Welcome back to S.H.I.E.L.D. Exposed, agents! It’s been a long time. Too long, for my tastes. So what’s happened the new status quo for our team?

In short; shit’s fucked. The (yet unseen) new Director seems like a bureaucratic douche-nozzle; separating the team, initiating a colour-coded security hierarchy and wrapping SHIELD in a mountain of red-tape. Not that Daisy is fairing any better as a fugitive but soon the two camps are on a collision course due a new, flame-headed player.

I’m glad to see the gang again but even less so that they’re not working together as a tight-knit unit. Mack and Coulson are field agents while Fitz and May lead their own departments while Simmons has become part of the Director’s inner circle in a sly effort to maintain control.

Fitz has maintained his friendship with inventor Holden Radcliffe, who decides now is the best time to unveil his first Life Model Decoy, AIDA. Mallory Jansen does a pretty good job of making a benign robot be utterly sinister. Or maybe I’m projecting because she’s going to go rogue, right? She has to. It’s like Chekov’s Sexbot or something.

During the course of the episode, a deal between the Aryan Brotherhood and the Korean mob goes south (who’da thunk?) and something is unleashed. Well… Someone. Not named in the episode, this spectral being known as Lucy seems to have the ability to warp people’s perceptions and drive them mad. Is she powered, Inhuman or maybe even a g-g-g-ghost!? Given the supernatural leaning this season, it’s safe to say this is one of the mystic Marvel characters but I have no idea who that could be off the top of my head.

But, of course, this is all an appetiser for the main course. Flame-broiled and spicy hot, the latino Robbie Reyes (played by Gabriel Luna) makes on hell of an impression in his first appearance. I really dug the car-flipping call back to the comics in the cold open and Luna’s performance is… interesting. I know Reyes’ deal but I’m wondering how much of that is being played with here or if his bipolar performance is just bad acting. I hope it’s the former. We also get a peak at another important plot point for Reyes; namely his brother, Gabe.

The skull CGI is much more impressive than I thought it would be and actually looks like a decent mix between Reyes’ silver noggin and the bone skulls of previous Riders. It also emotes! That’s pretty cool.

SHIELD’s return is an explosive, fuel-injected, enjoyable ride and sets up tons of new plot lines for the rest of the season. Next time we’ll be getting even more as we finally get to Meet the New Boss.

The mid-season finale is upon us, SHIELD fans, and while I wondered if this would live up to the prospective hype of The Bridge last season and it knocks it out of the park!

Mack’s missing, Skye’s been kidnapped, Hydra is digging into the city and shit’s generally fucked. In the midst of all this tension, we get some nice bits of humour and levity, particularly from Hunter.

Kyle MacLachlan is on fine form, whether acting like the nervous father meeting his daughter for the first time, the grieving widow or the vengeful monster. It’s a testament to his acting chops that he goes through all these stages in 20mins and it feels organic for the character. We finally get his name, which is Cal, and I can stop calling him The Doctor. He loses control after Coulson kills Whitehall, robbing him of his revenge and proceeds to beat Coulson like an egg until Skye threatens to kill him/calls him dad. He reluctantly leaves but not before revealing her name; Daisy.

Ward continues to play the nutty sociopath we all love to hate. His actions are more on the side of heroic this episode but Raina is quick to call out his reasons and Whitehall takes advantage of that. Not only that, the audience gets some delicious catharsis when Skye is set free and proceeds to empty a clip into Ward’s ass. He survives, thanks to some padding and Agent 33’s assistance, and he lives to hopefully return as a smug cock one day.

Meat and potatoes of the episode is clearly the revelation of… stuff. But first, a moment of silence for Trip. Exposed to an alien mist, Triplett slowly carbonised like many other victims of the diviner and crumbled to dust in front of Skye. Yes, it’s a shame a character played by a black actor died but, really, Trip wasn’t getting anymore character development or screen time than Koenig and was way less interesting so why not bump him off? On the plus side, it appears Mack regained control of himself after the whole incident.

And finally, the main course. The Inhuman Awakening. Once inside the underground city, Skye and Raina (along with Trip) get trapped in a stone chamber, which opens to reveal a Terrigen crystal and the two women proceed to be enveloped by cocoons after being exposed to the Terrigen mists. Trip dies and the two emerge, Raina transformed into something all the more beastial while Skye appears unchanged, until the sight of her friend reduced to ashes causes her to tense and the room and surface above tremble violently.

Daisy Johnson stands revealed as the Inhuman Agent of SHIELD; Quake. It’s fantastic to see our first super-powered female human in the MCU is a character we’ve seen develop over the course of two seasons and I’m all in favour of the Inhuman storyline developing through TV in the lead up to the movie. Post credits scene reveals yet another Inhuman, a seemingly blind man, with another diviner. YOOOOOOO!

As expected, the Inhuman plotline advances and so much more can be made of the actions and events of this episode! A flawless episode of SHIELD and I can only hope those repercussions are felt when we return in Spring! See you then!