Marvel's Agents of SHIELD - Filming Locations: Death Valley

The Southern California locations where Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is filmed.

Near the end of Episode 14 ("T.A.H.I.T.I."), we see a beautiful woman walking through the desert.

In the distance, she spots a remote '50s-style motel.

At the motel, a young newlywed couple, Jimmy & Nicole MacKenzie, are getting
ready to leave, and Nicole goes into the motel office to ask the clerk a question.

While Nicole is gone, the wandering woman arrives and (without asking) takes a
bottle of water from Jimmy's hand and drinks it. Jimmy, asks if she's alright.

She says no, that she's miserable, and asks if all of "Midgard" is like this.
(For the uninitiated: In the Marvel universe, Midgard is the Asgardian name for Earth.)

Jimmy says he doesn't know what "Midgard" is, but that this place is Death Valley.

The woman says she wants to go somewhere else.

Jimmy, pointing to his sports car (covered with "Just Married" graffiti), tells her that it only
seats two people. He suggests that she check with the clerk about bus schedules.

She doesn't take no for an answer, and asks Jimmy if prefers his
wife to her. Jimmy says yes, he prefers Nicole to everyone else.

The woman steps closer to him and tells him she is going to need his help.

Next, we see poor Nicole come out of the motel office, only to see her new husband's sports car
driving off into the distance on a desert road, leaving her stranded at the Death Valley motel.

Inside Jimmy's sports car, we see that the woman has obviously used some type of
Marvel magic to turn poor Jimmy into her slave, as he blindly pledges to defend her.

When he asks her name, she introduces herself as Lorelei.

(Again, for the uninitiated: in the Marvel universe, Lorelei is a super villainess
and magical seductress, from Thor's home world, Asgard.)

This scene was not shot in Death Valley. But it was shot out in the real desert.

As usual, Hollywood picked the closest desert spot they could find to film in, and that
is almost always somewhere around the towns Palmdale & Lancaster, in the Antelope Valley
part of the Mojave Desert - about 35 miles northeast of Six Flags Magic Mountain.

And sure enough, that's where they went this time. The area is fairly easy to
recognize because of those omnipresent Joshua trees dotting the landscape.

So where is that '50s-style motel?

Well, it's actually a permanent movie set called "Four Aces", built out in the desert.

The compound is composed of the fake motel, along with a fake gas station and diner.

It's located at 14499 E. Avenue Q, five miles east of Palmdale, CA.
(at the northwest corner of East 145th Street & Avenue Q),
a good 75 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

The Four Aces is used often by Hollywood, including once for an episode of "The O.C."

You can read more about Four Aces on their own website.

Here is a StreetView of the Four Aces.
(Spin that panorama around, and you're looking at those Joshua trees.)

The photos on this page are stills from "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."
(which you can buy here) and are copyright ABC/Disney/Marvel.