'Agents of SHIELD' Season 7 Episode 1: Did 'The New Deal' show a preliminary version of the super-soldier serum?
Spoilers for 'Agents of SHIELD' Season 7 Episode 1: 'The New Deal'
'The New Deal' brought in the storyline of Freddy (Darren Barnet), better known as Wilfred Malick, the father of Gideon Malick, and one of HYDRA's founders. He meets a mysterious woman who hands him a small tube of a serum that appears to be the early version of the super-soldier serum. While the liquid's origin was not explained, there have been enough speculations and theories that it could have been the serum that was responsible for Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving)'s transformation to the Red Skull.
Schmidt was the antagonist in 'Captain America: The First Avenger' and despite the transformation, he was more of an unfinished product of Dr Erskine's serum that saw him become hideously disfigured. In the final minutes of 'The First Avenger' during his scrimmage with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Schmidt vanished into a wormhole as he touched the Tesseract with his bare hands. Fans on Reddit have been discussing if the serum has anything to do with Erskine or the Winter Soldier Program that Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) was subjected to before his re-appearance in 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'. Bucky was one of the brain-washed assassins and an integral part of HYDRA. In 'Captain America: Civil War', it was revealed that there were more Winter Soldiers, all of whom were killed by Baron Zemo (Daniel Bruhl).
The fans named it "the preliminary super serum" and hoped it would be that as it would make an interesting storyline. Timelines was still a discussion an important part of the discussion as fans theorized Dr Erskine would actually be in Europe at the time. "It looks like the green serum from season 1," said another. The bigger question at the moment is, was this the serum that started it all? It is safe to assume that it was in its developmental stage, but the fact it was created as early as in the '30s makes it all the more interesting. What are your thoughts on the serum in 'The New Deal'?
'Agents of SHIELD' airs Wednesdays 10 pm ET on abc.