might not be exactly what he imagined, but she's really just reenacting her programming." He added that she is programmed to "mimic human behavior. I think that we're seeing that aspect of her taking over a little bit." On what Aida does to Anton Ivanov in the episode, decapitating him but having his still living brain remotely control an android body, Whedon would not comment on any comic connections this has, but did say that "he is his own sort of creation. He is different than the LMDs. I think Aida wanted to keep his humanity intact, and that was the main impetus to her leaving his brain as the remote control". After the series ended, the producers revealed that they were setting up Ivanov to become a version of the comics character MODOK, as they had been given permission to use him in the series, but Marvel later retracted access to the character. Whedon said that the goal of exploring LMDs for the entire second arc of the season was to use them to explore the nature of reality and identity, and what defines a person, "are you defined by your physical make-up or by your emotional make-up ... by my past actions or by my current actions or by my regrets". This is epitomized by the LMD of Melinda May, whose character arc throughout the storyline ends in this episode with her sacrificing herself to destroy the Phil Coulson LMD and save the human agents. Whedon highlighted a scene where the android sees snow, and remembers May seeing snow before, but says that she herself has never seen it, separating herself from the human May despite them sharing a brain, appearance, and memories. The episode focuses on the pairing of Daisy Johnson and Jemma Simmons, as they have to fight the LMDs together. Whedon explained that he and the other writers felt that the two "deserved to have some time together", as the series had not yet taken the time to show the characters "unpack [and] hang with each other" following Johnson's recent return to S.H.I.E.L.D. "Their friendship is one we hang about," he continued, "We felt like they were a good pair for this" episode, and they wanted the two characters to not have been replaced by LMDs for the next storyline in the season "when they get into the Framework. It worked out on all fronts."