Marvel's Agents of SHIELD might be on its winter hiatus, but ABC and Marvel are delivering a special treat for fans of the series: Slingshot, a six-part digital series following Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez during the time between Seasons 3 and 4.
The complete six-part part digital series Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Slingshot is currently streaming on ABC.com, ABC's mobile app, Marvel.com, and ABC’s and Marvel’s respective YouTube channels, and you can watch the first episode here on IGN. Check out "Vendetta" below:
Slingshot tells the story of Yo-Yo as she "struggles to balance the restrictions of the recently instituted Sokovia Accords, the worldwide agreement that regulates and tracks those with superpowers, with a personal mission she’s desperate to fulfill. The mission will test her abilities, her allegiances, and will feature some tense encounters with the most popular SHIELD team members."
Natalia Cordova-Buckley, who plays Yo-Yo, tells IGN that Slingshot will explore the question "is the sacrifice [of being a part of SHIELD] worth the gain?" Every character on Agents of SHIELD has had to sacrifice something personal during their time with the organization, and in Slingshot we'll understand more of Yo-Yo's struggle as she grapples with the decision to sign the Sokovia Accords.
"We see Yo-Yo begin that conflict of whether she wants to belong to SHIELD or not," Cordova said. "I think at some point we've seen all the characters have doubts about the bureaucracy and the power struggle of SHIELD, but I think Yo-Yo's the one that the struggle is the most evident."
The first episode is more significant than just kicking off the new digital series; it also marks Marvel legend Joe Quesada's directorial debut.
"It was a perfect opportunity for me because I had the opportunity to get my first shot at doing this on a big scale with the best team in the world and playing at the home stadium," Quesada told IGN. "It was a unique opportunity that came up and I was asked to do it and was really excited to. Just the fact that I get to work with the SHIELD crew was immensely exciting from the start."
Slingshot is executive produced by Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, Jeffrey Bell, Jeph Loeb and Geoffrey Colo, and also stars Clark Gregg, Chloe Bennet, Ming-Na Wen, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons and Jason O'Mara. Quesada calls collaborating with the cast on the small character moments the highlight of the filmmaking experience for him.
"There's little bits and pieces that just sort of happened," said Quesada. "I go back to that first Daisy and Yo-Yo scene. There's a moment where Yo-Yo's struggling to find just the right word in English, and Chloe gives this little grimace look, like, 'Oooh, I want to help you out here but I'm going to let you just go for it.' ... It's just those little discoveries that you find when you work with the actors that, for me, just make those moments."
While Agents of SHIELD doesn't return to ABC until January 10th, 2017, Slingshot will offer more context to the time jump that kicked off Season 4.
"We'll understand the reasoning for many of the decisions that characters make in Season 4," said Cordova. "We'll see a lot of the struggle between Yo-Yo and Mack, we'll understand a lot of the closeness between Daisy and Yo-Yo, we'll understand the relationship between Yo-Yo and SHIELD thanks to Jason O'Mara [as Jeffrey Mace] and also Clark [Gregg as Coulson]. She's got very opposite scenes with both of them, and we'll kind of get the sense of where she belongs when it comes to a director or following orders and who she really respects. We'll get more of an overall answer of the 'why's.'"
Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.