Previously on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD – we get a FitzSimmons flashback – remember Donnie and his ice-storm machine? Is this going to be a FitzSimmons centric episode? Oh yeah!
Dr Whitehall is rhapsodising about some liquor he first drank when he enlisted in the 30s, back then it was bland but on a hunch he bought a case. I guess it’s not whisky then as that only ages in the cask, not the bottle. Anyway, he’s doing this while brainwashing someone called Agent 33. Obviously ex-SHIELD and now he wants her for HYDRA.
SIMMONS! She seems to have adapted nicely to life out of SHIELD, working a 9-5 job, albeit with quite good security and a HYDRA LOGO ON THE WALL WTF Simmons? No, you can’t be HYDRA. Please, someone tell me that sweet, innocent, adorable Jemma Simmons is not really HYDRA!
At the Playground Skye and May are training and Skye is doing quite well, Hunter and Mac show up (Hunter in a wifebeater and HELLO!) and Hunter quizzes Skye on whether she went to SHIELD Academy.
May cuts in and says that obviously he didn’t or he’d never have shot her. I think it’s going to be a while before May is over that one. Hunter goes on to ask if Skye has ever killed anyone, he needs to know who he is working with in the field, like he knew Izzy preferred to use a knife than a gun, or if someone died on a mission Idaho would go to church and light a candle. May sends him packing so that Skye can carry on with her training.
Phillinda have a chat, he’s been out looking for Agent 33 and is sick of losing good people to HYDRA – what the hell is he going to do when he finds out about Simmons who is working currently working on DNA analysis from someone who can produce liquid nitrogen. She catches sight of Donnie’s photo in a file but her superior shuts her out before she sees anything else.
Marakech – Morocco. Donnie Gill is on the run, apparently from HYDRA who keep sending agents after him. He kills one of the agents and takes his phone and we have a name – Maribel Del Mar. Who is she and what does she have to do with HYDRA?
Simmons gets home from a hard day working for the evil HYDRA and she’s not alone, Coulson is waiting in her kitchen. He tells her off for her diet, serracho and beer being the only things in her fridge. He has brought groceries and he cooks while she talks. She is a SHIELD plant inside HYDRA – seems fair considering how many agents they had inside SHIELD before the fall. Coulson briefs his team on Donnie (Hunter has put a shirt on, booooo) and asks Fitz for help since he knew Donnie. Fitz is still struggling but Mac says he will help him out. Fitz asks where Skye is, she’s down with Ward getting info on how HYDRA deal with gifteds. Convince/Capture/Cross off seems to be the standard – even if they are non-threatening.
Back in Morocco Donnie is at a port and he freezes the harbour around a boat called… Maribel Del Mar. Okay so not a person, a place…kinda.
Simmons is trying to make friends like Coulson said but instead is taken off for questioning on a “security matter”, the fact she knows Gill. Bakshi interrogates her as to where her loyalties lie and she replies “My loyalties are with science” *fistpumps* Yes Simmons, you can do this, you can make them trust you.
Whitehall is still working on Agent 33 when Bakshi arrives, he wants to evaluate an employee and act with authority, Whitehall approves and Bakshi leaves. The SHIELD crew are wheels up to go after Gill and Mac is doing his best to bond with Fitz.
Meanwhile back at HYDRA Simmons is taken out in the field by Bakshi to try and recruit Gill who is currently turning the HYDRA crew of the Maribel Del Mar into human popsicles (not the Captain America kind, I don’t think you can thaw these ones out).
Fitz’Simmons’ talk and for the first time Fitz acknowledges that she isn’t really there before he sneaks down into the vault to find out that Skye’s “asset” is actually Ward (Seriously, can we just take a moment to appreciate those biceps and thank whoever decided that SHIELD issue prison garb would be sleeveless?).
Fitz is seriously rattled at coming face to face with the man who nearly killed him, Ward tries to explain that what he did was an attempt to save Fitz, to give him a chance to escape since his orders were to put a bullet in his brain. Fitz tries to explain what really happened after Ward tried to ‘save’ him but he’s still having trouble remembering words, so he gives him a practical demonstration of what being starved of oxygen feels like. Ward asks for Skye and Fitz tells him she’s gone after Donnie, where he should be but can’t be because of what Ward did. Ward freaks out when he hears Donnie’s name ans says that the team don’t know what they are getting into.
Simmons is on the ship full of frozen corpses looking for Donnie while outside May, Hunter and Skye are taking down the Hydra goons on the perimeter.
Back at the Playground Mac is kicking back with some Gears of War when Fitz busts in demanding to talk to the team on the Bus. Simmons has found Donnie and is talking to him, trying to get him on side when Bakshi tells her to repeat his words. It’s some kind of conditioning phrase, like we heard Whitehall using with Agent 33. Fitz meanwhile is explaining to Coulson that Donnie is HYDRA, he didn’t escape from the Sandbox, HYDRA converted him and he took it for them. This is the information he got from Ward. Coulson tells May and Hunter what is going on, Hunter spots Gill talking to a HYDRA agent and Coulson tells him to put an end to it but May realises it’s Simmons and shoots Hunter instead (payback’s a bitch). Donnie gets spooked and goes for Simmons but she runs, Coulson tells the team to preserve Simmons’ cover and go after Donnie instead. Bakshi manages to get Donnie back on side and tells him to freeze the ship and everyone on it, which includes May and Hunter. Skye is the one to take Donnie out and he falls overboard, freezing solid as he sinks. Skye takes another shot at Bakshi but Simmons saves him to preserve her cover.
All is not a total loss though since the ship is loaded with HYDRA goodies that they take back to the Playground. Hunter asks if he and May are now cool, since she shot him back. She’s cool, but she wasn’t the only one he shot. May checks up on Skye who is not dealing well, either with having been the one to shoot Donnie or the fact that Simmons is undercover with HYDRA.
Coulson goes to see Fitz to explain why he kept Ward’s presence from him. Fitz asks if there is anything else Coulson is keeping from him and Coulson says of course there is, he’s the Director. He does tell him that Simmons is on an assignment and that was why she had to leave and I think that gives Fitz a little bit of comfort.
Whitehall and Bakshi are interrupted by Agent 33, well it does seem like someone stopped burning and rose from the ashes indeed. Bakshi recommends that Simmons be brought up from the drudgery of the lab downstairs to the scary brainwashing lab upstairs. Meanwhile Skye goes to Ward to find out about the brainwashing and whether that was why he did what he did but Ward says no, everything he did was of his own free will. He says he is telling her the absolute truth now so that she will believe him when he tells her about her dad. That he is still alive and that he wants to find her. For the first time this episode, Skye gets rattled.
So is Skye’s dad the creepy dude in the glasses from the end of Heavy is the Head? The one who was talking to Raina? Is the original 084 something to do with Skye’s own 084-ness?
