'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' season 4B spoilers: trouble ahead for Coulson because of May's abduction

After a little over a month hiatus for "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his secret organization are scheduled to be back to continue their work on studying the wonders of Life Model Decoys (LMD). Little does Coulson know though that the very technology that they are developing will be the start of another budding fallout in the program.

When the Marvel TV series comes back on air next week with the episode titled "Broken Promises," Coulson will continue cozying up with May (Ming Na Wen). Unfortunately, little did he know that this version of the agent is not the real one. As seen in the midseason finale, May has been taken by Dr. Radcliffe's LMD assistant, Aida, and replaced with an android model.

In a recent interview with TVLine, executive producer Jed Whedon shares that this particular plot narrative aims not just to present a balance in having LMDs in terms of technological advancement, but also to exhibit how these types of so-called clones can affect human-to-human interaction.

"Trust is always an issue in a spy organization. But it's much worse when you don't know if the person next to you is the person next to you," he explained. "We want to not just tell scare stories of things popping out of closets, but the emotional stories — and when you get into trust, that's when things get emotional," he continued.

Moving forward in the latter half of season 4 of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", the show boss reveals that they are planning to get into their own stride and develop their own narrative that is not much tied to other Marvel performance media. That way, they can get more liberty in terms of stories to run without being shackled by other things happening in the official canon.

"We want everything to feel like its own mini world, and to have its own flavor," Whedon added. "So we do think you'll come into the next section [of episodes] and immediately feel like, 'Oh, this is a different kind of story.' So we're excited about that."

Marvel's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." season 4B premieres Jan 10, 10 p.m. ET, on ABC.