The headstrong agent returns to the fold to help his friend track down the rest of the team on Friday’s all-new episode.
Lance Hunter is back!
The headstrong British agent returns to the fold on Friday’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and while fans don’t yet know much about his mission, or how he may or may not help Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) come to the aid of his teammates -- as we caught a glimpse of at the end of last week’s episode -- in true S.H.I.E.L.D. fashion, he’s ready to save the day at all costs.
A preview of the all-new hour shows Hunter storming into an interrogation room, where Fitz is being questioned about the disappearance of the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. The brilliant engineer has been wracking his brain for six months, but when he finally announces his surprisingly close-to-accurate theory -- that the team was abducted by aliens -- the military powers-that-be have had it. Just as they’re about to lock him back up for good, however, his “attorney” appears, with a short list of demands: “Get those cuffs off my client, and get the hell out of here.”
“Oh, he’s happy to help, yeah,” Nick Blood recently told ET of reprising his character for the episode. “There’s a really nice moment when [Hunter and Fitz] see each other again... They’re both having a lot of fun, and I think Hunter’s probably grateful to be back in the S.H.I.E.L.D. fold, to a certain degree.”
“There’s a really nice dynamic between Hunter and Fitz, and the writers, I think, had a lot of fun writing them together,” he added. “You get to see kind of a bit of a buddy cop movie, us kind of like, making it up as we go along, trying to solve this problem and having some fun along the way.”
For his part, Blood said it was “really cool” being back on set with his friends and former cast mates after leaving the show at the end of season three -- when Hunter and Bobbi Morse (Adrianne Palicki) had to be disowned by S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to save the agency.
“It was really nice to catch up with all the crew and everyone,” he raved. “There’s a whole bunch of [people] that I see whenever I’m in L.A, and then me and Iain pretty much just got to shoot the whole episode together and hang out, it was really great.”
While the series itself is constantly evolving -- having tackled the worlds of Ghost Rider, Life Model Decoys and the alternate reality Framework last season alone, before launching into space (and the future!) this year -- Blood said the atmosphere on set was much of the same.
“Everybody’s just kind of having fun on set and working hard,” he noted. “There’s really good people that make up the team behind the scenes, and it’s a really nice environment to be back in.”
And as for his character’s partner in crime fighting and world saving, Blood said he has a pretty good idea of what Hunter and Bobbi have been up to in their time away from the team. (Coincidentally, Palicki is currently off in space herself, over on The Orville.)
“Probably just lots of bickering. Just lovers’ tiffs and so on,” he said with a laugh. “Maybe a couple of discussions about divorce or re-marrying or wherever they’re at at the moment -- I can’t even remember.”
Last week, S.H.I.E.L.D. star Henry Simmons raved to ET about having Blood back on set for the episode.
“Nick is one of the people I hold in the highest esteem in my life... He’s one of the best people you will ever know,” Simmons said. “He just adds an element to our show that I think is wonderful, but even besides all that, I just want him around... I miss him, and it was great to see him in that brief time. It was great to see him. He’s an exceptional person.”
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
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