Everything was very, very personal on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1, episode 20. Check out our recap and share your thoughts on “Nothing Personal.”
Here’s what happened on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1, episode 20:
Chit-chat
Maria Hill walks out of a meeting with Congress, and finds herself in a meeting with Melinda May.
May wants Hill to help Coulson, and tells him what Coulson knows about the TAHITI project. May remains concerned that Hydra may have influenced Coulson’s new brain. Hill denies knowing who was in charge of the project, and upholds the party line that Nick Fury is dead.
Sunset
In Providence, Coulson, FitzSimmons and Trip can neither find Koenig, nor figure out what has happened.
Simmons tells Fitz to stay positive, and decides to make pancakes. As she looks in the stockroom and uncovers Koenig’s body, Fitz realizes that one window-view is out of sync. When he unjams the image, he finds the words “Ward is Hydra” carved across a livid sunset.
Later, Simmons examines Koenig’s body, and tearfully concludes that Ward was his killer. Fitz, already having issues processing the whole Hydra-Ward scenario, completely flips out.
Coulson tells him to hold in the anger and pain and help track the Bus to save Skye.
Just desserts
Skye’s drive-unlocking coordinates are the diner in LA where she met Mike Peterson. Ward is impatient, and will not leave her side. As two policemen enter the diner, Skye taps into the hard drive… but it says that the location is wrong: Access Denied.
A problem like…
After Trip and Coulson work out all the Ward stuff, the computer locates Skye in LA. Unfortunately, the computer also reveals that Providence base is surrounded by US Army forces led by Colonel Glenn Talbot.
After a shootout is avoided, Maria Hill strides in behind the Special Forces and announces that she let them in.
While Talbot grills the rest of the team, Hill tries to give Coulson a dose of reality. He refuses to abandon his team to the army, and realizes that Hill considers him an intelligence liability because of TAHITI. Coulson is furious that she and Fury worked so hard to keep those secrets from him, when their problem was everyone else in S.H.I.E.LD.
Hill admits that they should have seen Hydra coming, and is horrified to learn that Ward is an enemy. When Talbot and a goon enter Koenig’s office, she and Coulson take them out and flee the base.
Rest in peace
In a sunny cemetery, Agent May digs up Coulson’s empty casket. She retrieves a USB drive, which is loaded with the TAHITI files.
The riot act
Ward is concerned by the police officers, and Skye increases his discomfort by grilling him about life as a double agent. As Ward’s suspicion blossoms, Skye reveals that she tipped off the police about Ward from her computer.
Ward rather violently resists arrest, and Skye runs outside, trying to get arrested in pursuit of safety. When Ward shoots the officers, she drives away in the cruiser, but her brief escape is apprehended by Deathlok.
Bad romance
On the Bus, Ward is furious at Deathlok, who reveals that Garrett had him follow Ward as insurance against his weak spot (named Skye.) Skye insists that she won’t reveal the real coordinates, and attacks Ward. He cuffs her to the stairs.
“How could you?” she demands.
“I was on a mission,” he says. “It wasn’t personal.”
Skye is devastated, calling Ward a Nazi. He insists that he did not know about Garrett’s plan to have her shot. He says that his feelings for her are real, which nauseates Skye (and us.)
“Some day, you’ll understand,” he says.
“No, I won’t,” she spits. “And I will never, ever give you what you want.”
Elsewhere on the Bus, Deathlok receives a message. “Garrett is done waiting,” it says. “Go to Plan B.”
Bleeding hearts
As Deathlok approaches, Skye tries to appeal to his identity as Mike Peterson. Since he blames her for his son being used as leverage against him, that flops, but Skye doesn’t think Mike will hurt her.
“You’re right,” he says, and shoots a little heart attack device at Ward. As Ward slumps on the floor without a heartbeat, Skye whispers that he is a murderer. Mike agrees.
“Are you?” he asks.
Watching the life drain out of Ward, Skye cracks and admits that the drive is linked to altitude.
Deathlok restarts Ward’s heart and makes Skye start the hack as Ward starts to pilot the Bus.
The wheels on the Bus
But Maria Hill and Trip are waiting on the runway in another jet. Hill and Ward trade barbs over communications; Ward knows that Coulson won’t let them shoot down the Bus with Skye on board. He insists that they not follow him, and that he does in fact owe a great debt to Garrett.
Ward lifts off, and Hill tells Trip not to pursue. “I just hope we bought enough time,” she says, as Coulson is revealed to have crept in and hidden among the Bus’s landing gear.
BOOYAH!
The wind beneath my wheels
Coulson finds Skye. His plan to take the cockpit changes about two seconds later when Skye reveals that Deathlok is on the plane. Coulson deploys the tamp, which Ward notices from the cockpit.
Couslon and Skye hop into Lola and fall out of the Bus as Deathlok and Ward fire on them. Lola’s gravity thrusters only work at the last second, which is cheap drama, but we’ll let it go because everything else is so bloody good.
Zing
A furious Ward wants to pursue them, but Deathlok tells him their orders are otherwise. Ward promises Deathlok that he will kill him if he tries anymore torture-by-proxy.
“It wasn’t personal,” Peterson says smoothly.
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu
Team Coulson regroups in a motel. Coulson tries to get Hill’s help in setting up functioning S.H.I.E.LD. operations again.
“There is no S.H.I.E.LD. anymore,” she says, and advises him to let the team go after this last “mission” of taking down Ward. Hill leaves, and the still-officially-dead Coulson can’t even send his regards to Tony Stark.
Tell me no lies
FitzSimmons sit glumly by the motel pool. Fitz thinks that Ward must have a reason for his actions – maybe he was brainwashed. But Simmons says that some people are just evil.
“Tell me you’re not Hydra,” Fitz blurts, and Simmons says that she is not – and that Fitz will never have to find out what he would do if she was and oh gawd what if she’s totally Hydra???
Trip, who has planted himself firmly on Team Coulson, indulges in junk food. Coulson promises Skye that they will get Ward; she says she left him a gift on the hard drive.
Magic
Coulson finds May in his room. She has brought him the TAHITI file, and he presses play on a video of… himself.
The video is of Coulson, telling Nick Fury of his resignation from the TAHITI project. “I cannot, in good conscience, let the testing continue,” Past-Coulson says.
Past-Coulson understands why the program was begun, “But the side-effects are too extreme.” Apparently, the drug led to severe mental deterioration. “The only course of action that showed any project of stemming these side effects was memory replacement,” Past-Coulson says. But even complete memory-erasure led to inconsistent results.
Past-Coulson recommended the complete termination of Project TAHITI. “The cost is far too great,” he says.
“Huh,” says Current-Coulson.
Pretty much.