Marvel's Agents of SHIELD returned after a long wait for those waiting to get answers to the aftermath of the mid-season finale. With the obelisk going off in the final scene of the last episode and transforming Skye, or Daisy if you prefer, into a Inhuman many had questions of where the MCU TV show was headed. The loss of Triplet during the terragenesis event on top of failing to prevent the obelisk from being activated has led to the SHIELDS team being edgy with one another. We also get introduced in this episode to the first new Inhuman character of the MCU, and faithful Marvel fans may recognize him.
The first scene of the spring season takes the audience back in time to view an Inhuman who has just been exposed to the terragenesis mist. The Inhuman his trying desperately to teleport out of a room that seems to be preventing him from leaving. When the camera finally pans to his face there is one distinct trait about the young Inhuman that gives the greatest clue to who he is, he has no eyes. This, and the fact IMDB has his name listed, makes a strong hint that this new character is Reader. With the new introduction you can expect the character and how he fits into the MCU to be explored much more in the upcoming episodes.
Back in the present, we get our first glimpse of Skye since her transformation. She is being held in quarantine while the team runs test on her to see if she was affected by the events with the obelisk. She has no visual differences in her appearance and the team seems completely clueless to the fact she caused the earthquake. Skye is also feeling a strong feeling of guilt over the loss of Triplet, blaming her self for going after Raina and forcing Triplet into a dangerous situation. She seems to either be ignoring or genuinely unaware of her changes.
Simmons is taking a new personality twist for the foreseeable future, she has taken everything that has happened extra hard and it is obvious throughout the episode. In the second scene she seems to have loss all her curiosity about the lost city and replaced it with a hatred for all things Inhuman. She has an encounter with a newly transformed Raina, Raina is covered from head to toes with sharp thorns. Raina kills two SHIELD techs before Simmons shoots her several times and Raina runs. Simmons last act at the site is to destroy a support column and flood the whole city.
Simmons' new outlook on all things super human is also the embodiment of Skye's fear of how her closet friends will react to her new changes. In a scene in which Skye tries to reason that all the super humans are just part of life now, Simmons goes on a rant about how they are a plague and must be eradicated to keep the people she cares about the most safe. This crushes Skye and their relationship will be put to the test in upcoming episodes as Skye's secret is revealed.
Coulson continues to take on a more Nick Fury style of running SHIELD, stating to Skye that he will crush Hydra and then doing so it a brilliant manner. Coulson sets up a trap for Bakshi to believe he is rescued by Hydra, Hunter then tells him he was sent to kill him by other members of Hydra. This puts into place a paranoia that leads to Bakshi's leader assassinating the other leaders of Hydra before Hunter and Morse shoot him and recapture Bakshi to hand over to Talbot.
Morse and Hunter share a moment in the car before rising where Bakshi led them, they discuss the secret her and Mac have been keeping. In a very anticlimactic moment Morse reveals that her and Mac have been in a support group to cope with the collapse of the organization they've both dedicated their lives to. Hunter's ensuing moment of "that's it" was shared with the audience who I'm certain expected something much more exciting with Morse herself involved.
The final moments of the episode reveal that she lied and Mac is shown using a RC model of Lola, Coulson's loved car, to spy on Coulson's office and find the toolbox Nick Fury left Coulson before going off the grid. Who they're retrieving the box for and what's intended for it still remains up in the air, but since May as already been a double agent for Fury it's doubtful the show goes that route again. It's possible to see a third party introduced like the government trying to obtain Fury's secrets, but my personal theory is that this may be an Avengers tie in.
The reasoning behind this is that in the comics Morse eventually married Hawkeye for a while and she is an Avenger as well. With everything that happened in the Winter Soldier movie, it wouldn't be a stretch to see how the Avengers may have loss their trust in SHIELD just like they have done in the comics. After seeing all of Fury's data on the members in the previous movies this may be the only way they can protect their selves and ensure that Coulson is someone they can trust.
Skye eventually loses control of herself towards the end of the show when Fitz explains to her that he has figured out what, or better yet who caused the earthquake. Skye panics, which causing a small quake in the lab and her quarantine cell shattering the lights in the cell and causing Fitz to flee. Skye starts cleaning up in a daze and cuts herself on the broken glass. May enters and upon seeing Skye cut ask her what happened in a more damning tone, Simmons walks in and tells Skye test are almost complete to see if she's changed at all. Skye almost tells her everything with a defeated look on her face until Fitz comes in saying her double-checked the test and Skye seems completely normal.
Once alone Skye has Fitz why he lied to May and Simmons, he replies that with all that just happened people wouldn't handle that news in a good way and he wanted to protect her. He tells her that there isn't anything wrong with being different and they share a sobbing embrace on the floor of Skye's quarantine cell. This new development between Skye and Fitz is a new and much more substantial layer to their friendship then we have seen before. Fitz also comments that Simmons' behavior has him worried and he shows the first signs that he doesn't trust her at the moment. We will have to see how this develops in the coming episodes to see if this drives a deeper rift between the Fitz Simmons duo.
A few other things worth noting from this episode include the repeated use of Baron Von Strucker's name throughout the episode by Hydra. Also, every comic book fan probably caught the use of the word terragenesis during the flashback scene; this is what provokes Inhuman transformations in the comic books. At the end of the episode Raina is preparing to walk across a highway to kill herself, when she is surrounded by agents. She is preparing to force the agents to kill her when Reader teleports in and rescues her. Where they went too or he is working with is a mystery that will have to wait for a future episode, but it was exciting to see nonetheless.
Episode Rating: 9.0
