of the season is going to be a whole lot of twisted fun. Plus, Ward is back! Daisy and Simmons entered the Framework on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and found themselves in a world without their biggest regret, but overrun by Hydra.
As of right now, the LMD situation has been taken care of, thanks to robot Melinda May. After terrifying confrontation after terrifying confrontation, she let Daisy, Skye, and some bonus agents go free while she blew up herself and the other LMD agents. Once they were free, Daisy and Skye opted to go into the framework themselves so that they could rescue the others.
We caught a glimpse of the virtual reality world in which our team is now living during a montage at the end of the episode, and it includes some wild stuff. Daisy is living with her boyfriend, who she initially thought was Lincoln, but turned out to be none other than Grant Ward. They work together, and she gets called in on her beeper. Fingers crossed that she doesn't start going by Skye again, though. Coulson, whose LMD expressed interest in exploring his life had he never joined S.H.I.E.L.D. earlier in the episode, is a teacher instructing his class on the dangers of Inhumans. As much as I like seeing Phil Coulson in casual teacher clothes, that's a bummer.
Mack is apparently a civilian as well in the Framework, and a happy family man. Fitz strolled out of a limo like Tony Stark, and extended a hand to a mystery woman who is probably Simmons because otherwise Simmons is.. dead? We saw her gravestone in the montage, but that doesn't make sense. What is the real Simmons supposed to do, haunt the Framework? Maybe the girl with Fitz is Aida, because this is her fantasy, but I'm not convinced. Finally, May is an agent as always — and we learned in a previous episode that she's living in a world where she got to save the Inhuman girl and never became The Cavalry.
May appears to be at the Triskelion in DC, the base that fell in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but is still standing in the Framework and has a gigantic Hydra logo on it. So that's fun. In this idyllic virtual reality that Aida created, Hydra's in charge. Of course.
So, this means that Brett Dalton is returning to Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Ward! How evil will he be this time around? Are all of the agents in the same Framework, or are each of them living in a simulation catered to them specifically? I'm so excited to see how this "Sideways World" version of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. plays out
