While bringing Ward back into the story in a meaningful and logical way was a big step towards setting up the endgame, this felt more like set-up for the next installment than a full-fledged episode of its own.  And that makes sense; this is part of the show’s lead-in/tie-in to certain elements of Age of Ultron.  I suspect that the next episode will make the connections more obvious, beyond stray comments about Strucker and Hydra’s desire to procure and utilize “powered” individuals.  But that also means that this episode was, to an extent, marking time. 

It’s actually good to see the characters bringing up Hydra, because given the level of internecine warfare and Inhuman introduction of late, that looming threat wasn’t getting the attention it deserved.  Part of that was tracking towards the status quo as per Age of Ultron, but part of it was also setting up the stakes for all the various players in the drama.  As I’ve said many times in defense of the first half of the first season: we need to understand what makes the characters tick if we’re supposed to care when bad things happen to them.


One nice touch is the follow-up on the implication that Coulson has been and continues to be willing to step over the moral line, not unlike his mentor Nick Fury.  While one can see the allure of giving Ward the TAHITI option, there’s something inherently disturbing about that idea.  I am reminded of the “death of personality” concept from Babylon 5, in which the irredeemable are given a “second chance” by having a new, more compliant personality imprinted over the existing one.  It’s a little better in this case, in that Coulson is offering it to Ward as a choice, but even putting that on the table is problematic.

A big part of the episode was devoted to Skye trying to keep her father from going on a rampage once he discovered that he wasn’t going to be allowed to stay at Afterlife.  And to be fair, much of that material was solid; it makes sense for Skye to want to learn more about her true identity.  That said, it was a significant amount of the episode’s runtime, and that contributed to the sense that this was just another step towards something bigger to come.