The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3 premiere was held on September 23 at The Grove in Los Angeles. Thanks to a friend, we were lucky enough to score tickets to the event. Gavin and I of course were dressed properly for the evening.
Some of the actors first started arriving around 4:15, including Clark Gregg who came out of nowhere and politely said “excuse me” as fans quietly made an opening in the line to let him through. Everyone silently looked at one another as if to say “Was that…” then let out a collective gasp and “Oh my God!”
We started being checked in just after 5pm and we grabbed our seats inside of the theater. I wasn’t about to just sit there inside while all of the fun was happening outside. By then the red carpet interviews were going full force in the theater lobby.
Despite the fact that the small red carpet area was not all that busy and it was a large lobby area, security was pretty tight when it came to getting photos of what was going on. Luckily I did get a number of shots before I was asked to stop.
The whole cast was there, minus Luke Mitchell and Brett Dalton who we were told were still shooting. Both Mitchell and Dalton did attend later after they were finished working.
We were pretty close to the front of the line, so when we got into the theater, we could have sat just about anywhere. We decided not to be right in the front where we would have been closer to the cast during Q&A. Instead, we sat in the last row of the front section, which put us right at the middle of the theater screen.
To our surprise, right before the screening began the whole cast and others from Marvel came in and sat in the front few rows in the second section – right behind us!
After a few words from Jeph Loeb, we got to watch episode 301. The episode itself was AMAZING (don’t worry, no spoilers here). Even better than getting to see the next episode six days early was seeing it in a theater on a big screen, with the cast sitting right behind us. Clark Gregg later said that this was the first time they were all seeing the finished product as well, and commented on how cool it was to see it on the big screen. It was also fun to hear the cast hoot and holler during different parts of the show.
After the screening there was a lengthy Q&A with the cast, moderated by Felicia Day. The great part about the Q&A was that Day didn’t ask that many questions, the majority of the time was given to the fans to ask theirs.
The highlight of the Q&A for us was when my son innocently asked “This is for everyone, including you Jeph Loeb, what would you like to see Coulson’s mechanical arm do?” The question was never actually answered, but what ensued was Ming Na Wen running over to try to take the mic from Clark Gregg, and him running away saying “No, no, no! There are children here!”
Behind AoS got photos of it and tweeted about it afterwards.
To which Ming-Na Wen replied!
The Q&A soon ended and the cast was very accessible for autographs and photos so we got both! Gavin got every person on the cast to autograph his Coulson robotic arm, and we got pics of him with several cast members.
For a family of huge Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans, this was a night to remember. To get this close to the cast and to see an episode early on the big screen was an incredible experience.
The only problem now is, I want to do it every week!