“Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Season 2 has a million mysteries right now, but one of the greatest is Grant Ward (Brett Dalton); no one knows if he is good or evil. But executive producer Jeffery Bell may have dropped a big hint about Ward’s loyalties after he made a comparison to “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in an interview with Newsarama.

After revealing himself as Hydra, Ward was captured and pledged himself to Skye (Chloe Bennet) and Coulson (Clark Gregg). They didn’t want him, though. They were willing to hand him over to his brother, Sen. Christian Ward (Tim DeKay). Now Ward is a free agent — kind of. He went back to Whitehall (Reed Diamond) and claims to work for Hydra now, but he also gave Bakshi (Simon Kassianides) to Coulson. Fans continue to debate which side he is on, and who he is fighting for.

“What we love is that Brett Dalton is this actor that brings this complexity to this guy, a lot of the way that James Marsters brought it to Spike on Buffy and Angel,” Bell explained. “What I loved about Spike, and what we loved writing for Spike back in the day, was that he was a wild card. Okay, he was a vampire, he did terrible things, and there were people who said, ‘Look at what he did to Buffy, he’s terrible!’ But then there were people who thought he and Buffy were soulmates, and people who thought Angel and Buffy were soulmates, and lively discussion about that.”

If Ward really is the Spike of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Ward fans might have something to celebrate. Spike started out as pure evil, but was forced into being a good guy when the government put a chip in his head. When the chip was taken out and he finally had a choice in the matter -- after a few wrong turns -- he chose to get his soul back. Spike went down as a hero in the 2003 finale of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer.”

Fans can’t figure out Ward’s agenda, and Bell wants to keep it that way. “At his heart, Ward is someone who has trusted other people and is a product of that,” Bell said. “He’s now taking responsibility for that and moving forward making decisions for himself. What are those decisions? Is he a good guy or not a good guy? I don’t know that even Ward knows the answers to that. I think that Ward will figure that out as he goes along.”

Ward’s new deal with Hydra doesn’t take him out of the mythological story at all. Bell wasn’t willing to reveal details about his involvement with the search for the city and Skye's family, but he said fans would understand how Ward is connected very soon. “It lays out really beautifully in 9 and 10,” Bell said. “It becomes evident in those episodes. If you go back and do the math about what he says and what he wants, I don’t think you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a short list of moves that he might make now.”

“Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Season 2, episode 9, airs Tuesday, Dec. 2, at 9 p.m. EST on ABC. Do you think Ward will be like Spike and turn out to be a hero? Sound off in the comments section below.

RELATED STORIES