This is precisely the kind of character I was hoping we would see when Kyle MacLachlan was cast as Skye’s father.  Beyond simply the inhuman aspects of his nature, literal and metaphorical, there are subtle elements of the portrayal that make him even more of a threat than Whitehall.  And Whitehall had established himself as a fairly credible villain, given how Raina is terrified of him.

 

If we didn’t have enough reason to believe that Skye was potentially part-alien, this episode seems to seal the deal.  The fact that she’s not reacting to the Kree hormones like Garrett or Coulson have suggests very strongly that the alien DNA in question is Kree.  That, however, is not a given; longtime Marvel readers may know that there are pink-skinned Kree, but that hasn’t been established at all in the MCU.  The writers could easily go another way.

 

Another huge boost to the episode was the true introduction of Bobbi Morse, aka Mockingbird.  There were some very intentional visual similarities between Bobbi’s takedown of the Hydra guards and Black Widow’s best scenes in Iron Man 2.  After all, it seems rather clear that Bobbi is meant to fulfill roughly the same role, giving SHIELD two incredibly awesome female ass-kickers to work with!  (And how ironic is it that Adrianne Palicki was the one who played Wonder Woman in that atrocious pilot a few years ago?)

 

It’s all so good that it’s easy to overlook that the writers are treading a very fine line when it comes to Hydra’s competence level.  If Hydra hadn’t been portrayed previously as a bit overconfident in the wake of their dismantling of the old SHIELD, it would be harder to believe that they would miss the obvious signs regarding Simmons.  It might have worked better if Simmons was left in place a little longer, only for it to be revealed that Whitehall knew her true allegiance all along, and was feeding her misinformation.

 

But that’s a minor nitpick compared to the strengths of the episode, which derive from this season’s massive boost in confidence.  The show isn’t afraid to go into truly disturbing territory, and the characters have been established well enough that the tension between Coulson and Skye comes across as genuine instead of forced.  With the whole team back together, the big question is where they go from here.  It’s certainly not good that Whitehall has the Obelisk.

 

On the other hand, if Skye’s father helps Whitehall figure out how to handle the Obelisk and survive it, that might lead to a solution to Coulson’s condition.  It bears keeping in mind that this season is going to be split in two parts, and we may be approaching the mid-point of this segment’s arc.  Given some of the criticisms of the slow pacing in the first season, parsing it up into two mini-seasons of story might not be the worst option.