Marvel's Agents of SHIELD co-showrunner Jed Whedon will make his directorial debut on Tuesday's episode of the series, "Self Control," IGN can exclusively reveal.
The February 21st episode is pivotal for Season 4, as it marks the end of the current "L.M.D." story arc and kicks off the third and final pod of episodes of the season. Whedon, who also wrote the episode, told IGN that he's always wanted to try his hand at directing, and decided last year that Season 4 would finally be his time to get behind the camera.
"Now is the ship is up and running," he said. "Last year [co-showrunner] Maurissa and I wrote ['Spacetime'] and Kevin [Tancharoen] directed it and I did a little second unit stuff on that, and that was a special one to us, so I was like, 'Alright, let's not wait. We'll schedule it and see what happens and see how life gets in the way.'"
Chloe Bennet as Daisy Johnson, Ming-Na Wen as Melinda May, Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, Henry Simmons as Alphonso “Mack” MacKenzie, Iain De Caestecker as Leo Fitz and Elizabeth Henstridge as Jemma Simmons on Marvel's Agents of SHIELD
As set up in the previous episode "The Man Behind the Shield," "Self Control" features a climax of the L.M.D. storyline as the agents within SHIELD don't know which of their allies is human and which is a robotic replacement. It's the culmination of the "L.M.D." arc, and features an ambitious fight scene that took two days to film. For the first time, Whedon was writing an episode he knew he would be responsible for actualizing, and welcomed the challenge: "I figured just throw me in the deep end and see if I can swim, and I did write a little bit of a deep end in some of it. I think it worked out," he said with a chuckle.
Whedon felt he's had no better schooling to prepare him for directing his first TV episode than what he's been doing so far showrunning Marvel's Agents of SHIELD. Both he and his wife/fellow showrunner Maurissa Tanchoroen have brothers who have directed on the show: Joss Whedon and Kevin Tancharoen, respectively. Between his family connections, years working with SHIELD's directors from a showrunning perspective and his close relationship with the cast and crew, Whedon felt ready to take on the directing challenge and like everyone was working to set him up to succeed.
Whedon is excited for the opportunity to direct again, though "in a little while." For now, as the episode finishes being edited and is readied to air next week, he's still appreciating his favorite element of directing: getting to work hands-on with the cast.
"I have favorite moments in it, but really to me when I look back on it, fights are fun and cool stuff is cool, but getting to sit with them and work with them -- these people that I know well and have talked to so many times over the years about their characters -- getting to just be hands on and in the scene with them, to me that was the most fun," he said. "It's a strange ep so there was some really strange scenes. All of those were really rewarding."
Because of his writing and showrunning duties, Whedon is frequently kept in the writer's room instead of being on set. Stars Chloe Bennet and Clark Gregg told IGN that they were excited not only to see Whedon behind the camera, but also because it meant they would get to work together day-to-day.
"It's kind of amazing. They're cooking up this vast world we have all the time and we don't get to hang out with them as much as we did Season 1, so it's really nice to have him down here," said Gregg. "He wrote this episode too, so there's really no filter between the voice of this really wild episode that we're shooting right now and us. It's really kind of a pure conduit, which is great, because there's some very radical stuff happening, so it's great to be able to talk to him about it."
"I can't even tell you how overwhelmingly relieved I am to have him down here," said Bennet. "The vision is so clear. There's a lot more room to play, like 'what about this?' and the enthusiasm because he wrote these words, he knows what's coming next. It's been so much fun. I hope he can direct all the time. I hope he does in the future."
Marvel's Agents of SHIELD airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on ABC. The synopsis for "Self Control" reads: "Suspicion turns to paranoia when the team doesn’t know who can be trusted as more LMDs infiltrate SHIELD."
Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.
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