Okay, Agents. So half this episode takes place in a flashback to the day SHIELD fell at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In the spirit of clarity and stylishness, I’m going to put the flashbacks in italics so we all can keep track of which story we’re talking about. Good? Good.
One Door Closes: Recap
Aboard a battleship the day SHIELD fell. Hydra soldiers are holding SHIELD engineers captive, asking who the main engineer is. Mack says that he is the main engineer, even though a fellow SHIELD soldier was trying to cover for him. When the Hydra soldier learns he was lied to, he shoots the man, stating simply that he hates liars. Bobbi and Agent Hartley (Lucy Lawless, died in the beginning of this season – that one) break in and kill all the Hydra soldiers, saving Mack and the other SHIELD engineers. Bobbi then informs Mack that they have orders from Nick Fury himself – to save SHIELD.
Present day, Coulson and Mack are talking about Lola – since the replica is so on point, Coulson may let Mack work on the real thing. Bobbi comes back, stating that she wasn’t able to find Hunter. She walks away and inserts a USB drive into the plane’s computer.
Simmons is Skyping with Skye (hehe) and they talk about the gloves. Skye hasn’t tried them yet, Simmons encourages her to do so.
Coulson confronts Mack about the fact that he noticed that something was added to that toy replica of Lola, and he has a team working on figuring out what it was. Mack continues to state only that he is loyal to SHIELD (not really a lie in his mind), and Coulson tells May to go after Bobbi. She finds Bobbi burning a hole in Coulson’s desk to take Fury’s toolbox. Bobbi tries to explain that she works for SHIELD but May does not, and that’s not going to end well. May and Bobbi fight until Bobbi triggers an EMP that shuts off all the power on the plane long enough for her – and Mack – to disappear.
Back to the past, Bobbi, Mack, and Hartley find Robert Gonzales on the ship. He caught an axe in the leg, but is otherwise “safe”, although skeptical of the SHIELD agents, because he’s heard “I’m not with Hydra” before.
Back to the future (had to), Bobbi contacts Gonzales with an update. Their cover is blown, she doesn’t know where Mack is, and she doesn’t know where Skye is either.
Skye is back in her cabin, trying on Simmons’ gloves. She tries to Skype back with Simmons – but the connection is lost. She tries to call Simmons, but the connection is lost. She traces a cord out of the back of her computer, into the wall, which she checks for hollow spots. She finds a loose panel, and removes it to reveal a wall similar to the holding room on the plane, with a giant fist-shape imprinted into it.
Skye hears a weird noise outside the cabin, and activates the alarm system and grabs a fireplace poker. She opens the door, sees there’s no one there, then closes it and hears a knock. She opens it again and it’s Gordon – the NO EYES GUY!
He invites himself in and encourages Skye in a weird way, and feels sorry for her because right after he had his mist transformation, the first thing that happened was that he was embraced, and what was the first thing that happened to Skye? Well, people freaked out and locked her in a super strong cabin with some gloves. He also tells her that if she learned to focus her powers instead of hide them, she could become something magnificent. He says he can take her to a place where she can be among friends who can help her learn to use her powers, but she is unsure about it. He leaves, saying he’ll know when she’s ready. And by “leaves”, I mean that weirdo “poof” thing he does. You know the thing.
Meanwhile, at HQ, Bobbi finds Simmons rummaging through a box, looking for an emergency phone. She tries to play the friend and convince Simmons to go with her to “look for the others” but Simmons is insistent that she just has to find something first. She hands Bobbi one thing and then another, which combine to shock Bobbi enough to knock her out. Mack finds Fitz right after Fitz finds the USB Bobbi left behind. Mack promises not to hurt Fitz, but needs his trust.
Back on the battleship, Mack is distracting Gonzales while Hartley and Bobbi remove the axe and set Gonzales’ leg. Pain, but not the “dangerous pain that you can’t feel.” Bobbi tells Hartley to give hunter her medallion, and tells everyone else to get Gonzales to safety while she goes on the next part of her mission. Fury told her to blow up the ship’s computer, which would probably cost her life as well. In the end, they decide to stick together and fight Hydra as a team – Fury’s dead, and Gonzales is captain of this ship.
May has been doing some recon and finds gas masks hidden in Bobbi’s locker. She tries to warn Coulson just before gas starts leaking into the facility. Mack tackles Fitz to the ground just before the wall behind them explodes. In walks Gonzales and his team. They discuss that Skye was sent to “the cabin Banner built” (hey, a Hulk reference!), and Bobbi decides to go with the team to find her. Meanwhile, May is listening from inside the walls, like a boss.
Meanwhile, Skye is taking Gordon’s advice to heart. As she’s washing her hands, the water forms into a spiral, which makes her feel much better about her powers. (There’s a nerd thing about physics coming later. This is your warning.)
Agent Weaver (from the SHIELD academy all those episodes ago) asks Simmons for help assessing Mack’s injuries, and she complies. The team is fairly certain the new agents are not Hydra, but still aren’t sure what game they’re playing at.
Gonzales meets with Coulson and the two start to hash it out. Gonzales comes right out and asks Coulson about his alien blood, and his obsessive pursuit of alien technology. Coulson says that he did what was necessary to keep that tech out of Hydra hands. However, Coulson can’t convince himself or Gonzales that he’s not definitely an alien messenger, but he still won’t help Gonzales open Fury’s toolbox.
May calls Skye to warn her to get out of the cabin before the agents come after her. Skye runs out the back and into the spotlights of helicopters. Bobbi and Agent Calderon land, and Bobbi reminds everyone that Skye is a fellow agent, so ICERs only. Calderon seems to have other ideas, and cocks a very real-looking gun.
Back aboard the ship, Mack points out that if Bobbi sinks the ship, she’ll probably die along with it. The team decides on a new plan – make a stand, fight back, and take back the ship. They ready themselves, and when the doors fly open with Hydra agents behind it, they all start firing (and apparently do it very well, since they all made it out, which we knew going in).
Gonzales makes his point abundantly clear that he has no intentions of letting SHIELD be run the same way it was under Fury, and that Coulson is literally Fury’s creation. Luckily for us, May breaks in with an ICER, knocks out the opposing agents, and helps Coulson escape through a secret passage in the wall.
Skye is attacked by an agent of unknown origin, in the dark, with no identification (May didn’t say they were SHIELD agents). She fights back, effectively, but non-lethally. A gunshot is fired, but doesn’t hit anyone. It does draw the attention of the other agents, who converge on her location. Calderon fires a real bullet at her, which causes Skye to tense up and release a shockwave that stops the bullet and splinters a tree – a piece of which impales Calderon pretty well.
Shocked, she whispers “Gordon, help.” He poofs in, grabs her, and disappears, with Bobbi watching on.
We see Coulson sitting at a bar…somewhere (magical?). Hunter shows up, and signs a napkin as his way of accepting that permanent position, and asks the boss what’s next. Which I think we’d all like to know.
Reactions
Ah, man, it’s really ramping up for the finally, isn’t it?
So FINALLY we get that payoff of Skye talking with Gordon. So now, we’ve seen Gordon make contact with all the Inhumans that we have met so far. However. Has anyone else noticed that we don’t tend to see those Inhumans AT ALL after that point? We haven’t seen Raina or Cal since they were zapped wherever. This is probably because we don’t have “eyes” there. Like, on the bus, those are our people. Hydra and Real SHIELD are related enough and use the same tech, we’d be able to see those locations, theoretically. Wherever the Inhumans are, we can’t see in – except that ONE room. But now that Skye’s there, maybe now we can. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but me.
I really am looking forward to seeing who all Gordon is working with / for. Also, the fact that Cal and Raina have been wherever she is now, means they may still be. Or they may be dead. Or who knows what? No matter what, Skye will probably get really freaked out by whatever is coming, probably in the very next episode.
As confident as I am in May’s fighting ability, the simple fact is that now the entire Real SHIELD team is on the bus. Their only opposition is Fitz, Simmons, and May. There will be renewed distrust and animosity toward Skye, who probably just killed a “Real SHIELD” agent. Coulson and Hunter are outside and need to fight their way in, which puts them at quite a bit of a disadvantage. I’m certain our people will win. I’m also certain it will be an epic fight to win. I’m not certain that everyone will survive.
I love that Hunter is totally into the SHIELD game now, and I don’t think there’s any going back for him now. I’m really ready for the SHIELD factions to kind of settle out and figure out where they’re all going. I think something major has to happen where Coulson and Gonzales have to work together against a common enemy, they each disagree but respect each other, and do their own thing independently. I don’t know if that’s the predictable answer, or if that’s the only acceptable answer, so if you know of another way for this all to play out, please give me something else to hope for!
So here’s a nerdy thing about water falling in spirals. It is TOTALLY possible, and there are plenty of videos that prove it. Here’s the thing though – it’s only possible through a camera lens or with a strobe light. It has to do with the frequency of the vibration matching the frame rate of the video or the rate of the strobe light. So it’s totally cool that Skye can do that (she’s shaking the faucet, by the way, not the water), but there’s no way she would have seen it for herself. (Hey, I have to earn my geek cred every once in a while, don’t I?)
Until next week, agents!
Geek out!
