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Ming-Na Wen: ‘May can be very forgiving’ of Daisy’s decision to leave SHIELD
“Agents of SHIELD” started off its fourth season in a pretty bleak place. A new director, a pretty terrifying ghost story, and on top of it all, Daisy (Chloe Bennett) was off on her own, mourning Lincoln (Luke Mitchell) and being a vigilante.
Now, she’s teamed up with SHIELD — if only temporarily — and we can’t help but wonder if she can or even should remain with her old team permanently.
Spending so much time on her own certainly hasn’t been good for Daisy, and not just because she’s slowly but surely breaking the bones in her arms without SHIELD’s medical and Inhuman expertise. She’s become more hardened and more reclusive during her time away, making it difficult for her teammates to understand the reasoning behind her choices.
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The bond that’s suffered the most, in our humble opinion, is her daddy-daughter bond with Coulson (Clark Gregg).
“I think she came home, but she’s not home. I think there’s a reason she left, and I don’t think all those issues are resolved,” Gregg says. “[Coulson] gets her, and he understands that it’s pain and self-loathing that has sent her out that way. I think he doesn’t want to just bring her back and shove those things under the rug, because they’ll come back to bite you.”
Another relationship that will need some rehab is Daisy’s female friendship with Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge). They’ve only just begun building back their trust, but Henstridge says that there’s still work to do before Simmons can trust her friend again.
“I think they healed a lot of wounds by Daisy coming to Simmons for help, and her begrudgingly helping,” Henstridge says. “They’re like sisters. They’re never not going to love each other, but there’s a lot of stuff that’s happened. I think Simmons felt very hurt by Daisy just leaving, and it felt like abandonment.”
Simmons (and Fitz for that matter) seems to be more sensitive to abandonment and betrayal that most of her team members, regardless of the fact that she’s become a stronger, more influential part of SHIELD since Daisy left. We love that the bond between these girls will never truly be past the point of no return, but that doesn’t mean we want to see them be buddy-buddy again right away. Let’s explore Simmons and Daisy trying to find their friendship again before tossing them back in the besties bin.
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One person who might be quicker to forgive Daisy than others is May (Ming-Na Wen).
“I think May can be very forgiving,” Wen says of her character’s relationship with Daisy. “She is still very maternal and wants to continue to guide Daisy.”
We’ve seen in past episodes that May understands better than most what Daisy was hoping to achieve by cutting herself off from the team, which might explain why she’d be more receptive to her trainee’s return to the fold.
Whether or not Daisy’s ready for that return, however, is a bigger picture question that might take the rest of the season to really explore.
“Agents of SHIELD” airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.