A touching farewell video for B.J. Britt emphasizes the impact of Trip’s death — and offers hints at the aftermath on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. said goodbye to one of their best in this week’s nail-biting winter finale. The brave, buff, and bright-eyed Agent Triplett tried to save Skye from the Obelisk’s transformative mist, but wound up losing his life in the attempt.
As the farewell video makes touchingly clear, actor B.J. Britt was every bit as loved on the set of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Trip was on Team Coulson.
“At the table read, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room,” the actor told EW. “Clark [Gregg] looks up at me and he just comes over and gives me a hug, right in the middle of the table read, and it’s like, ‘Is Clark really trying to make me cry right now?'”
“When we get to the very end when everyone claps and whatever, Clark says, ‘I think this would be a really good time for a big cast hug,’ and everybody comes over and we hug, one big group hug and everything.”
But the farewell video does more than just remind us how much Trip and B.J. will be missed (which it does to exceptional effect). The clip begins with new dialogue from Skye and Coulson, which offer tantalizing hints about the fallout from the winter finale’s earth-shattering events.
“I just can’t believe he’s not coming back,” Skye says, clearly just as pained as we are. “He should not have been down there.”
“The Obelisk triggered a massive earthquake,” Coulson replies. “Imagine how much worse it could have been if he hadn’t destroyed it? Trip died a hero.”
Most fans will probably realize by now that only part of what Coulson says here is true. Yes, Trip was absolutely a hero. But it wasn’t the Obelisk that caused the earthquake. That honor goes to Skye, really Daisy Johnson, who has undergone Terrigenesis and come into her Inhuman powers.
Not for nothing is Skye’s comic-book counterpart called “Quake,” after all.
But Coulson clearly doesn’t know this. On the surface, that’s understandable; it’s not like he has access to the Marvel Wiki. But why hasn’t Skye told him the truth? Does she truly not understand what happened in the mysterious temple — or is she deliberately keeping Coulson in the dark? Will Skye’s new Inhuman identity drive a wedge between her and her adopted family, just as her father predicted?
Only time will tell.
Until then, we know one thing for certain: #TripLives, everybody. #TripLives.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will return on March 3, 2015.