Agent May’s (and others’) heartbreaking secrets came to light in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2, episode 17.
Seven years ago
Melinda May and Andrew Garner are happily married — in fact, they’re planning to start a family. Like, right here, right now.
But first, May joins Coulson and a S.H.I.E.L.D. crew on a covert mission to Bahrain. They are tracking a potential Index candidate named Eva Belyakov, who appears to have super-strength. If Belyakov doesn’t come quietly, the mission leader says, “I call in the Cavalry” — meaning the armored S.H.I.E.L.D. troops on board.
In Bahrain, Coulson fails to persuade Belyakov to join him. The only thing she is interested in, she says, is “Pain.” She is hustled away by a group of armed men who take a young girl and a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent hostage. The rest of the ops team storms the building, but quickly lose contact with Coulson and May outside.
May decides to rescue the men and the little girl alone. She calls Andrew before entering the building.
“Do good Melinda,” he says. “But come home.” (Um, best husband ever?)
Inside the building, May loses contact with Coulson. She finds the agents, but they stare at her blankly.
“I want your pain,” they chorus raggedly. “I want your pain.”
Protocols
On the Iliad, Bobbi and Agent Weaver tell May that Coulson has been racking up assets for an unknown purpose. The only clue is the term “Theta Protocol,” which, holy crap, Coulson ordered Koenig to initiate in the mid-season finale.
Bobbi guesses that May knew nothing about Coulson using Mike Peterson, or Theta Protocol. She tries to explain the painful necessity of the Other-S.H.I.E.L.D. takeover, but May understands perfectly.
“Sometimes that’s the price of doing the right thing,” she says coldly. “No one will understand. And it hurts like hell.”
At the Playground, May and Simmons investigate Other-S.H.I.E.L.D. claims, and are gutted to find that Coulson has been hiding a lot from them. He has lied about his location all over the world, bought bunkbeds, and met with Andrew Garner.
Mack thinks he’s creating Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters an army of powered people. May orders Simmons to open Fury’s Toolbox.
“Underestimating powers is playing with fire,” she says.
Simmons is like, crap.
Home
At Afterlife, Jaiying reiterates that Skye can manipulate the natural vibrations of the Universe. Concentrating, Skye manages to cause an avalanche on a distant mountain.
Meanwhile, Lincoln visits with Raina, who is sick of being “helped” by Gordon. Gordon urges her to find her real gift, but embittered and plagued by nightmares, all Raina wants is to go outside.
(Also, Gordon calls Lincoln “Sparkplug.” HA HA.)
When Gordon leaves, Lincoln sympathizes with Raina. She tells him about her dreams — of being chased, and an oddly specific nightmare of Skye happily having dinner with her father while a bouquet of daisies sits on the table.
Meanwhile, Skye’s training with Jaiying leads her to admit that she is terrified at being abandoned again. Overwhelmed by her confession, Jaiying tells Skye the story of her birth, allowing Skye to realize that the scarred young women in front of her is her mother.
Jaiying apologizes to Skye; after years of searching, she had accepted that Skye was gone, while Cal had not. She cautions Skye to keep their relationship a secret, as people might perceive her as a threat.
Home sweet home, Skye!
Jaiying explains that she has shielded Skye from the consequences of skipping the Terrigenesis line — even accidentally. This has happened before, she says, when a woman named Eva stole crystals and fled… to Bahrain.
The somewhat massively coincidental connection dawns on Skye.
“An agent went in and killed her?” Skye guesses.
“I wish it had been that simple,” Jaiying says.
Pain
In Bahrain, May locks the men in their room and begins to fight Belyakov. As they fight, May spies the little girl hiding behind a wall, and promises to save her.
Belyakov shoots May in the leg, but May manages to kill her. Still, her brain-dead minions approach.
“Snap out of it!” May yells, but they can’t — because the person controlling them is still alive.
In the present, Jaiying explains that Eva was not Inhuman — it was her young daughter Katya who went through the mist. The little girl leached emotions like a parasite and went crazy with the power.
In Bahrain, Katya begins to kill the men around her, brushing her hands across them for more strength. She walks toward May, frozen on the ground, entreating her would-be savior to hold her hand.
May begs Katya to stop, but she can’t — or won’t. May reaches for the gun behind her.
The Cavalry
When it’s over, Coulson finds May cradling Katya’s body, devastated. He leads her outside, where the agents — every one of whom is alive and unharmed — are slack-jawed at her accomplishment.
“The Cavalry came after all,” they marvel.
May collapses against Coulson, weeping for the little girl she couldn’t save – or even explain why.
“You have to let the girl go, Melinda,” he says, as Gordon and Jaiying watch grimly from the shadows. “You have to let the girl go.”
But May’s life falls apart. She shuts out Andrew, finding it hard even to be touched. May transfers to her cold cubicle, dreams of her future with Coulson and family with Andrew all turned to ashes.
Seriously, this whole thing gets exponentially sadder the longer you think about it.
Daughters
At Afterlife, Jaiying explains that the terrible incident means that Jaiying’s protection of Skye would be perceived as more than just favoritism.
“Our people know too well what a mother would do for her daughter,” she says. They cannot be allowed to suspect that Jaiying followed in Eva’s bloody footsteps. Skye agrees to keep their relationship a secret.
On Jaiying’s urging, Skye agrees to have dinner with Cal. He holds out a bouquet of daisies and tells Skye the story of her birth; she laughs as Lincoln walks in.
“I dreamed of Skye and her father at dinner,” he remembers Raina says. “There was a bouquet of daisies, and she was so happy.”
Lincoln then thinks he’s a genius by realizing that Raina’s dream was definitely not just a dream.
Better news
While being followed by agents, Fitz activates the toolbox in a public bathroom. He contacts Coulson and Hunter, who are thrilled at his success. They quickly get to work teaching the young scientist how to evade his pursuers so they can reunite.