Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. debuted in 2013 on ABC to bring Clark Gregg's Phil Coulson back to life after his Avengers demise. The first season was more or less beholden to the upcoming release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014, which revealed Hydra within the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D. and completely turned the TV show's premise upside down. It also involved a game-changing twist for Brett Dalton's Ward that remains one of the show's most shocking, and the actor opened up about Ward breaking bad nearly ten years later.
For a quick recap: Grant Ward, who previously seemed like the most straight-laced member of Coulson's team, was revealed to be a Hydra double agent in the "Turn, Turn, Turn" episode of Season 1 that aired on April 8, 2014, just days after The Winter Soldier hit theaters with the S.H.I.E.L.D./Hydra reveal. It was a massive game-changer that raised the stakes for the rest of the team, and arguably was the last and biggest tie between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the larger MCU. Dalton would go on to portray Ward throughout the first four seasons.
Now, circa the 2023 TV schedule, Brett Dalton stars in NBC's new drama Found, where he once again seems to be playing a good guy. Whether or not Mark Trent will turn bad a la Ward remains to be seen, but when I spoke with the actor about the twisted development for Mark-Paul Gosselaar's character, Dalton reflected back on when Ward shifted from seeming like one of the heroes to a deadly double agent. He said:
I think it's great. I personally love a curveball. I love when we see a character and we think we know who they are and then the writers in their infinite wisdom decide to throw a wrench in it. I mean, what these stories are all about is change, and that's such a good thing. In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., another show I was on, they threw me a bit of a curveball and all of a sudden I became a bad guy halfway through Season 1, and that was fantastic. I loved that. I actually loved that.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 included – to quote Clark Gregg – a lot of "waiting to be able to reveal what we were doing" with the crossover to The Winter Soldier. While that meant many more standalone episodes (including one that Fitzsimmons actors Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge consider the "turning point" for the show), it also made Ward's betrayal pack that much more of a punch. Brett Dalton loved the curveball for his character, and he certainly got to play some very different sides of Ward following the reveal.
And his character on NBC's Found also went through a curveball in the currently-airing first season, as he may be on the verge of losing his job as a cop due to helping Gabi Mosely (Shanola Hampton) in her investigations. Brett Dalton went on to explain what it has been like to play that change for his new character after the Ward curveball nearly a decade ago, saying:
Having a shift like this on [Found] was something that I welcomed. I felt like 'Oh, we're going here? Great. I can do that.' I love a midseason shift. It's fantastic. It keeps the audience on their toes and keeps the story really rolling. I feel like it's throwing another couple of logs on the fire. It's great. There's this dynamic between Trent and Gabi that is always in the room and it's nice to keep preventing what we all see and want as audience members. [laughs] It makes it that much more tragic that these two people who could be so happy together have to deal with all of these other issues that come up along the way.
While I'm guessing that Found isn't going to be revealing that Mark Trent has had a secret agenda with an evil organization by the end of Season 1, Brett Dalton's new character does have the midseason shift in common with Ward. Unfortunately, the show has not yet been renewed for a second season at the time of writing, but you can find every episode so far streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription. New episodes of Found continue airing on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC following The Voice.
As for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., you can revisit all seven seasons of Marvel's first major modern live-action TV show streaming with a Disney+ subscription now, along with Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
