Grant Ward: Hates the Patriots

[Cranberry]

Ward seems to be written as "exasperated big brother" now rather than as a porcupine/"little poop with knives sticking out of it." I think it works better.

[Sarahastro]

So Grant Ward is an Agent of Hydra... Thoughts?

Personally, I'm excited! I don't hate Ward, but I never thought of him as particularly interesting. Most of his storylines seemed to revolve around having sex with May and wanting to have sex with Skye. Now we learn that he's been playing them the whole time! I'm excited to see where they go with this and how the team deals with the betrayal.

[Cranberry]

I just hope he actually IS Hydra and not just deep undercover. Like I said in the 1x17 thread, though, if he did actually kill Hand, there's no redeeming him in my eyes.

He's definitely more interesting this way -- I also didn't hate him, but he was one of my least-favorite people on the team (along with Coulson, who has lost most of his dry humor and isn't much fun to watch nowadays). He was the generic good-looking muscle and not much else, so I like the idea that he was just pretending to be a friend and ally all along. I would absolutely love it if he never had feelings for Skye at all and was just playing everyone. I'm still afraid they'll either go the "I'm going deep undercover to ultimately protect Skye" direction or the "I'm bad, but I'm so conflicted because I've realized that I love Skye" direction, either of which would piss me off. There is the third option, "I'm totally brainwashed and have no idea what I'm doing," which would be a cop-out and also boring.

We may have to change this topic prefix! Will wait a couple more episodes and see.

[Cranberry]

Just as soon as I posted that, someone on TWoP linked this exclusive interview with Brett Dalton in which 

he confirms that Ward is actually a Hydra agent and not a plant, and that he may have developed feelings for Skye but he's loyal to Garrett above all. Best news ever

.

And here's an interview with the producers -- it's fun; they point out all of the clues

that Ward was with Hydra all along

.

I discussed these a bit more in the spoiler thread.

[Kaoteek]

I wouldn't put too much stock in those two interviews, especially the very vague Brett Dalton one : he never says he isn't a plant or a double/triple agent, and anyway he didn't even know he'd turn bad guy until two episodes ago, so... he's not the most informed one re: his character.

(also, my Smallville & Heroes years have taught me never to trust anything Jeph Loeb says about a show he's working on)

[Cranberry]

Yes, I mentioned that over in the spoiler thread, which is probably the best place to discuss those articles so that we don't end up with tons of spoiler bars in here.

[KBear]

If they play this right they could make Ward a great character. If he's really Hydra, but is feeling conflicted about his actions, they could get some great storylines off of it. If it's all a fake out to get him inside Hydra, then boo; it's the biggest cop out of all time. Last night Ward felt dangerous and with his relationships with Coulson's team, he could be a real wildcard. 

[KirkB]

Even if Ward is full on Hydra and hates SHIELD, Mom and apple pie he could have taken a personal liking to Coulson, May and the others. Even the most evil Hydra guys in Winter Soldier probably had people and things outside the organization they cared about. The only pure Hydra being  as this point is

Zola.

Edited April 9, 2014 by KirkB

[ChelseaNH]

If Dalton remains a regular, then you can expect him to rejoin the team at some point.

[KirkB]

He could be a reoccurring bad guy, which would be awesome, and remain a regular.

[ChelseaNH]

If we're going to have a recurring bad guy, I'd rather have Deathlok, and he hasn't shown up anywhere near enough to rate regular status.

[Tim Thomason]

Deathlok isn't a bad guy, though. He's just being used by Centipede/HYDRA to commit bad acts. Ward is HYDRA of his own free will, presumably believing in the mantra of security over freedom at any cost. Ward can be a true antagonist with no hope of redemption, capable of jostling the team on a bi-weekly basis because he used to be so close to them. Deathlok would just be the same story over and over again (J. August Richards looks sad, but has to do something terrible. Everybody looks sad for him and try to help somehow).

[cko]

I want Ward to stay a bad guy and Mike to become a good guy and hang out on the bus and all.

[Sarahastro]

I really think that he is Hydra. Watching the latest episode, I thought it was very interesting that in the scene with him and May in the interrogation chamber, he seemed completely different from his normal self. His voice was even different. It was the same rage-y look and voice that he had in The Well when he yelled at the team in FitzSimmons lab. I think the angry Ward we see in that episode is the real Ward, and this nice guy who plays board games and spends time being friendly with all of the team members is the fake Ward. That's not to say that he doesn't have a real fondness for the team, or that he's not feeling conflicted, but the Ward we saw in The Well was a completely different guy from the one we normally saw - one who quickly snapped at Skye and then was quite cruel to both Skye and Fitz.

Regarding the fact that Brett Dalton is still in the main cast, I don't think that necessarily means that he will end up back with the team at the end of the season since there are only six episodes left. They could also use him to focus more on Centipede and show us what those guys are really after. We also don't know that Brett Dalton will remain in the main cast if the show gets picked up for Season 2. He could be downgraded to recurring.

Also they've teased that someone will die at the end of the season, and at this point he seems like a strong candidate.

This more than all of the Centipede mentions convinces me that the writers really did have a plan from the beginning and set out to tell a fairly interesting story. There have been major flaws in the execution (did it really need to take 17 episodes to get to this point?), but I am finally excited to see how things unfold. The overly shippy lighthearted story that we thought they were telling us was not actually the story that we were getting. I kind of want to rewatch old episodes and see if I can spot Evil Ward.

[ChelseaNH]

capable of jostling the team on a bi-weekly basis because he used to be so close to them. Deathlok would just be the same story over and over again

You don't think Ward vs the team would be the same story over and over again?  That would be my concern.

Normally I wouldn't think that Ward as a villain would give him enough screen time, because the show hasn't invested much screen time in its villains.  But who knows what they'll be willing to do going forward?

[Cranberry]

Someone suggested that he could be the show's Sark, which could work. Sark was one of the more popular characters on Alias, and he was on the bad guy's side. He appeared in more than 50 epsiodes over the course of the show.

[Glory]

I'd very much like it if Ward stays Hydra and the whole Sky thing was using her to get her to join well.

At the shallow end of the pool, Triplett is smoking hot and could easily take Ward's place on the team as the muscle. I would not mind that one bit. No sir.

[KirkB]

It occurs to me we are the only ones who KNOW Ward is bad. Sure, he killed Hand, but with SHIELD in such disarray Coulson may never know that she's not off busy somewhere or that Garrett isn't in custody. Ward could easily come back and rejoin the team and no one but the audience would be any the wiser.

[Sarahastro]

Yes, I am interested in seeing how the team finds out. Even if he doesn't rejoin the team, they would probably assume that Garrett escaped somehow and killed Ward, Hand, and the other agents.

[myril]

Ward might be able to fool them for a while longer, due to all the distrust and the disarray of SHIELD,but I think it wouldn't do the story telling that much good if they wait til the end of the season to let the team figure it out, or IMO even worse, let Ward return for a while to the bus still fooling them. I want to see how they deal with that betrayal and how Ward deals with being a betrayer when others know he is. From what they say in interviews they make it sound like Ward has fooled them all the time we have followed Coulson and his team, so enough of that. I will have some fun going back and rewatch the season to find things which can be read now has hints (if they had been planned to be or not is secondary) and rethink Ward's character story so far, but I'm not so interested in seeing more fooling around. It's not about a fast reveal in this case, to the audience it is revealed, but about moving the characters on, character development, they've stalled long enough.

[telane]

I'm rewatching earlier episodes with "reaveals" in mind, because I get obsessive like that and Ward was my favorite character from the start. Believe it or not, but I always found him the most interesting.

So far I got to the Akela Amador episode. It's the first one after pilot, where the paths of Coulson team and Centipede cross. Question number one would be - was Centipede's agenda threatened, or pursued in that episode? A lot depends on that, and I'd bet my money on the Good Shield (not Hydra cell) giving Coulson this assignment. In that case Ward would have to run interference.

And here we have Akela Amador finding the van mysteriously quick. Almost as quick as if she was clairvoyant or something? Well, no, obviously Ward gave his bosses the info. Somehow. After the team is knocked out, Ward says they are rattled, shaken, it will take time for them to recover. We were to assume he simply doesn't not play well with others, doesn't yet get them. Because of course, they were back to work immediately, thus throwing a wrench in his plans.

After that he adjusts and plays with them. Gets (or is given, because it's natural, he's the muscle) the front seat in that "glasses counterfeit" thingy and goes in to retrieve the data Amador was supposed to get for the Centipede. Here, I paused for a moment, wondering if someone behind the Englishman behind Amador (maybe Garrett?) knew it was actually Ward, not Amador, that's why he ordered Ward to seduce the guard. That stinks of Garrett's wicked sense of humor, lol.

Kind of curious - if Garrett knew it wasn't Amador, he should have killed her right after Ward got the data they needed. Why didn't he? But then, maybe they wanted to make Team Coulson feel safe, feel like they'd accomplished something, beat the bad guy. Lull them, so to speak.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on epi no 4 in hindsight, through "Ward works for the bad guys" lenses.

[Sarahastro]

I'm rewatching earlier episodes with "reaveals" in mind, because I get obsessive like that and Ward was my favorite character from the start. Believe it or not, but I always found him the most interesting.

So far I got to the Akela Amador episode. It's the first one after pilot, where the paths of Coulson team and Centipede cross. Question number one would be - was Centipede's agenda threatened, or pursued in that episode? A lot depends on that, and I'd bet my money on the Good Shield (not Hydra cell) giving Coulson this assignment. In that case Ward would have to run interference.

And here we have Akela Amador finding the van mysteriously quick. Almost as quick as if she was clairvoyant or something? Well, no, obviously Ward gave his bosses the info. Somehow. After the team is knocked out, Ward says they are rattled, shaken, it will take time for them to recover. We were to assume he simply doesn't not play well with others, doesn't yet get them. Because of course, they were back to work immediately, thus throwing a wrench in his plans.

After that he adjusts and plays with them. Gets (or is given, because it's natural, he's the muscle) the front seat in that "glasses counterfeit" thingy and goes in to retrieve the data Amador was supposed to get for the Centipede. Here, I paused for a moment, wondering if someone behind the Englishman behind Amador (maybe Garrett?) knew it was actually Ward, not Amador, that's why he ordered Ward to seduce the guard. That stinks of Garrett's wicked sense of humor, lol.

Kind of curious - if Garrett knew it wasn't Amador, he should have killed her right after Ward got the data they needed. Why didn't he? But then, maybe they wanted to make Team Coulson feel safe, feel like they'd accomplished something, beat the bad guy. Lull them, so to speak.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on epi no 4 in hindsight, through "Ward works for the bad guys" lenses.

Interesting. I haven't started rewatching for Hydra!Ward, but I might.

Regarding Episode 4, it is interesting that Ward goes on the mission instead of May, who is much closer in height to Amadour. Didn't the handler notice that the camera was much higher off the ground than normal? It's possible that when Coulson and his team caught Amadour, Hydra decided to just give up on Amadour and have Ward do the mission instead. If they had killed her immediately, they wouldn't have been able to send Ward the messages without compromising his cover, and they would have had to give up on the formula that they wanted so badly. Also, detaching the eye implant distracted the team and made it more likely that the Englishman would get away.

[telane]

They could have killed her right after he got the formula, but yeah, I didn't think that they might want to spare their asset in the Englishman. What proved futile anyway. Besides that would rise questions. Besides, it's irrelevant, probably. ;) And I'm getting all tangled up, lol.
I'm not quite sure there's any point in analyzing those episodes, because after Tuesday it may all get turned upside-down again, but what the heck. I  I started this, so I might just as well continue. At least until someone tells me to get a life, lol.


Episode about the Girl in the Flower Dress is another one where Centipede and Team Coulson cross paths. Centipede's goal here seems to be squeezing the juice out of the pyrokinetic guy. So Ward needs to run interference once again, to prevent them from saving the guy on time.

Frankly, this epi doesn't gel as nicely with Hydra!Ward as the previous one. Ward suggests solutions that bring the Team closer to solving the case. There's only one situation where he blows the investigation – when he spots Miles, he doesn't act like the super-spy he's supposed to be, he spooks the suspect and then lets him escape. So unprofessional there, super spy. Unless, of course, he wanted to slow down Coulson's progress, in which case – excellent job. But that's it. Nothing else points to his desire for Team Coulson to fail.

And this was a rather important experiment for Centipede. The only explanation for his actions here might either be that he had some other agenda that I can't quite put my finger on – or that he knew about the progress of the experiment. It’s possible. At first I thought that Riana was in charge there, but it was actually the Doctor woman. She was reporting to someone and that someone might have relayed the information to Ward. If Ward working deep cover could be in contact with someone. Sheesh. Am I thinking too much about all this?

This episode also shows us Ward forming a mutual understanding with May over a whisky shot. Notice how it's her not-quite-comforting him. Or is it him allowing her to comfort him? This will play out later. Oh, the continuity! :)

The final scene of the episode contains a forshadowing bit that actually saddens me greatly. As much as I want Ward to be genuinely Hydra and only return to Team Coulson through a trial of tears and blood, I don't want him to be at the head of the organization, because there would really be no turning back from orchestrating EVERYTHING.

At the end of the episode Riana goes to Mr Po (what's the spelling?) and he says that "the Clairvoyant doesn't like to be touched". In a very ominous way. And, well, we have seen in a couple of instances that Ward doesn't like to be touched. All the back-slapping by Fitz yields at least a grimmace. Skye disonnecting the glasses nearly made him flip out and that was not a pretended reaction to endear Skye to him ("Super-spy is ticklish"). There are more examples. It would really make me very disappointed if Ward was the real Clairvoyant. Here's to hoping that Clairvoyant was actually revealed in the Winter Soldier and in AoS, there's simply a group of people following his orders and Ward was the one who kept in touch (no pun intended) with Mr Po.

[KirkB]

If Ward is the Clairvoyant he sucks at his job. The whole getting Skye shot to find out how Coulson came back from the dead thing only revealed WHERE it happened. Sure, he is aware some mysterious substance from the mysterious place that blew up and is now inaccessible helped her heal but what good does that do him? He doesn't know it came from an apparently alien blue guy in a tube.

Edited April 14, 2014 by KirkB

[Sarahastro]

If Ward is the Clairvoyant he sucks at his job. The whole getting Skye shot to find out how Coulson came back from the dead thing only revealed WHERE it happened. Sure, he is aware some mysterious substance from the mysterious place that blew up and is now inaccessible helped her heal but what good does that do him? He doesn't know it came from an apparently alien blue guy in a tube.

That same argument applies if Garrett is the Clairvoyant. I actually think they might have shot Skye not to find the alien, but to find and/or destroy the Guest House. My theory is that Coulson wasn't resurrected by S.H.I.E.L.D., he was resurrected by Hydra. (Side note: Is it Hydra or HYDRA? I have seen it written both ways.) I think Fury's involvement was limited to turning Coulson back into the man he was, not the actual resurrection itself.

[ChelseaNH]

The whole getting Skye shot to find out how Coulson came back from the dead thing only revealed WHERE it happened.

I don't think that's the fault of the plan, though.  Sometimes things just don't go your way.  But I doubt Ward is the Clairvoyant; I don't think he ranks that high.  Given his close proximity to the team, it makes sense for him to be a mole but not the Big Boss.

Edited April 14, 2014 by ChelseaNH

[KirkB]

That same argument applies if Garrett is the Clairvoyant. I actually think they might have shot Skye not to find the alien, but to find and/or destroy the Guest House. My theory is that Coulson wasn't resurrected by S.H.I.E.L.D., he was resurrected by Hydra. (Side note: Is it Hydra or HYDRA? I have seen it written both ways.) I think Fury's involvement was limited to turning Coulson back into the man he was, not the actual resurrection itself.

 

   Actually, if the point of shooting Skye was to find out how Coulson came back it failed all around, regardless of who the Clairvoyant is.

   Hydra (S.H.I.E.L.D. is capitalized because it is an acronym, most people just don't bother with the periods, while Hydra is named after the mythological creature) shouldn't have to find one of their own facilities. If anything I'd say it was something like an A.I.M. facility Fury somehow co-opted.

   While we're on the subject I'm starting to think there isn't A Clairvoyant, per se. I believe Centipede/Hydra just uses the name to make people think there was a single, all knowing lead figure when the real info comes from several sources (Garrett, Zola, Stillwell, etc..) If someone like Coulson or Fury gets too close they can sacrifice someone like the guy in the wheelchair to get people off their trail.

Edited April 14, 2014 by KirkB

[Sarahastro]

Now that it's been confirmed that Ward is indeed Hydra, should we change the topic prefix? We could go with the topic prefix from the TWOP forums, "He wants world peace," since it can be interpreted as a reference to Hydra.

[Cranberry]

I didn't want to copy TWoP, so I picked a new one. I thought that was a clever line!

[KennedyHawk]

I don't understand the Patriots joke/line from the last episode, can someone explain it.

Note: I don't dislike or like the Patriots. I nothing them.

Edited April 17, 2014 by KennedyHawk

[Sarahastro]

I don't understand the Patriots joke/line from the last episode, can someone explain it.

Note: I don't dislike or like the Patriots. I nothing them.

I took two things from that line. One: the Grant Ward that the team knows is completely different from the real guy, right down to having a different favorite football team. Agent Grant Ward is so all-American his favorite team is the New England Patriots. Two (and this might be a stretch): it raised the possibility in my mind that much of his backstory is false. He told Skye that he grew up mostly in Massachusetts, and I don't think I've ever met a guy who grew up in Massachusetts who hates the Patriots (indifferent to them, sure, but actually hates, no).

[telane]

I'm not American, so I have no idea about the Patriots other than they are apparently a football team and what you say here - that this is a team from Massachusetts.

So, my take on it is that he grew up there, but his life was so miserable that he hates everything he associates with home. Football team among all.

[KennedyHawk]

Thanks for the explination guys this makes more sense now :)

[Cranberry]

There's also the whole double meaning thing (Grant Ward hates patriots so much that he even hates the Patriots).

[tricksterson]

We'll know he's truly beyond any hope of redemption is if he turns out to be a Yankees fan.

[Biosynth]

Haha, a Yankees fan would truly be irredeemable!

I was kind of thinking that now we know he is on the side of evil, the whole stuff about his childhood and the well and all that, I'm suspecting that he wasn't the kid who couldn't help...he was the bully!  And ended up killing one of his brothers.

Maybe that's what he is referring to when he talks about being saved as a teen.  That maybe he was so nasty that it took Garrett to help him to channel his aggression into something more organized, like Hydra.

[telane]

I think quite the opposite - that he was the youngest kid. After all that's how the memory was filmed, from the point of view of the kid in the well.

I think he took the personality of his middle - good - brother for the sake of the mission to infiltrate Coulson's team. He wishes he was like that brother, the good one, protector of the bullied, the strong one. He views himself as weak, insufficient, but he definitely doesn't have the bully personality. The way he let Garrett mess him up in the last episode? *shudder* Usually in tv in scenes where one character asks the other to "make it believable", the one who has to punch his colleague does it at least reluctantly. Garrett was enjoying the beating in a sadistic way. And he managed to break his protege a few ribs. If Ward was a bully, he wouldn't let Garrett treat him that way.

Edited April 21, 2014 by telane

[KirkB]

Maybe I am misremembering this, but didn't the kid in the well call out for Grant? I seem to remember him calling Grant for help and Grant being the one with the rope, who was going to help before the other boy told him not yet. And you're right, the scene never made any sense to me if Ward was supposed to be the kid leaning into the well rather than the one in the well. So what if the guy on the bus WAS the one in well but isn't Grant? Grant Ward could be one of the other brothers, maybe one who died, and the guy we know took his name/identity as cover, regardless of whether it was for Hydra or SHIELD.

[Sarahastro]

I think quite the opposite - that he was the youngest kid. After all that's how the memory was filmed, from the point of view of the kid in the well.

I think he took the personality of his middle - good - brother for the sake of the mission to infiltrate Coulson's team. He wishes he was like that brother, the good one, protector of the bullied, the strong one. He views himself as weak, insufficient, but he definitely doesn't have the bully personality. The way he let Garrett mess him up in the last episode? *shudder* Usually in tv in scenes where one character asks the other to "make it believable", the one who has to punch his colleague does it at least reluctantly. Garrett was enjoying the beating in a sadistic way. And he managed to break his protege a few ribs. If Ward was a bully, he wouldn't let Garrett treat him that way.

I think the idea that Grant Ward is actually one of the other brothers is an interesting one, but I disagree that Ward does not have the personality of a bully. In "The Well" he definitely acts like a bully when he yells at Skye and Fitz. Yes, you can blame it on the Berserker staff, but it's still interesting to me that the staff brought out this very cruel side that lashed out at the weakest members of the team just because they tried to help him. He may keep that under control most of the time, but to me that showed that he is a bully.

[telane]

As I learned from other spy shows, Fooling Lie Detector 101 is to lie on the baseline questions. Baseline questions were: "State your full name" and "State your immediate family". Ward's baseline had a lot of spikes. Does it mean he lied on either of those questions?

 

And, to answer Sarahastro - I'm thinking way too much about it, obviously - but there are bullies and there are bullies. One person simply takes sadistic pleasure from hurting others. Such person wouldn't let anyone hurt them - they are the alpha-dog. And true sociopaths. Garrett is such person. Another takes to bullying because that's the only thing they know. They were abused when they were the weakest in the pack, so when they are in turn the strongest - they abuse those weaker than them. That's how I see Ward.

 

Maybe that's because I really liked him from the start and I still like him - so I want to see something good in him, something that would allow him to be redeemed. I think it's gonna be - and I want it to be - a very long road for him to become the "good" person, but I think deep inside he wants to be that. Just - no one ever showed him how.

 

Oh, and I still think he's the youngest brother, not the middle one. 

Edited April 23, 2014 by telane

[Carrie Ann]

As I learned from other spy shows, Fooling Lie Detector 101 is to lie on the baseline questions. Baseline questions were: "State your full name" and "State your immediate family". Ward's baseline had a lot of spikes. Does it mean he lied on either of those questions?

His baseline had a lot of spikes because of the pin (?) he pushed into his thumb, which is why Koenig asked if he was in pain. If you cause yourself pain during the baseline, you can make your lies match up to your baseline answers. But that's on a normal lie detector. It's ridiculous to me that the super-special SHIELD lie detector functions the exact same way. Anyway, I suppose that doesn't rule out the idea that he lied on those questions too.

[KennedyHawk]

I'm at a loss with Ward and Brett Dalton in general.

 

I really liked him in the beginning and middlestages of the show, and I like him a lot now that he's turned evil, but in last night's episode he was over-acting the evil quite a bit. I wonder if this is why the producers didn't tell him out-right he'd be turning villain, he'd drop way too many signs instead of just the ones they chose to write into earlier episodes. Maybe it's just because we now know he's evil but I feel like they are over-doing it with Brett's delivery of lines, especially when he's around the team.

[KirkB]

The way Ward fooled the lie detector would have worked for a normal lie detector but it shouldn't have worked for something that was supposed to be analyzing 96 different things.

[KennedyHawk]

I don't know you can have a probability model based on 96 characteristics that still makes incorrect predicitions if you give it improper initial conditions (in this case baselines). In the same light a 5 parameter probability model may figure things out a large % of the time given a good set of IC's (baselines).

[ChelseaNH]

This machine was supposed to be Romanoff-proof.  Are they saying that Romanoff couldn't pull off a "lie as a baseline" trick?  Or the "tell the truth, just not all of it" trick?  Feh.

[KirkB]

Well, we don't know if it WAS Romanoff proof. Koenig said Fury wanted something she couldn't beat. When Ward asked if she did Koenig responded "Like Fury would tell!" So for all we know she may have figured out the same things Ward did. In fact, since everybody seems to be keen on reminding us that Ward's ratings make him the best since Romanoff and he faked it out it's a pretty safe bet she did too.

 

Also, I think Ward wasted a perfect opportunity to kill May. He could have shot her in the back and disposed of her body, then told everybody she just up and left. Which is what she was doing anyway. Then again, he made a mess of hiding Koenig's body so maybe that's one of the thing he's NOT good at?

Edited April 23, 2014 by KirkB

[myril]

Lie detectors are based on the idea, that people are to some degree stressed when lying (about being caught) showing in physical symptoms. Guess that someone like Romanoff seldom is stressed when telling a lie, so they might make someone believe that even Romanoff can't beat the machine, but I am sure it's rather easy for her to do so. No matter how many physical factors you measure, it is never a sure prove that someone is lying, and no or small reaction is no sure prove that someone is not lying. It's not just about creating right or false baseline, without you or anyone noticing it you might be stressed by some low humming in the room that very moment you have to answer certain question and, viola, you show stress reaction and that is then interpreted as lying. False positives are a problem with lie detectors.

 

Ward stressed himself by inducing a constant pain, even said at the beginning, that he might still be a in pain because of his injuries. So whatever spikes where there to be seen meant pretty much nothing, neither if he was lying that moment nor if not. It made the machine useless. It was more his observable hesitation at some point that suggested he was not easy with what to tell or not tell, something anyone with some interrogations skills, even just some common people skills should have noticed.

[Sarahastro]

And, to answer Sarahastro - I'm thinking way too much about it, obviously - but there are bullies and there are bullies. One person simply takes sadistic pleasure from hurting others. Such person wouldn't let anyone hurt them - they are the alpha-dog. And true sociopaths. Garrett is such person. Another takes to bullying because that's the only thing they know. They were abused when they were the weakest in the pack, so when they are in turn the strongest - they abuse those weaker than them. That's how I see Ward.

 

I agree with your assessment of Ward. That's what I meant when I said that Ward is a bully - he preys upon people weaker than him.

 

 

Maybe that's because I really liked him from the start and I still like him - so I want to see something good in him, something that would allow him to be redeemed. I think it's gonna be - and I want it to be - a very long road for him to become the "good" person, but I think deep inside he wants to be that. Just - no one ever showed him how.

 

I'm biased because I never liked Ward (I always thought he was some combination of boring, controlling, and mean), but I honestly do not see how he can rejoin the team after everything he has done. They are really racking up the body count. You say that he wants to be a good person but no one showed him how. Well presumably no matter how abused he was, he knows that murdering people is wrong, and he has done that many times (and many of those people were unarmed by the way). He may have moments of doubt, and perhaps he will eventually turn against Garrett, but I just don't see how he can rejoin the team and go back to the team after everything that's happened.

[kitlee625]

Yeah it is interesting that he did not kill May when he had the chance. Even if she is leaving the Bus, with her skills, she is probably someone Garrett would want crossed off. Then again, the more people he kills, the bigger the mess he would have to clean up. Certainly if he shot her while on the Bus there would be a lot of blood splatter to clean up, not to mention disposing the body somewhere no one would find.

 

His hiding spot for Koenig's body was probably okay except that he did not realize the lanyards were being tracked. That's how Skye found him.

[millahnna]

 

but I honestly do not see how he can rejoin the team after everything he has done.

 

The only way I could see it is if it's ultimately revealed he was under some kind of bainwashing (for a very long time, obviously), which is being speculated about on the interwebz a little bit.  I'd prefer if they didn't go that route but I can see an angle for a decent story there.  If he's been not himself for a very long time, coming out of it would have some interesting implications.  He'd be almost like a baby in terms of knowing his own personality.  Maybe his favorite food isn't his favorite food. 

 

But like I said, I'd rather they just kept him bad. I'd prefer mislead over brainwashed.