Hearts stopped tonight on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1, episode 14. Check out our recap, and share your thoughts on “T.A.H.I.T.I.”
Here’s what happened in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1, episode 14, “T.A.H.I.T.I.”
Bad news
The team rushes Skye to a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility for surgery. Waiting for news, Coulson tries to contact Nick Fury. Fitz blames himself, but Ward says the fault is his.
The surgeon arrives with bad news; Skye’s injuries are too extensive, and she is on life support. With the team reeling from the news, Coulson stops May from beating the crap out of Ian Quinn. He wants to find the doctors and technology that brought him back to life, and use them to save Skye.
Skye’s hospital pod is transferred to the Bus so they can transport her to the S.H.I.E.L.D. medical facility in Bethesda, where Coulson was revived. (This is the most exciting thing to ever happen in Bethesda.) Coulson tells Ward about his death and revival, and gives the way under-clearanced FitzSimmons his “Death and Recovery” report so they can figure out how he was saved. He tells them to contact Dr. Streiten for help.
Old friends, new friends
In the cockpit, Ward tells May he isn’t sure he would try for this second miracle, as Coulson is. “People like us need people like him,” she says. But then a message comes in from HQ – Team Coulson are in violation of the direct order to hand Quinn over to S.H.I.E.L.D. custody.
Oops.
The Bus is boarded by Agent John Garrett (Ward’s former S.O.) and his specialist, Agent Antoine Triplett. Garrett has been chasing Quinn “since Malta” and lost agents to Quinn’s goons. When Coulson explains about Skye, Garrett understands; Coulson implies that he is holding onto Quinn so he can kill him if Skye doesn’t make it.
Yes, Coulson has a plan for every scenario.
LOL Maryland
Having read Coulson’s file, Simmons is shocked and confused by the extreme measures taken to revive him. The drugs and machinery involved (including a drug called GH325) are foreign to her, and Simmons wonders if the process is ethically right. Fitz insists that the situation with Skye is different.
Simmons receives a call from the Bethesda center, who tell her that Dr. Streiten has gone off the grid. They say that Coulson was never treated there – in fact, none of the revival paraphernalia are officially part of S.H.I.E.L.D.
So Bethesda is just as boring as we always thought it was.
Catch-22
Having convinced HQ to let him interrogate the prisoner on the Bus, Garrett starts on Quinn. He asks (not nicely) about Cybertech and the Deathlok program, but Quinn warns him and Coulson to stay out of those waters. He admits to shooting Skye “because that’s what the Clairvoyant told me to do.”
Garrett is skeptical about the shadowy psychic, but Quinn taunts him with the deaths of his other agents – all made possible by the Clairvoyant. “He sees everything,” Quinn insists, “Except for what happened to him.”
“This is still about me,” Coulson realizes, and tells Garrett the truth. (He should really just shoot out a memo at this point.) Garrett realizes that by mortally wounding Skye, the Clairvoyant has forced Coulson into a corner. Either he figures out how his own life was miraculously saved – thus letting the mysterious psychic in on the secret – or he lets Skye die.
Check and mate, Agent Coulson.
Nerd Fury
As Skye’s condition deteriorates, Simmons tells Fitz that the only helpful clue she’s found is the GH325 drug. The stuff started to regenerate Coulson’s cells almost immediately after injection. Fitz reveals that he has basically, all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s memos and recordings, ever, courtesy of a friend on Triskelion.
They get started looking through the files and find a World War 2 bunker called “Guest House” (as in GH) opened by Nick Fury on the day Coulson died. The file appears encrypted, but turns out to be an nifty ASCII image of the location.
Diplomacy
Garrett, Coulson, Ward, and Fitz go into the potentially hostile Guest House/bunker. The guards are unmoved by Coulson’s pleas for help, and refuse to admit them without the countersign. They team hacks in anyway, but loses communications with the Bus.
Once inside, the doors seal behind them. The guards open fire, but Garrett and Ward kill one and wound the other. Before he dies, the very handsome who said that guard reveals that the whole Guest House is rigged to blow.
But they have ten minutes, so that’s fine. Garrett and Ward will figure it out.
(They don’t.)
(They have to blow the doors open.)
(But they probably still get paid.)
T.A.H.I.T.I.
Coulson and Fitz find the room where Coulson was revived, and Coulson is haunted by memories of his revival. They go into a biohazard room – without safety suits! – and find the GH325 in a locked freezer. Ward arrives to hurry them out, but Coulson stays behind and unearths a door stamped “T.A.H.I.T.I.”
Ooooh, episode title.
On the Bus, Simmons talks to Triplett about how Skye inexplicably means the world to her. Trip flirts with Simmons, in response to which Skye starts to code repeatedly.
After blowing the doors, Garrett sends Fitz and Ward up to safety. He finds Coulson wandering dazed in a hallway. “The drug,” Coulson cries, “Don’t give it to her!” They race outside and make it to the Bus just in time for takeoff and terrible CGI.
They are too late, though, to stop Simmons from injecting Skye with GH325.
Magic
As the group watches with baited breath, Skye’s heart-rate stabilizes.. and then spikes. After an apparent seizure, Skye pulls through. An ashen-faced Coulson leaves the med pod, and May asks Garrett what happened.
“I’m not sure,” he says.
Garrett takes Quinn off the plane, but says he may be back – Agent Triplett digs Simmons. (Get in line, dude.)
May asks why Coulson didn’t want to use the drug. Coulson flashes back to what he saw in actual-T.A.H.I.T.I. – vials of GH12345whatever plugged into a mysterious chamber where half a man floats, his guts lingering in the floating blue goo.
What. The. Hell.
She’s not in Asgard anymore
A red-haired woman wanders through Death Valley, arriving at a motel. “I am parched and weary,” she says as she takes water from a newlywed “I seek passage from this valley of death to a more bountiful land.” Though the man says he loves his wife, she magicals him into driving off with her.
“I swear to protect you and keep you safe,” the dazed man says as he drives. “And I don’t even know your name!”
“Lorelei,” she says with a smile. “My name is Lorelei.”