Apart from a bone fide Avenger showing up! Bobbi “Mockingbird” Morse makes her debut in this episode and is easily the highlight. Adrianne Palicki, best known for her failed Wonder Woman performance and being Lady Jaye in GI Joe 2, and her role in the latter is definitely going to help her as she first shows up as She-Wolf of the SS, menacing Simmons as Hydra’s security chief but it’s soon revealed that she was a double agent too and breaks out her weapons to beat on guards in a daring escape. Palicki is a brilliant actress in this role and I’m glad we’ve got a proper Avenger on the team now and Simmons practically swoons in her presence which is fun.

Fitz also has a bit of a homoerotic experience as HeadSimmons makes not of how attractive Mack is and Fitz owns it, pointing out that she’s a part of his sub-conscience and agrees with her. It really shows Fitz’s progress that he can freely admit that HeadSimmons isn’t real and she’s a crutch to help him when he gets flustered. The real Simmons shows up and we’re bound to see a real heart-to-heart between the two in the coming episodes.

The alien writing and Skye’s father form the A-Plot and bugger me, it’s dragging. Coulson finally reveals his affliction to Skye and his concerns that she isn’t scribbling too, given that she was exposed to the GH.325 too. Raina is in a tough spot and this once great manipulator is relegated to little more than a mewling quim, BEGGING for help from Coulson when she’s threatened by both Hydra and Skye’s father. Kyle Maclachlan gets a little more to do in this episode and he’s portraying The Doctor (that’s still weird, going to keep calling him “Skye’s Dad”) as a man barely in control of this monstrous rage inside him. He’s clearly a bad guy but when it comes to his daughter, he wants to be something better, though that image is shattered when she finds a pile of bodies. In typical psycho fashion, he blames Coulson and goes to Hydra for an alliance, as long as it means Coulson’s death.

A good episode, nothing outstanding but a solid episode with some fun new characters. Next week we’ll get to see Mockingbird suit up and I don’t think it’ll disappoint!