The third season of the American television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., based on the Marvel Comics organization S.H.I.E.L.D., follows Phil Coulson and his team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Inhumans as they face new threats to the world. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and acknowledges the continuity of the franchise's films. The season was produced by ABC Studios, Marvel Television, and Mutant Enemy Productions, with Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, and Jeffrey Bell serving as showrunners.
Clark Gregg reprises his role as Coulson from the film series, starring alongside the returning series regulars Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Nick Blood, Adrianne Palicki. They are joined by Henry Simmons and Luke Mitchell who were promoted from recurring guest roles in the second season. The third season was ordered in May 2015, and filmed from that July to the following April. It takes inspiration from the Secret Warriors comic by Jonathan Hickman and Brian Michael Bendis, combining it with the series' Inhuman and Hydra storylines, while paralleling the film Captain America: Civil War (2016); connections to other MCU television series are also included in the season, as are characters from previous MCU media. Glenn Hetrick created prosthetics for the less-human looking Inhumans, Legacy Effects provided additional practical effects, and FuseFX returned to create the visual effects.
The first episode of the season premiered in Los Angeles on September 23, 2015, with the season, consisting of 22 episodes, airing on ABC from September 29, 2015, until May 17, 2016. The premiere was watched by 4.90 million viewers, higher than any episode of the entire second half of season two. Overall, the season had generally consistent ratings, and received positive reviews. Critics felt the series had "hit its stride" with the season, and particularly praised the risky bottle episode "4,722 Hours", though the pacing of the season received criticism for trying to do too much at times. The series was renewed for a fourth season in March 2016.
Episodes
Cast and characters
Main Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson Ming-Na Wen as Melinda May Brett Dalton as Grant Ward and Hive Chloe Bennet as Daisy Johnson / Quake Iain De Caestecker as Leo Fitz Elizabeth Henstridge as Jemma Simmons Nick Blood as Lance Hunter Adrianne Palicki as Bobbi Morse Henry Simmons as Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie Luke Mitchell as Lincoln Campbell
Recurring
Constance Zimmer as Rosalind Price Andrew Howard as Luther Banks Juan Pablo Raba as Joey Gutierrez Spencer Treat Clark as Werner von Strucker Blair Underwood as Andrew Garner Matthew Willig as Lash Powers Boothe as Gideon Malick Mark Dacascos as Giyera Natalia Cordova-Buckley as Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez Adrian Pasdar as Glenn Talbot Axle Whitehead as J. T. James / Hellfire John Hannah as Holden Radcliffe
Notable guests
William Sadler as Matthew Ellis Peter MacNicol as Elliot Randolph Tyler Ritter as Thomas Ward Brian Patrick Wade as Carl Creel Titus Welliver as Felix Blake Reed Diamond as Daniel Whitehall Derek Phillips as O'Brien
Production
Development In March 2014, executive producer Jeffrey Bell stated at the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. PaleyFest panel that the producers and the writers are able to read the screenplays for upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films to know where the universe is heading, which allowed them to form a general plan for the show through the end of a third season. The series was renewed for that third season on May 7, 2015. By April 2015, Marvel had been developing a spin-off series to accompany the season, starring Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood, but ABC opted not to go ahead with it, with entertainment president Paul Lee saying, "We thought the right thing now is to leave [Palicki and Blood] on S.H.I.E.L.D., because S.H.I.E.L.D. is so strong the moment".
However, a pilot for the spinoff was ordered in August 2015, with the series titled Marvel's Most Wanted. Bell and fellow Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. executive producer Paul Zbyszewski developed the series, while working on Hunter and Morse's storyline for season three, preparing them to move over to the spin-off. Bell explained that it would set up Marvel's Most Wanted by defining exactly who the characters are, such as Hunter and his lack of loyalty to S.H.I.E.L.D. and to ideologies—"nothing specific about the show, it's just who Hunter is"—and that while the characters are "on S.H.I.E.L.D., we want to take advantage of who they are, and give the audience as much of their relationship with one another, and with other people, as possible. We are aware that there is a potential imminent end, and so they won't be neglected."
Hunter and Morse are written off the series in the episode "Parting Shot", both leaving S.H.I.E.L.D., as Palicki and Blood "physically had to go leave to shoot the pilot ... they had to stop being on S.H.I.E.L.D. and get ready for the pilot and then shoot the pilot and all of that, so it didn't make sense for us to have all these episodes with them and then not have them in two or three episodes, and then go, 'Oh, we were just over here,' and then come back and go away again." On whether they could return to the series at some point, Bell said, "I can't answer that, but I can say it would be kind of cheating to make Mack cry like that only to buy it back—not that we haven't brought characters back from the dead. We want to earn stuff."
Writing
In May 2015, Bell said that writing for the third season would begin the following month, with the story set six months after the events that concluded the second season. Bell stated that S.H.I.E.L.D. would be depicted as it was in the second season, underground with small "pockets" of S.H.I.E.L.D. around the world, as following the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) "we found we like our team ... as underdogs, as opposed to a giant, powerful, NSA organization that can do pretty much anything".
Regarding the characters that could appear in the season, Bell said in May 2015 that "The idea of some familiar faces with some new faces is something to look forward to. I also think finding some new Marvel characters to pull into the universe would be cool. Fans seem to respond when there are characters from the Marvel Comics and Marvel Cinematic Universe." He later explained that the series has the opportunity to explore the Inhumans outside of the Inhuman Royal Family (who are the major focus of the comics, television series and previously planned film). The season mentions the character Eden Fesi as an Inhuman, who is a mutant in the comics. The change was due to 20th Century Fox controlling the film and television rights to the majority of Marvel's X-Men and mutant characters.
When asked about possible hints made in the season two finale towards an adaptation of Secret Warriors by Jonathan Hickman and Brian Michael Bendis, Bell noted that the series does share the character Daisy Johnson with that comic, and "the idea of a team of powered people is something we've seen in the show ... I think there's a world down the road where we do our version." Elaborating on this and the series dealing with the many powered people introduced in season two, Bell said, "People seem to respond to powered people on the show and while it's not going to take over and become what the show's about, as a texture and flavor of the stories, we really enjoy that. The fact that Inhumans are now out there is something I think we need to investigate". He later clarified that characters would not have to be Inhuman to join the Secret Warriors, just powered, and that not just any powered character would be allowed to join, given that Daisy had to go through years of training on top of getting powers to join the team, and so similar rules would apply to other potential members. Executive producers Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon also discussed the Secret Warriors, the former cautioning "a very slow build" to the team, and the latter explaining, "We feel a duty to the Cinematic Universe to not hyper-accelerate how many people have powers ... We don't want it to be there's a thousand people with powers with a show that at its heart is about what it's like to not have powers in a world with powers."
In September 2015, Tancharoen stated the overall theme for the season explored with each character was them "trying to get back in touch with their humanity in a world where Inhumans are popping up", with Whedon adding that the nature of couples–some having broken up in previous episodes, some getting back together, and potential for new ones–would be explored. Later that month, Bell talked about some of the new character pairings in the season, saying "Putting Mack and Daisy together; putting Hunter and May together; putting Bobbi and Fitz together—suddenly you have all these different dynamics, all these different stories that you didn't have before." Tancharoen later highlighted the number of characters in the season compared to previous, stating that "There's more scale and scope, but at the same time, I think we're diving into each character's internal struggle a little bit more."
The second part of the season, which begins with episode 11, takes place three months after the events of episode 10. On the structure of the season and shifting the focus between the two parts, Bell stated it was the intent to follow the format from season two, by tying "a whole bunch of [interesting threads] but not all of them off by the midseason. And then we launch something exciting for the back half...the promise of more to come." Whedon added that "though we do break the season up, we feel that the season as a whole is one arc" and so the series would explore the same themes in the second half, "themes of what it means to be human and Inhuman. What does it mean to all these people when they have to live with their actions? Are they capable of the things their enemies are capable of?...What is the true nature of a person? Is everybody capable of everything if put in a terrible position? Or is there true good and a true evil?" The second half of the season sees the introduction of the comics' right-wing hate group the Watchdogs, depicted as radicals wishing to "eliminate the Inhumans", as well as a "cure" that can prevent terrigenisis in yet-to-transition Inhumans.