Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD Episode 3.08 recap and a preview for the next episode
When Coulson invites Rosalind to check out the SHIELD home base, Mac becomes suspicious. He badgers Phil about his feelings for Rosalind, which he deflects. But then he brings his entire crew around and introduces them to Operation Spotlight. The goal is to “peer into every shadowy corner” of ATCU. So while Rosalind is getting a tour of SHIELD, the rest of the team will infiltrate ATCU and report back.
Daisy and Mac will manage from the plane. Daisy will remotely turn on the honing beacon on Andrew’s containment system, which will freak out IT. Then Bobbi and Hunter move in, as a fed and a hacker, the “tactical response” and get into the ATCU computers. Daisy feeds Hunter all the tech talk he needs to fool IT and allow her access to the system. They find floor plans to the ATCU and feed them to Bobbi, who needs to step out and take a “phone call.” She follows the directions she is given, and expects to find Andrew and the other inhumans in containment pods. But she doesn’t find any of that. She doesn’t find tissue samples which would suggest that ATCU was actually trying to find a cure for inhumanism. She does find what looks suspiciously like fish oil pills, and in a freezer, tucked into big black bins, she finds the results of humans who were not transformed by the terrigen.
Back at SHIELD, Rosalind seems to be enjoying her tour, which ends in one of the containment rooms. Coulson puts the room into lockdown and demands answers. His people have already infiltrated ATCU and will report back, so this is her last chance to come clean. She makes an emotional appeal, thinking she was being used for intelligence. Coulson finally reveals that he knows Andrew isn’t being kept at the ATCU. “Of course not,” Rosalind retorts. Then Coulson brings up Tahiti, which Rosalind mentioned when she and Coulson first met. The only way she could have known about Tahiti was from a top-level SHIELD agent, or Hydra. Rosalind again deflects and tries to turn the conversation to their relationship. He then tells her about the “enhanced specimen control,” that his team discovered there was no attempt to create a cure. This comes as a genuine shock to Rosalind. She goes over this new info with what she had been told and realized she was duped by an old friend: Gideon Malick. He oversees the science division, and he was the one who gave her the Tahiti intel.
Inside ATCU, Hunter glances Banks and realizes they have to get out of there now. He races to bring Bobbi her briefcase, where she has a fancy toy that can make it look like she throws a pair of batons telepathically. The two fight an inhuman and his goons. Banks comes in, but not to kill them – to help them escape. As soon as Rosalind realized Gideon was lying to her, she called Banks and told him they are all on the same side. May and Lincoln make up the extraction team and get them safely out of there.
While all this is going down, FitzSimmons are trying to figure out a way to bring Will home. Fitz is doing his best to help his friend, but Simmons doesn’t want his help anymore. It isn’t fair that she is asking him to rescue a man that she is pretty sure she is in love with. But she is also mad that Fitz isn’t mad about the whole thing. Fitz, finally, erupts. He is furious, this whole situation is unfair, he thinks they are cursed, that the universe is keeping them apart. The two have it out over how unfair this whole situation is, how they can’t get their timing down, and Fitz finally grabs Simmons and kisses her hard. When he pulls away, Simmons goes back in for seconds. She wants to keep going, but Fitz pulls away for good. “We’re cursed,” he grumbles. As he starts to leave, Simmons sees something in an overturned book that brings all the pieces together.
Meanwhile, after Gideon sends some goons in to kill Ward (they fail) he finds out the location of the Von Strucker vault that he needs. It’s somewhere in Germany. He hops a plane to Moscow because it will fly right over the vault location, and blows the door open so he can parachute down. When he lands in the vault, Gideon is already there, and he is surprised to see Ward alive, and that he found the secret vault. If you can’t beat them, join them. Gideon finally wants to work with Ward, which will include using Andrew in his monster form. Yeah, this vault is where Andrew’s container ended up. In the vault, Gideon also reveals the history of Hydra.
Hydra, as Ward knows it, was born out of the Red Skulls which, in turn, came from Nazis. But Hydra began thousands of years before and reveals a small chunk of the monolith, contained in a Plexiglass box. This piece, cut from a larger monolith, has “otherworldly properties” and opens up a portal to another world. Ancient Pagans sent a healer with enormous power through the portal, stranding it on this planet. Hydra was formed with the sole purpose of bringing this entity back. Every generation has sent men through the portal. Gideon wants Ward to find out how SHIELD was able to do what hundreds of years of Hydra were unable to do: bring someone back. Andrew will be part of this plot, and it seems he is also going to be sent through the portal.
I mentioned that Simmons “saw” something in a book. When the whole team gets back to SHIELD, she and Fitz present their findings. The ram’s head symbol that they have found seems to intertwine with Pagan devil myths and blood sacrifices. That symbol has evolved over generations. Rosalind says she met Gideon while working on a project with NASA… which had, at one point, that symbol that resembles the ram’s head. That symbol also resembles Hydra. It’s all interconnected, and it looks like Rosalind was truly in the dark on the whole thing. As far as I can tell, the “thing” that Will and Simmons were hiding from on that planet was this Pagan entity… and Simmons is maybe-in-love-with a Hydra agent.
Check out a promo for the next new episode, “Closure,” airing December 1st.
