If I’m HYDRA, and our operation relies mainly on duplicity and subterfuge, why wouldn’t you brainwash all your agents to ensure that you were never double-crossed? Is it a cost-prohibitive measure?
You know what would be really fucking cool? If Ward had been brainwashed by Coulson. That would be evil and awesome. Doubt they’d have the balls for it.
Just a note of official confirmation of who the blue alien was:
Ward has had his mind messed with a lot. First he was abused by his brother and forced to do things, then his brother did his best to brainwash Grant into believing he was delusional, then Garrett comes along and mind-fucks him, somewhere along the way HYDRA may have screwed with his head, then Lorelei mind controls him.
I just realized, Raina is one of the few who touched the Diviner and lived. She may be immortal, or at any rate she can use the Diviner at Attilan.
It’s not clear what Ward’s motivation for getting his brother to confess. He clearly used it for the murder/suicide frame-up. Perhaps he wanted closure before killing his brother and parents, but at this point I won’t even go there. There’s no way to figure out the true motivation of someone who has lied constantly or has had is brain messed with so much. Sure, he said he won’t lie to Skye and I *probably *believe him on that. But what is his motivation relating to the Doctor Dad? Use him to get Skye back? Protect Skye? Work with him? And why get so close to Whitehall?
Far more interesting arc for his character than I expected this season. I’m still pissed that they had him escape so easily, although there’s a hint that it was Senator Ward who allowed that to happen.
A hint? Senator Ward came right out and said it.
We’ve seen the brainwashing process (used on Agent 31), heard Whitehall, Bakshi, and Ward discuss it, and seen (known) brainwashed folks operating in the field (Agent 31 and the ice-power-guy). What we’ve learned about the brainwashing process is that:
1.) Brainwashing is time-consuming. Whitehall wasn’t surprised or impressed that Agent 31 took time to break; he commented that he’d known it would be a “long night”, and he had broken out some good wine to relieve the monotony.
2.) Brainwashing is difficult, skilled work. We can reasonably assume Whitehall wouldn’t even be putting in the time required to personally brainwash Agent 31 if it weren’t essential. For that matter, when Bakshi captured May, he didn’t just brainwash her on the spot - he attempted interrogation-by-torture, while admitting that he was basically just killing time until Whitehall could arrive to brainwash May.
3.) Brainwashing is unreliable. Ward commented that some folks are simply immune, and freeze-power guy’s brainwashing didn’t entirely take; Simmons and Bakshi both had to “trigger” the conditioning in the field after it had failed and what’s-his-face had fled Hydra.
4.) Brainwashed agents are less useful than agents with free will, even when the brainwashing is effective. Bakshi scoffed at the suggestion that he might be “one of those fanatics” when Bobbi suggested that he might have been brainwashed. This suggests that Bakshi believes brainwashing produces fanaticism (reasonable), and that he believes this to be an undesirable thing. Which makes sense; fanatics aren’t known for pragmatism or flexibility, which are probably virtues in a covert violent organization.
So, I think we have a pretty good set of in-universe answers to the question “why doesn’t Hydra brainwash everybody?” - not only would it be difficult, you actually wouldn’t get better results than with good, old-fashioned corruption, ambition, and fear. Hydra seems to use brainwashing only for interrogations, or highly valuable assets (mostly specials) who can’t be turned any other way. Which is a logical use of a very limited brainwashing capacity.
And yet, I question the wisdom of taking his words at face value. Why would he want to make it easy for his brother to escape when he was already talking about the trial?
Was wasn’t sure that the senator was actually telling the truth when he fessed up to making ward hurt their brother. And I really was sure that Ward wouldn’t push in into the well after their hugs. I could just imagine him walking away as the senator kept yelling for help.
StG
It was good tense drama. I didn’t know if his older brother was going to confess, which would make Ward a crazed killer. Then his brother did confess and spilled all the beans. Then Ward was a crazed killer anyway. The parents must have been a real piece of work, torturing their children so much. Can’t wait for the younger brother to show up. He’s still not confirmed dead, is he?
Watching the bad guy dissect a woman until she died was horrifying and that is a good thing. It is one of the few times this show made me feel something.
If Ward is somehow going to end up on Coulson’s side after all he did, it will be the cheap out to end all cheap outs.
ETA: I agree he brother may have been just telling Ward what he wanted to hear. People under torture usually do. But since the family is all dead I assume we are supposed to take it at face value.
He said he wanted to kill Coulson. But it may have been something he told Whitehall in order to have a plausible reason for working with Hydra.
He obviously can’t say “I’m joining Hydra so I can have a chance to kill you.” And if he said “I’m joining Hydra as a means of getting access to the secret city” then Whitehall will seem him as a rival and eliminate him as soon as possible. And he can’t just offer no reason for joining Hydra because then Whitehall would be suspicious. He needed to come up with a reason that he would want to work with Hydra and that didn’t impinge on Hydra’s plans and ideally helped Hydra with one of their existing goals. Saying he was looking for a way to kill Coulson and destroy Shield is ideal. Which doesn’t mean it’s not also true but it’s exactly the kind of lie he would have told.
Ward didn’t actually know anything about the secret city; he would have had to learn it from Whitehall.
Anyway, he told us why he wanted to join up with Hydra: Coulson’s team are like family to him. And we just saw how he treats his family, didn’t we?
My guess for the location of the city?
it’s a Kree city.
The Blue Area Of The Moon.
They would not have found a match with the earth mapping satellites if the city was on the moon. I think it is probably the Inhumans city, Attilan.
Otherwise, this series just keeps rocking along. Wondering about Trip. He was in bad shape when we last saw him. Is he going to survive?
Also thought it was interesting that the mechanic guy–Mac? Is that his name?–seemed to be stirring up dissension on the team by talking about Coulson’s issues…
The city could end up on the moon, though. The Diviner might activate it. The “blue angels” brought the city here. Maybe it can fly.
In the comics, Attilan has been moved quite a few times. Originally it was somewhere up near Iceland, then the Himalayas (IIRC), then moved to the Blue Area of the moon. In more recent years it’s gone spaceborne when the Inhumans took over the Kree Empire, and I think most recently crashed into/around New York.
Huh? I’m confused.
I thought the last scene had Skye’s father finding his wife dead on the ground somewhere. How could that be the dissected lady?
Whitehall told his goons to dispose of the remains. They tossed her out into the jungle and Dr. “That’s not her name!” found her.
I had difficulty with that too. I figured it was her based on the face, but it didn’t make sense geographically. Jungle != Austria.