Warning: Spoiler Alert
Right out of the gate, we are introduced to what might become the season’s big bad and Skye’s mother more than 20 years ago. The eyeless kid is has a short distance teleportation issue that he’s having trouble controlling. Skye’s mother seems integral in whatever this is.
Present day, Skye sits in a quarantine room. Coulson and Skye reflect on the recent events. Skye wallows in relative self-pity. Coulson tries to add a different perspective. Mack is out of quarantine. Simmons is overseeing the hopeful destruction of the underground tunnels. Coulson is adamant that the mission was not a failure and he will make someone pay.
A Hydra council of sorts meet to discuss who will take Whitehaul post in the wake of his death. The goal is a permanent removal of Hydra from the landscape.
In the tunnels, a body emerges and takes one of the team in a hazmat suit. Then it attacks others. The obvious assumption is that it’s Raina gone full inhuman. Simmons gets a few shots off before Raina escapes. Simmons was able to get some blood and tissue samples from Raina after the fact. Then Coulson gives her the order to come home, to HQ.
Mack and Fitz begin a casual conversation until the emotion of the situation sends Mack down an emotional pity party. Fitz says he knows what Mack is going through. Mack describes what he felt angrily to a very calm Fitz. Culminating to the point where Mack reiterates, ‘you know what that’s like?’ Yes. Fitz knows precisely what that’s like. Exactly.
Coulson tries to explain the next order of business and whatever has been festering in Mack gets out. Mack verbally takes Coulson on. The conversation escalates loudly and quickly. Mack challenging Coulson’s motivation and orders. Then Hunter and Bobbi get into a side argument. All the while the anger in the room is doing something to Skye or around Skye. A soda can begins to shake and one of the on-screen monitors indicates something in red. Skye grabs the soda can at the exact moment that the argument is brought to a halt.
Bakshi becomes the pawn. The carrot in front of the horse. This is the play that has half of the team worried they will be vulnerable. Coulson video conferences Talbot to show that they have Bakshi. The plan is not rejected by Talbot. In transport, the SHIELD vehicle is t-boned by another truck. The truck keeps driving the SUV until they are inside a garage, loading dock or other such part of a building. Following the truck in is a tact team of sorts. Coulson and May fight them off to a point then toss out small explosives leaving only four men standing. May takes Coulson’s gun and finishes the job in short order. One man was unaccounted for and shoots both May and Coulson allowing Bakshi to escape.
Bakshi in the front seat of the SUV starts asking questions. His driver is…wait for it…Hunter. Yes, that Hunter. Speaking in a decent American accent no less, claiming that he now takes his orders from Bakshi. If you’re new to SHIELD, this is the part where we remember that the team has pulled off moves like this as a rouse or distraction for the bigger move. In the garage, all of our SHIELD teammates, slowly get up.
Bakshi makes contact with what must be the head of this Hydra council. Then Hunter pulls the old standard of the mercenary who takes the better offer when the mark presents it.
Simmons and Skye talk. Simmons like everyone else tries to take responsibility for more than she should accept she takes it two or three steps too far. She believes it is their duty to eradicate the world of these ‘powers’ not try to control them. A concept that is not well received by Skye.
The Doctor (Skye’s father) tries to hide out on a container ship outside San Juan Puerto Rico. He is instantly joined by Raina. He keeps his eyes on his bag. Then expresses his apology for Raina not getting to evolve. Only she has. Evolved into some porcupine humanoid. Raina was under the assumption that the evolution would have made her something angelic and divine. And she believes that gift was bestowed (unjustly) upon Skye and not her, creating a sense of being somehow wronged.
Hunter drops Bakshi off at his desired location. With Bakshi out of the car, Bobbi jumps up to the front seat with Hunter. He continues to speak in his American accent, which Bobbi is not a fan of. “Drop the accent, it makes you sound like a douche.” Last season, there was a cryptic moment when Bobbi and Mack seemed to be in on something. Here, in the car, Hunter draws it out of her. And after the laughter, Hunter is pleased at the admission.
Bobbi: We are in a support group.
Skye wakes up to notice Fitz standing outside her room. He looks detached. He was able to fix her vitals watch and pull up some of said vitals. At the moment of the blast, Skye’s heart rate measured at more than 300 beats per minute. Skye said that was really fast. Fitz replies with a very telling and important retort (if you hadn’t already picked up on the Skye story line). “No, that’s INHUMAN.” As Fitz describes what his mind is working through, he begins to get more emotional and loud. Again, items in the quarantine room begin to shake. Fitz continues. It’s not that there’s something wrong with the data in his head, there’s something wrong with Skye. She wasn’t harmed from the event because she caused the event. As her emotions climb, she essentially explodes the lights in her room just by yelling out.
May comes down to visit Skye and Skye emerges from the darkness quickly, hiding something behind her back. May then explains why Tripp’s death hit him so hard. Which begins a montage of sorts. Coulson personally delivering Tripp’s personal items to Tripp’s mother. Then the head of the Hydra council and Bakshi executing a new protocol. Watches flash red on the wrists of Hydra agents. Then, from inside the house, a team of Hydra’s men descend upon Hunter and Bobbi’s SUV. They open fire but Hunter just uses the vehicle mounted guns to take them out without prejudice.
The red watch alert seemed to be the order to kill those Hydra council members around the globe. Hunter and Bobbi get into the once well guarded home and take out the remaining councilman. The red watch alert wasn’t for Hydra, it was for SHIELD agents. Bakshi played right into Coulson’s plans.
May notices Skye is bleeding. The very instant before May demands to know what’s happening, Fitz comes around the corner to announce that her DNA structure is identical to what it was before the incident. However, there is something off. As if he’s hiding something. Fitz switched the DNA results. With the team ready to explode at any turn, Fitz thinks its best to keep this from everyone until everyone calms down considerably. Skye embraces Fitz for his maneuver.
Fitz: I switched the samples with your old ones.
Skye: Were the test results different?
Fitz: Dramatically.
Raina attempts to slowly cross the street. Or attempt suicide by driver. Then vehicles stop. Not to avoid her but to surround her. The men declare that all they want to do is take her in. She says no and all but forces them to kill her. Then a massive blue plasma ball looking effect surrounds her. Then the man with no eyes (the kid from the cold open) teleports into the blue ball. He ‘looks’ toward Raina and takes her away.
Man with no eyes: It’s OK beautiful, I’ll show you the way.
In Coulson’s office, Mack’s remote control model of Lola pops its own hood and begins scanning Coulson’s office. Specifically the desk. Mack and Bobbi aren’t in a support group. There is something covert happening.
Mack: I have visual confirmation. Fury’s toolbox is locked in Coulson’s office.
Bobbi: Did you manage to wrangle the blueprints from the base.
Mack: Yeah, almost good to go.
Bobbi: Ok. I’ll make contact soon.
