ABCIf you thought the rise of the Secret Warriors on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to go smoothly, we have some bad news for you. It doesn't. At all.
Not only is Daisy leading her team on her own for the first time under the most dire circumstances possible—the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been captured by Hive, you'll recall—but there's the little issue of whether she can trust any of them to not be moles for Hive. As Daisy learns quickly, it's tough being the boss. But is she even ready for all this? According to Chloe Bennet, it's now or never.
"I think she's as ready as she'll ever be, but I think it's one of those things where, you know, it's never going to be, 'OK, you're perfectly ready and they're perfectly ready as a team and now, let's just go out and see what happens!' It was never going to get started like that, so I think kind of getting thrown together is the best case scenario," the actress told E! News. "She has the curiosity and the ruthlessness and the fierceness that it takes to be a leader, but I think she also is really inexperienced. I think that hybrid of things will be interesting to see her grow and have a trajectory for the rest of the series of her really learning and understanding what it takes to be a good leader."
Once Hive (Brett Dalton) reveals a surprising new power to the team, Coulson (Clark Gregg) and the entire team will be forced to question everyone they thought they could trust in order to unearth the traitor in their midst. Naturally, this is only going to test Daisy further. "I think she is going to take it upon herself to really figure it out. I think this is just as much a challenge in her leadership as really going on the mission to save the team," Bennet admitted. "There's the first half of the episode where you see them really going in and kicking ass and trying to save the team. And there's the second half, where it's a whole other skill of leadership—it's really managing chaos and getting to the bottom of things and being fair to both S.H.I.E.L.D. and her Secret Warriors. It's going to be challenging."
Equally challenging? The setback her team faces in the eyes of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s human members now that one of them can't be trusted. "I think it's frustrating for Daisy because she finally gets a team! Our show has been dealing with themes of Civil War for a while now and having these people on S.H.I.E.L.D. have their concerns about Inhumans and powered people...It's interesting to see that kind of come to a head. It's almost like, 'Damn! We were just getting this together and now this happens and now we're going to have a bad rep again.'"
So, how will fans react when they find out just who among the Secret Warriors is the mole? We asked Bennet to tease us by predicting the emoji faces people will be using by the end of the episode and, based on her choices, we all should be very worried. "I think the face where the emoji's dead," she said, bluntly. "Maybe the tear emoji where it's like the Scream painting. I don't know. I think it's going to be utter chaos."
Consider yourselves warned.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.