Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s second season’s 18th episode premiered on April 21, 2015 and was a powerhouse, full of tension, strange alliances and plot twists.
Jiaying (Dichen Lachman) is sending Cal (Kyle MacLachlan) away from the Afterlife compound, although he doesn’t know it. Skye (Chloe Bennet) is worried that if he gets dumped somewhere like an unwanted puppy, he will take out his anger on innocent people. Jiaying isn’t worried about those people. When Skye can’t get Jiaying to change her mind, she decides to go with Cal. Meanwhile, Jiaying realizes that Ethan (Kris Lemche), who went hiking some time ago, is missing. (We know that Hydra experimented on him, and he’s dead.)
During a sparring match back at SHIELD, Bobbi and Mack (Henry Simmons) confess to each other that they’re not sure they’re on the right team anymore. They don’t like how Gonzalez is so focused on Coulson instead of Hydra.
Gordon (Jamie Harris) teleports Cal and Skye to Milwaukee, where Cal had a practice and where he and Jiaying had planned to raise Skye. The two of them wander the city while Cal tells her about the life they could have had. At one point on the street, Skye bumps into a mean-looking guy. Cal almost explodes, but Skye manages to divert his attention.
When he goes into a store to get them ice cream, we see that she stole a phone from the guy she bumped into. She uses it to call May (Ming-Na Wen) and tell her to get Cal so he doesn’t hurt anyone. She has no idea, of course, that May is now working for the other SHIELD. Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) uses the cell phone to find Skye’s location.
Prior to the phone call, Simmons confessed to May that the toolbox they have is a fake. She tells May that she gave the real one to Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) when he left SHIELD. May assures her that she will figure a way out of the lie. Later, in the lab where Simmons is trying to hack into Deathlok’s (J. August Richards) system, May comes in with Bobbi (Adrianne Palicki). May tells Simmons that she let Bobbi in on their secret, that Fitz gave them a fake toolbox, and Simmons has been covering for him the entire time. Simmons isn’t happy that Fitz got thrown under the bus, but May points out that it might be a lie, but that lie is saving their skins.
Meanwhile, Coulson (Clark Gregg), Hunter (Nick Blood), Fitz and Deathlok, a.k.a. Mike Richards, track down Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) and Agent 33, (Maya Stojan), whose real name is Kara. (She has her real face back, thanks to a picture from mom.) They form an uneasy alliance with Ward because he has Hydra connections, and those connections will help them find Skye. It turns out Ward still has Bakshi (Simon Kassianides) as a prisoner. They’re going to use him to get into Hydra.
While Hunter and Fitz express their concern over using Bakshi, Ward assures them his brainwashed state will keep him from doing anything dangerous. They send Bakshi in to meet with Dr. List (Henry Goodman), along with Deathlok, to keep an eye on things. (And send those things back through his eye camera so they can observe.) Things go south quickly when Bakshi says he’ll hand over Mike to Hydra for experiments. Back on the bus, Coulson and Ward fight over whether the plan will work. But then Dr. List gets word about a gifted they’ve been tracking: Gordon. List’s plane takes off, and Coulson and his group follow. They wind up in (you guessed it) Milwaukee.
Now everyone who’s anyone is in Cal’s office building. Lincoln (Luke Mitchell) shows up (he was watching Skye to make sure she was safe). He tries to get Skye out of there, but Cal realizes he was getting dumped. Hydra shows up and starts firing. Cal sends Lincoln and Skye away and goes after the Hydra agents. Skye gets away, but Lincoln tangles with Deathlok, who is trying to tell him he’s on Skye’s side. While they’re fighting, however, Hydra shows up with a nifty gadget that knocks them both out, and they’re taken. Grant, Coulson, Hunter, and Kara are trying to find Skye.
Hunter gets shot, but Coulson and Ward find Skye. They’re too late because Gordon teleports her away, even though we hear Skye begging him not to. Ward sums up their situation — out-manned, out-gunned.
Mack and Bobbi arrive to find Coulson, alone. Everyone else is gone, including Hydra. He turns himself in to them.
– A look back at Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2 episode 17
