season 1 daisy johnson character analysis
1x01-1x05: daisy is found parked in an alley inside the van she called home. we know she was bounced around foster homes as a child and that her past is a lot darker than the writers even mention. she’s 25 years old and a member of an international virtual organization that aims to inform the public of everything big organizations wants to keep them unaware of. pretty early into the season, we find out why she does it - she grew up with no knowledge of where she came from, and shield was responsible for hiding that information.
we also know daisy getting captured and brought into the plane was her plan so she could get closer to finding out who she was, and we have this image of her as a person who never takes the rules seriously and makes everything into a joke because she clearly isn’t planning on hanging around very long - she just wants information on her past, that’s it. except in looking for her family, she finds another one. or a seed of what could be a family. in episode three we already get the scene when she goes “i want this. bad,” and we can see right there that this girl will do everything she can to be a good fit in that potential family. her will to make it work is so strong that it’s enough for her to choose it over her years-long hacker life in episode 5 (when we meet miles, who, granted, had been lying to her).
1x05-1x13: if you imagine someone with her background, you would think they would have way more barriers protecting them from catching any feelings at all, but that doesn’t happen with daisy. she seems to have reacted differently than most to her past trauma - it takes her little to no time to figure out coulson, fitzsimmons, even ward (let’s ignore the double agent situation). emotionally, daisy seems to have developed an ability to make herself important to people around her - maybe so they won’t want to leave her behind. i also think the fact that she grew up with no one on her corner makes her want to prevent that from happening to anyone else, so she’s always trying to be there for them. we see that time and time again with the people they encounter over the first season, especially the girl who thinks she’s being punished by god. and obviously, her being drawn to ward and may even though they are downright rude to her at first, i think stems from their very noticeable (to her) hurt. daisy sees this kind of stuff better than most people around her, and i think even feels it to some extent. her trauma didn’t turn her cold and closed off, it made her want to take care of everyone around her, and it also made her more understanding than most. i think that’s why we see such a big difference in dynamics when she’s getting close to different people. she sees what people need and tries to make herself into it. fitzsimmons need a friend to mess around with; ward needs someone who sees his feelings when he’s not able to communicate them, and who pushes him to want to share; may needs someone who doesn’t remind her of her past (i delved into that here).
coulson is more complex. meeting akela amador, we see that before his death, he was colder in his work relationships, more bound to rules. and after his death, there are a few changes, but i think he still needs someone who will help him take the leap, someone worth bending the rules for. more than that, i think he needs a real connection. one that he couldn’t keep with fury because of the nature of their relationship, with audrey nathan because he, well, died, or with may because she was emotionally unavailable. daisy is the one to come in and offer warmth. we see that when she hugs him for the first time - it wasn’t something he saw coming or even felt comfortable with at first, but it was good. it also shows when she keeps calling him A.C. because he is “cool”. she is the personification of the life (a daughter) he could have had, if he’d said no to fury all those years back. for daisy, coulson was someone who cared, and she didn’t have that, probably ever. she was a daughter, but until she met him, she had no father. and even after all she went through, she was innocence, and he was wisdom. and they needed each other.
1x14-1x18: as we all know, episode 13 is when quinn shoots daisy. personally, i really like the one that comes after it because it gives us some insight on how much she means to everyone in the team, and their different ways of dealing with the idea of losing her. when she wakes up, daisy is more driven than ever to become a better agent and to not be helpless. s1B shows her growth into an asset that is not only needed, but is reliable, and into someone who is worthy of the SHIELD badge she eventually gets.
1x19-1x22: finding out about ward can’t have been easy for daisy. i mean, after searching her entire life, she had found something, a family that felt real. ward being HYDRA took that away from her. once again, she had trusted that her relationships with a group of people would last forever, and once again, that was in jeopardy. not only that, but the psychopathic double agent who killed several people in cold blood had fallen in love with her. having lost her parents and every good relationship she thought she had in her life, daisy probably already thought she was a magnet for bad things (look how miles, a guy she knew for ages, turned out). so obviously she was pissed, and we can see how much she struggles with keeping her emotions in check in order to carry on with the mission. that’s when we get the start of the maydaisy era and, i think, her growing need to make sure that she is not a liability to those people, to remind herself that she can do good. that the fact that SHIELD fell days after she got her badge, that the guy she liked turned out to be a traitor, that a village and an agent had been killed trying to protect her- it couldn’t be her fault. because she may not have heard that guy saying wherever she goes, death follows, but i’m pretty sure she had already noticed a pattern, and she was going to try like hell to change it.
throughout the season, to me, one of the saddest things is how actively daisy tried not to be on anyone’s bad side so they wouldn’t toss her out, but i think her effort to be what everyone in the team needed was one of the biggest reasons why the team became a family. that, and the fact that somehow, her need to make sure no one ever felt alone like she did, turned her into the glue that held them all together.
