We're not messing about this week.
It's bonkers central!
Everyone seems to be stressed, afraid, cracking up, psychotic, flying off the handle or looking forward to genocide, and all in the first few minutes !
We start with a Navy wedding dinner, which ends up with corpses aplenty, covered in same substance that the Obelisk transforms people into.
This is a HYDRA experiment on the way to weaponising the mysterious alien artefact for nefarious purposes. Well I'm assuming it's nefarious purposes, maybe they're working on a massive sculpture and thought they'd just turn everyone to stone to save on artist wages.
The opening of the episode is really a red herring, or possibly a dead herring considering the body count. This week is more about the characters and ongoing story arcs. That's loads this week and it's great.
Best episode of the season so far I reckon.
Raina calls on the mysterious "Doctor" (Kyle MacLachlan) in his dingy practice, where he's patching up bullet ridden criminals, and he's clearly not orbiting planet sane, obsessed with the Obelisk and finding his daughter, although he declares that Skye is not her real name.
Raina wants help to avoid the tender mercies of Doctor Whitehall (now being referred to as Daniel Whitehall, presumably so the audience can determine which Doctor is which), by getting the Obelisk back on loan.
The Doctor, the new one not the old one, proceeds to give Raina a little throttling. That's a "No" I believe.
There's a nice touch to the introduction of the Doctor, as he punches his reflection in a window , anyone remember Kyle smashing up his reflection in any other genre shows?
Speaking of Skye, she's clashing with Coulson over the Mystic Symbols, and taking more and more interest in meeting up with her dad. As the team start to catch up on Daddy, Skye realises that the trail of brutally slaughtered bodies may be a teeny indicator that his bedside manner isn't all flowers and chocolates.
Raina is now caught between the Daniel-Doctor and Kyle-Doctor over possession of the Obelisk and a demand to procure Skye as promised, so she takes the only option that she can, trying to blackmail Coulson into getting her out of the jam she's in. This puts one of the team right in the firing line.
Coulson is fantastic in this episode, complex, authoritarian, ruthless and vulnerable. His solution to Raina's gambit shows him at his Machiavellian best and is a real eye opener.
Simmons is back and it's clear that HYDRA are closing in on potential leaks in their organisation. As the net closes she falls under suspicion and no matter how hard she tries, her new pursuer will not back off...
A great action scene follows, with a new character giving out some proper kickings in a style that'll have anyone familiar with the Marvel Universe pointing at the screen shouting ...
"That's just like..."
I'm not going to spoil it.
By the end of the episode, the two Doctors meet up, there will probably be blood, lots and lots of blood, and to be honest, I'm not sure if either of them care if it's S.H.I.E.L.D. or HYDRA that will shed the most.
Oh, and Lance Hunter is almost entirely not a dick throughout this episode! Until the last few minutes that is.
This is an exhausting energy filled episode, full of complexity, action, intrigue, great characterisation, shocks, emotion and surprises.
Marvellous. Pun intended.