Sometimes it’s nice to see things from a different perspective, and spending time with Kyle McLachlan’s Cal and friends brought some comedic value to the series as Team Coulson tried to navigate the choppy waters of Skye’s new nature.  One gets the sense that this would be more effective with slightly better casting, but they can’t all be winners.

 

Drea deMatteo’s Karla Gideon was definitely the least effective part of the episode.  Those surgically-implanted razor blades looked terrible, and the character herself lacked gravitas.  Part of that is the problem that anyone would have acting with or against McLachlan’s frenzied Cal.  I didn’t really have a reason to care about Karla or the other villains, which is an issue when they are given so much screen time.


So it’s a good thing that the episode focused a lot more on Cal’s personal vendetta against Coulson, with Skye caught in the middle.  This is only going to escalate should Cal manage to gain allies among the Inhumans.  Skye’s issues of identity play into this as well.  Skye may not have had much reason to go along with Hydra when her father was working for them, but what about others who have been the result of terrigenesis?  To be fair, Skye/Daisy really is “one of them”, despite Coulson’s attempt to downplay her place on the “index”.

One other interesting aspect is that Agent May gets some much needed background in this episode, both as Skye’s ongoing trainer and mentor and uber-hot ex-wife.  May is terrible at work/life balance, and operates on the “conceal, don’t feel” self-control concept.  Unfortunately, directing one’s anxiety and negative emotions inward has an actual physical effect on Skye: she doesn’t control her ability so much as use it on herself, causing internal injuries.  This feeds into the notion that Skye needs the guidance of the Inhumans far more than she does the flawed advice of her teammates.


Meanwhile, it’s great to see that my suspicions were correct: Bobbi and Mack are, in fact, members of a splinter group within SHIELD that doesn’t recognize Coulson’s “Director” status.  This is a logical direction to go, because we were never given a reason why all of the non-Hydra members of SHIELD would have agreed to fall in line with Coulson in the first place.  Add to that Coulson’s issues with his mental state earlier in the season, and Bobbi and Mack are less villainous than well-intentioned.  





We also get more of the fallout between Fitz and Simmons, and it is heartbreaking.  I continue to disagree with those who say the first season was unnecessary and rubbish; if it wasn’t for all that time with the characters before the Hydra reveal and the changes that followed, these lingering consequences wouldn’t matter.  The good moments in this episode only served to remind us, for now, how those lighter moments have been lost.