ABC/Richard CartwrightWarning: The following contains major spoilers from the second season finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. If you haven't tuned in yet, you may want to look away. Proceed with caution!
Well, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans, #HiveSurvives doesn't seem to have worked.
That's right—in the final moments of tonight's season two finale, the maniacal parasitic Inhuman hellbent on infecting the entire human race was stopped in his tracks by his own nuclear warhead weapon and a heroic sacrifice from Lincoln (Luke Mitchell). (RIP.) Leading into tonight's big two-part episode, Brett Dalton admitted to E! News that the odds of survival weren't exactly in his favor, but even now, in the face of his character's apparent demise, he's still hopeful we haven't seen the last of him on the ABC series.
"The writers do a really good job of making sure that no doors are closed. There is, I think, always possibility out there," he told us. "We're in the Marvel universe here, the comic book world. A death in this world is different than a death in another TV show. So, hopefully it is less than permanent and this isn't the last that we see of Hive/Grant Ward."
While he's hopeful for a return, he's also nothing if not practical. "I think that Grant Ward's mortal body is definitely gone. I don't think that can survive a nuclear blast," he continued. "But, I think Hive as an entity might be floating around somewhere in space and hopefully a little bot of cosmic dust, a little solar wind, a little asteroid, a little space rock—anything—will hopefully nudge it closer to Earth. It would just be fun to see Coulson's face again with Hive somehow coming back. I hope it's not the end for me on the show, for Brett Dalton. I definitely don't think it's the end for Hive because, as I said, he's out there floating in space somewhere."
For much of Dalton's run on the show, he's been separated from the cast members he kicked the series with. First, Grant Ward was revealed to be a Hydra spy and began working against the team, not with them. And then after his death, he continued working separately and against them as Hive. These last few weeks saw that change a bit when Daisy (Chloe Bennet) fell under the parasite's sway and defected from S.H.I.E.L.D., a development that Dalton enjoyed immeasurably.
"It was a lot of fun getting to work with [Bennet] again, of course, because any time I get to work with the original six, I'm delighted. Ever since becoming a spy on the show, that's the thing that's been the worst part of that," he admitted. "Everything else has been quite cool and I get to work with all these great guest stars and I get to do all this really cool stuff. But not getting to work with them has been the hardest part. So, any time I get a chance to work with them—I got a scene with Elizabeth Henstridge not too long ago where I was coming to her as [her dead boyfriend] Will. All those things are just so fun because it feels like we're bringing years of history into that. I love them, they're so great. We started this whole show together. We created these characters together. So, that will never go away. It's a lot of fun. It's been a lot of fun to see [Bennet] grow as an actor, as well. And as a character. We are not the people that we started as. We're completely different. So much has happened. To see those guys interact, it's been a blast to play."
If this is to be Dalton's last episode on the series, he revealed that what he'll miss most is the family he's developed with his cast mates. "The work is great, and the show is great, and the character is great, but what I'm going to miss most is these guys. From what I understand, this doesn't happen all the time, but we really are one loving family, and it's special," he gushed. "And I think we knew from the very beginning it was special. Every time we have a guest star, they say the same thing. It's special. There's something really loving and accepting and just cool about going to work every day with these people. It's the particular alchemy of people that we've brought together that make this show so special."
Are you hoping the show finds a way to keep Dalton around? Let us know in the comments below.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns for season four this fall on ABC.