Nick Blood’s Lance Hunter is back on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — and just in time! The former agent, who left the show in Season 3, will return to lend a hand to Leo Fitz in the Season 5 episode “Rewind,” which reveals what Fitz has been up to since the Season 4 finale. Per a clip released earlier this week, Hunter has resurfaced to help rescue Fitz from prison so that they can track down what happened to Director Phil Coulson and the rest of the team.
Speaking to CBR, Blood discussed his triumphant return to the show and what it was like to work so closely with Fitz actor Iain De Caestecker. He also teased Hunter’s reunion with Fitz, as well as the status of Hunter’s relationship with his longtime partner Bobbi “Mockingbird” Morse and more.
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CBR: What was it like for you to return to the set after all this time?
Blood: Oh, it was really nice! I mean, whenever I’m in LA, I always pop down and see everybody. I’ve got some really good friends on that crew and everything. When they shoot, they’re so busy, because they’re there all day every day, so my options are limited when I come to set to visit. But it was great to see all those guys and they’re such a brilliant team and they all work so well together. They’ve got a level of professionalism amongst them and camaraderie and just the atmosphere on set is really positive, so it was great to see those guys. Then me and Iain were relishing the opportunity to have some fun together. You know, they weren’t on screen together a lot during the time that I was on the show. It was the odd scene here and there, but to get a whole episode together… I think the showrunners know how good of friends we are in real life, so I think they were keen to explore that and see what fun they could have with us.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has always been an ensemble show, but it seems like it’s down to Fitz and Lance for this episode. What was it like to work so closely with Iain De Caestecker?
We’re such close friends in real life. We talk all the time. We’re in contact pretty much every day, really, and speak to each other every week if he’s in LA and I’m here or whatever. So we’re really good mates, and the both of us were just really excited to get the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks together, having fun. Iain is such a brilliant actor as well. I like watching him anyway, and it’s interesting seeing how he approaches a scene and what does he do with it and his kind of take on things, so it was like learning from actors that I work with and so on. We just had a lot of fun and hopefully that comes across on screen. That dynamic comes quite naturally to us.
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As we see in the promo for Friday’s episode, Hunter at least tries to help Fitz escape from prison. What can you tease about their reunion?
Hunter has always got that improvisational quality about him. He’s not there with all the whizbangers or the S.H.I.E.L.D. tech all the time. He’s got some dodgy connections. He tries to use those. Sometimes they don’t always come off, so it’s a little bit trial and error, I would say. He uses hit wit and charm as much as he can!
This season has been pretty serious and grim so far. Would you say that continues in your return episode, or do things start to lighten up a little bit?
I think this one is a bit of a lighter episode. It was probably the opportunity for a bit of lightness in amongst the shade, a little bit of comic relief for everybody. There’s moments of seriousness in it and so on, but largely it’s a nice little kind of buddy movie really for this episode and I think fans will really enjoy the dynamic between Hunter and Fitz.
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Hunter and Bobbi have become something of an iconic duo on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Will we learn anything new about Hunter’s better half in the episode?
You get little hints of it! I think what they’ve done really well is provide a few hints so that the audience can use their imagination as to what’s going on. I think it feels like the fans know that relationship and know those characters so well that I’m sure they can piece it all together and work out what they’ve been up to since they left S.H.I.E.L.D., so I’ll leave that to the fans’ imagination.
Do you have a favorite scene or moment you’re excited for fans to see?
My favorite stuff is probably driving around in the RV. Me and Iain were having quite a lot of fun in the front of the RV. I think if you ask the camera crew or the director, they were probably having slightly less fun in the back because I was swinging it around… on the winding roads in California, off in LA somewhere. I’m not the best driver, basically. Let’s put it that way. So putting me in charge of an RV… I think when I first got into it, they had people chasing after it, shouting at me, making me go, “What?! What?!” to try and hear what they were saying. [laughs] I don’t even know now what they were talking about at that point, but everybody was panicking.
Airing Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5 stars Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Henry Simmons, Iain De Caestecker, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Elizabeth Henstridge, Nick Blood, Jeff Ward, Eve Harlow, Pruitt Taylor Vince and Coy Stewart.