"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Recap: "One of Us"

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

After weeks of heavy handed episodes that tugged at your feels, alongside battles with Hydra, imagine my surprise when Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. took a lighter, tamer route with its storytelling last night. By no means was last night a bad episode, just one that didn't leave my heart pounding in my chest with shocker after shocker. In fact the best way to describe "One of Us" is to say that it was fascinating, and here is why.

This was an episode that was chock full of character development and little tidbits regarding the past of our favorite agents. We learned a lot about May in fact, specifically that she was once married to a brilliant psychiatrist named Andrew. May reaches out to him to help analyze Skye per S.H.I.E.L.D. protocols so she can return to field duty. It made for some entertaining television to see May smile and joke around with someone, because hey, when was the last time we saw May do anything like that?  There was also some insight on Skye and the hurt and fear she carries courtesy of her sessions with Andrew.

We also got a little taste of Coulson's past, learning where his hometown was and a few hints of his life growing up, oddly thanks in part to Skye's crazy dad who hatched one hell of a plan to get to us that point.  He put together a team of super villains, some of the nastiest people S.H.I.E.L.D. ever put away in the hopes of drawing out Coulson and taking revenge upon the organization that put them away in the first place.  The confrontation however doesn't quite go as he planned, since May shows up with Skye to keep her dad at bay mere moments before he is kidnapped by the sightless and mysterious Inhuman that can teleport and Coulson and the gang are able to recapture Cal's gallery of super villains. 

But what would Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. be if it didn't leave us with a ton of questions and surprises? This week delivered on that was well, because we learned that Skye's attempts to control her powers are slowly killing her because there isn't any control at all, she's just directing it inward and physically harming herself, leaving us to wonder how she will ever handle her powers. Her father Cal has to apparently answer for his attempt at revenge to persons unknown and to top everything off we finally learned what Bobbi and Mack have been up to...they work for another branch of S.H.I.E.L.D., or as Mack called it "the real S.H.I.E.L.D.", we never knew existed.  

It's that last part that has me intrigued to say the least, because who the hell are these guys? I mean Fury put Coulson in charge of the agency and its remnant so how on earth can there be another one? It's clear from the trailer for the next episode, and the appearance of Edward James Olmos (squee) in said trailer, that Fury has no involvement with this second S.H.I.E.L.D. and I'm dying to know the details of how this agency came to be and what purpose they plan to serve. Guess we find out next week...until then. 

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