10 Years Ago Today, One of Marvel’s Best TV Shows Set Up a Cancelled Spinoff We Still Wish Had Happened – ComicBook.com

By Marco Vito Oddo
Despite being backed by the full weight of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the first season of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD drew consistent criticism for its shallow procedural format, its lack of urgency, and a central protagonist in Skye (Chloe Bennet) that failed to generate the audience investment the writers clearly intended. Reviewers and fans agreed the series was coasting on brand recognition rather than earning its place in the MCU’s larger conversation, and it seemed Agents of SHIELD was doomed. That perception shifted dramatically when the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier revealed HYDRA’s infiltration of SHIELD, forcing the TV show into the serialized momentum it had been missing. From that structural turn onward, Agents of SHIELD steadily dismantled its dependency on the films, built its own mythology, and developed into one of the most narratively ambitious comic book adaptations ever.
If Agents of SHIELD managed to turn the tide and become a celebrated entry in Marvel canon, that’s because of its great cast of characters. The relationship between Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), initially framed as a charming scientific partnership, evolved across the series into one of television’s most emotionally grueling love stories. Daisy Johnson, who spent her first season as a hacker operating on the team’s periphery, ultimately transformed from a civilian recruit into a fully-realized Inhuman superhero. Then, the addition of characters like Alphonso “Mack” Mackenzie (Henry Simmons) and Elena “Yo-Yo” Rodriguez (Natalia Cordova-Buckley) brought a gravitational warmth to the later seasons that the show needed as its stakes escalated. Among all the fan-favorites the series produced, however, the pairing of Bobbi Morse (Adrianne Palicki) and Lance Hunter (Nick Blood) held a distinct electricity that the writers recognized early by pitching their own spinoff series.
Ten years ago today, on March 22, 2016, Agents of SHIELD aired “Parting Shot,” the 13th episode of its third season and the formal farewell to both Bobbi and Hunter. The episode sent the pair deep into Siberia on a mission to prevent HYDRA operative Gideon Malick (Powers Boothe) from establishing a military sanctuary for Inhumans under Russian government protection. The operation collapsed when Hunter rescued the Russian Prime Minister, and Bobbi killed the Inhuman Minister of Defense, General Androvich, leaving two dead Russian officials and no diplomatic cover for their actions. To protect SHIELD from an international incident, Bobbi and Hunter accepted disavowal, surrendering their identities as agents and severing all formal ties with the organization that had defined their lives. The episode’s final scene remains one of the most quietly devastating moments in the series, as the entire team gathered separately at a bar, raising silent glasses across the room to two colleagues who could no longer acknowledge them.
That emotional departure was created to feed into Marvel’s Most Wanted, a spinoff pilot that ABC had ordered in August 2015. The concept was built around  Bobbi and Hunter, on the run with a bounty on their heads and no institutional support, forming an uneasy alliance with Dominic Fortune (Delroy Lindo), a rogue adventurer who agreed to shield them in exchange for their assistance with his own agenda. Veteran character actor Oded Fehr was cast as an unnamed villain with, per the production’s description, considerable menace, and Fernanda Andrade joined as Fortune’s niece, Christina Santos. Filming wrapped in late March 2016, and the pilot was delivered to ABC for consideration. In May of that year, the network passed. No other platform picked up the project, and the completed pilot has never been released to the public. 
The shelving of Marvel’s Most Wanted is still an unfortunate decision, as Palicki and Blood had spent two seasons demonstrating that their characters’ antagonistic romantic dynamic could sustain an entire series on its own. Plus, the fact that a completed pilot exists and remains locked in a vault is baffling. With Avengers: Secret Wars setting the field for an MCU reboot, Marvel Studios has a clear path for reintroducing characters from the Agents of SHIELD continuity. If that does happen, we hope Bobbi and Hunter make the cut, perhaps in a revamped Marvel’s Most Wanted series.
Agents of SHIELD is currently available to stream on Disney+.
Do you think Marvel should finally release the Most Wanted pilot, or use Secret Wars as an opportunity to bring Bobbi and Hunter back to the screen in a full series? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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