I’m not sure that I was expecting the writers for Agents of SHIELD to have permission to name-check Attilan at this stage of the game, so seeing them dance around the topic was a small source of amusement.  I say “small”, because there wasn’t a lot of amusement to be had, when so much drama and action was unfolding.  Once a Whedon production gets to the point where the dominoes start to fall on the characters, plenty of time is spent on each and every piece of psychological fallout.

 

I was a little more surprised to see an apparent loss of a team member, though I suppose that I should have seen it coming, after the shocking early departure of Lucy Lawless in the season premiere.  I say “apparent”, because who knows what actually happened in that shaft to the ancient city?  Having that level of security on access to the city makes a lot of sense, especially in terms of framing the team’s understanding of what they are encountering.

 

Anticipating the Kree/Inhuman connection can easily gloss over the logic of how all of this is being approached on the series.  From the perspective of both SHIELD and Hydra, the city is a complete unknown, and just the legends of the Kree are a new and questionable concept.  They are still digging around the edges of what longtime Marvel readers have long worked out; it can create an odd sense of impatience.

 

What can be lost in translation is how many other plot threads are coming together at the same time.  Skye’s parentage has been a long-standing mystery, and I love the idea that she and Raina are “cousins” with a common Kree-ish ancestry.  Along with the escalation of Skye’s melee abilities, this has been a big part of making Skye a more rounded and interesting character.  Folks should have seen this coming, given the reason she came into the story in the first place, but now that the narrative trigger has been pulled, she’s not the “Mary Sue” that so many detractors pegged her to be.

 

Despite being a relatively minor subplot, the breakdown of the relationship between Fitz and Simmons is one of the more gut-wrenching elements of the episode (and the second season, for that matter).  Fitz was leaning so hard on his new friendship, as an alternative to working with Simmons and the discomfort that comes along with that, that the events of this episode could be even more devastating.  It could lead to a situation where Fitz comes to rely on Simmons in a different way, so they heal together, or it could continue to drive them apart.

 

By limiting the number of characters that can enter the city and/or the temple, it raise the possibility that Agents of SHIELD could touch on the boundaries of the Kree, the Inhumans, and so forth, without actually having to get into detail and base the entire story around the nature of the city.  I wonder if it will even get to the point where entering the city is even an option, or if it will remain an Easter Egg-ish McGuffin.  Regardless, this is the kind of plotting that is making this season one of the most improved shows on the air.