But changing yourself? That was another matter on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. mid-season premiere — and not everyone did so well.
Show you the way
In 1983, a boy named Gordon ricochets violently in and out of pockets of blue void.
Oh, and he doesn’t have eyes.
Luckily, Skye’s mom Jaiying is there to comfort him. She has coached many generations through Teregenesis, and understands the terror of experiencing change in every cell in the body and mind.
“It’s gonna be okay, beautiful,” she tells him. “I’ll show you the way.”
Ominously, Terrigenesis is traumatic for Gordon even though he Changed under optimal conditions. Jaiying and another man agree that without her guidance, those who Change would be lost.
Exhibit A
Skye is stuck in quarantine with her nightmares. Coulson visits Skye, theorizing that Trip saved her from the earthquake, which was obviously triggered by the Obelisk.
Skye blames herself, but Coulson insists that the fault is Hydra’s — and they will pay.
“We cut off the head,” he insists. “And while Hydra scrambles for a new one, we will crush them. I’m gonna make somebody pay, no matter who it is.”
Speaking of Hydra, the leaders of Wolfram and Hart Hydra need someone to fill Daniel Whitehall’s vacancy. With Bakshi AWOL, they decide to tackle a concern of Baron Von Strucker’s — so whoever takes out S.H.I.E.L.D. will get the position.
Alien crap
Down in the alien city, something starts to murder scientists while Simmons wraps up the investigation. The something — which is Raina — escapes while Simmons shoots at her. Simmons returns to the Playground to test Raina’s blood.
Back at the Playground, Bobbi encourages Skye while Fitz tries to fix her biometer watch. He also empathizes with Mack’s alien possession, though Mack doesn’t want to discuss it. He asks Fitz to get the base schematics, so he can make sure the ventilation systems are sealed, or some other lie.
“I don’t want anyone else falling prey to this alien crap,” Mack says.
Coulson gathers everyone together to make plans for the move against Hydra. He plans to use a prisoner exchange with Bakshi to lure Hydra out into the open. A massive fight breaks out between Mack and the rest of the team, who are allied in varying degrees with Coulson.
Skye watches from her cube, increasingly upset as the argument escalates. Items in her room begin to shiver, and her monitors beep ominously. She begs the team to stop fighting, but they can’t hear her.
Coulson snaps her — and them — out of it, demanding order in the room. “We’re dealing with forces we don’t understand,” he coldly agrees, “but Hydra I do understand.” He orders the team to be ready in the morning.
Dramatics
Coulson sets up the trade for Bakshi with General Talbot; S.H.I.E.L.D. will trade the prisoner to the government in exchange for help in taking out Hydra.
Bakshi is like, “FML.”
While driving Bakshi to the exchange, May drops the reveal that Whitehall is dead, and claims not to trust the U.S. government.
Right on cue, the SUV gets smashed into a warehouse by a truck. May and Coulson seem to recover, but another shooter rounds the corner and kills May. Coulson’s eyes bug out. “They’ll never take us alive!” he yells, as he too is peppered with bullets.
Bakshi is like, “WTF!”
Bakshi and his rescuer drive away; Bakshi demands to know who the man takes orders from.
The man peels off his mask. “I guess I take orders from you now, sir,” Hunter says.
At this point we’re like, “Damn you, Hunter! You no-good, dirty traitor! We always knew you would–
“Oh.”
Because “cut” is called back at the warehouse. May and Coulson rise from the dead and Bobbi follows Hunter.
“Bakshi has a flair for the dramatic,” Coulson says. “Let’s hope he bought ours.”
Friends in need
When Simmons returns to the Playground, she has blood taken from Skye. She wants to make sure that Skye has not been “infected” by whatever has mutated both Raina’s appearance and her DNA.
Simmons fears an epidemic, and blames herself for trying to study “alien horrors.” “I should have been trying to terminate it — erase it from existence,” she says, to Skye’s increasing unease.
Skye tries to moderate Simmons’ feelings, to no avail; her friend is determined that Trip will be the last to die through alien intervention. Simmons leaves to compare Skye’s new blood samples to old ones — “just to be safe.”
Lifelong
Raina confronts Skye’s father Cal, revealing the true extent of her grotesque transformation. “What the hell have I become?” she demands, devastated by her metamorphosis. She blames Cal, who encouraged her, and Skye, who has come through the Mist looking just the same.
Cal is delighted that Skye has Changed, but concerned that she’ll be put on the Index. He gleefully decides to meet up with some of the Indexed individuals to wreak a little havoc. Raina begs him for help; not only does she feel repulsive, but her very existence causes her pain.
“I can’t live as this repulsive creature,” she weeps.
“Then don’t,” says Cal. And now we really hate this guy.
Cut off the head(s)
Hunter takes Bakshi to Mr. Bloom, dropping hints of a conspiracy among the Heads of Hydra. When Bobbi joins Hunter, he uses the opportunity to ask what she and Mack are hiding.
Bobbi confesses that they are in a support group for ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Hunter appears to believe this.
Inside, Bakshi reports that other Heads of Hydra are plotting against them; certain orders are sent. Later, the Heads of Hydra all murder each other, and Bobbi and Hunter complete the circle by killing Bloom. Bakshi realizes that he was set up; S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t take out Hydra, so they had to make Hydra take each other out.
But hey, he’s still alive — and headed for Talbot.
Inhuman
At the Playground, Mack returns the schematics and apologizes for his outburst. He still wants to work on Lola, which Coulson is considering after the gift of the adorable and completely innocent mini-Lola.
Simmons brings the mood down by strongly indicating that she wants Raina to be taken out. Coulson and May are like, “Noted. Who are you again?”
Soon, Fitz comes to see Skye; he has fixed her biometer. At the time of the temple’s collapse, he says, Skye’s heart rate was going at almost 300 beats per minute.
“That’s very fast,” Skye breathes.
“No,” Fitz says. “That’s inhuman.”
Skye starts to cry as Fitz deduces what happened.
“You survived the destruction,” he accuses, “because you caused it.” He stalks toward the glass.
“There’s nothing wrong with the data in my head, Skye,” he spits. “There’s something wrong with you.”
Skye screams, the overhead light explodes, and Fitz races away in terror.
Changes
In the darkness, Skye cuts her hand as she tries to gather up the glass. May visits, and they talk about how awesome Trip was — he was Coulson’s embodiment of S.H.I.E.L.D.s best ideals.
“Compassion, loyalty, heart,” May says. “That is S.H.I.E.L.D.’s strength. And Trip’s death reminded Coulson that Hydra doesn’t have that — and that is their weakness.”
Unable to explain her bleeding hand, Skye nearly panics when Simmons returns. But Fitz comes in and takes the blame, showing Simmons that Skye’s DNA has not changed. He goes in to help Skye as May and a way too overjoyed Simmons leave.
Fitz admits that he switched the blood results; Skye’s DNA is now “drastically” different. He proposes keeping it to themselves until Simmons drops the evil scientist act, and Skye collapses against him.
He tries to soothe her, promising that she is just different now. But Skye is convinced that something is very wrong.
Beautiful
Raina walks across traffic, tempting death. She is immediately surrounded by guys who “just want to take her in,” but she insists that they kill her.
The attempted suicide-by-special-ops is blasted apart by a nexus of blue light, blossoming around a man with no eyes.
“It’s okay, beautiful,” Gordon tells Raina, gathering her in his arms. “I’ll show you the way.”
And the two Inhumans disappear.
How dare you
As the team huddles together to remember Trip, the completely innocuous mini-Lola begins a scan of Coulson’s office.
There is something so violating about this, we can’t even handle it right now.
The scanner finds Fury’s Toolbox embedded in the Director’s desk; Mack casually reports this to Bobbi, as well as the news that he has the base schematics.
“Okay,” says Bobbi, if that’s even her real name. “I’ll make contact soon.”
Back outside, Skye muses sadly that they’re all going to laugh a lot less without Trip. Unfortunately, that’s really the least of their problems right now.
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