The Breakdown
Agent Maria Hill is walking down the street leaving the department of justice. She is on the phone with someone telling the person on the other line about her tales. One of the people she thinks is a new tail disappears, then the rest of her tales are either knocked or of dead. May approaches Hill about Coulson and the Tahiti project. Hill tells May that she doesn’t know who Fury got the order from. May thinks it may be Pierce, as he was the only one Fury took an order from and Pierce was HYDRA. Hill is still not sure. May leaves and the FBI apprehends Hill.
Coulson, Fitz, Simmons and Triplet are going over the footage of May leaving (Providence) and Ward and Skye boarding the BUS. There is no other footage. Simmons goes off to make something to eat for the team. Fitz runs behind her. Simmons is looking for pancake mix (as she thinks that will cheer Coulson up). Fitz goes to heat up the griddle. Fitz goes past Koenig’s office and notices that one of the pictures has a nighttime background and the other has a daytime. The pictures are supposed to be in sync with the current time of day. Fitz sees a knife blocking the nighttime scene from turning and when he releases it. There is a message saying that “Ward is HYDRA”. Simmons has found the pancake mix and notices blood. A scream goes through the Providence base the team is in. Ward and Skye are still on the BUS. Skye unplugs the encryption device while pretending to look for the SAT phone. Ward goes over to her and tells her that he talked to Coulson a little while ago and that everything is OK.
Simmons is doing an autopsy on Koenig and Fitz does not believe that Ward is a HYDRA agent. Upon Simmons findings, Koenig died after the time that May left and was strangled by a tall, strong person. Simmons then doesn’t hold back and tells the team that Ward did this. Fitz freaks out and starts throwing stuff. Triplet tries to clam Fitz down. At the cafe where Skye meet Mike Peterson, she is trying to take her time to decrypt the drive. She gets a red screen and gets nervous. Ward calls her on it and she tells him that this is the same both she meet Peterson in. She is nervous because they were good guys a few weeks ago and now they are being hunted by the FBI. Ward is trying to settle her nerves so she can crack the drive. It doesn’t seem to work as two uniformed police officers come into the bar. Signals are going off in Providence that someone is breaching the base. Coulson and Triplet gun up to meet the HYDRA forces that are there to capture this base. A team of army soldiers come in led by Colonel Talbot. Coulson is surprised to see him there. Coulson asks how does the army know about a SHIELD classified base. Maria Hill walks out and tells Coulson that she told them.
Simmons, Fitz and Triplet are being interrogated by Talbot who wants more Intel on SHIELD. Simmons gets upset because she has told them about agent Ward, yet Talbot refuses to do anything. Hill is with Coulson, alone trying to get Coulson a deal by selling out his team and telling Talbot about another SHIELD facility. Coulson jumps on Hill’s case because he still wants answers about Tahiti. He tells Hill that he would have kept it a secret just like he has kept everything else of Hill’s and Fury’s a secret. He then tells her that Garrett is alive and Ward is HYDRA. Hill takes offense to this because she vetted Ward. When Talbot and his men come in, Hill and Coulson fight them off. Coulson grabs a knock-out gun and shoots the rest of the solders that came with Talbot. Hill tells them that they have to move because time is of the essence. In the bar, Skye is still prolonging the hack in order to buy time. She asks Ward what is it like being undercover. Then begins to ask him what would he say to Garrett (before he shoot him) if he has the chance. She wants to know if he would call him out for being a low down dirty snake and every other nasty name in the book. Ward starts to get paranoid seeing more cop cars roll by. Ward asks Skye what is she getting at and she turns the PC around. It shows Ward’s picture as being a known fugitive and Skye tells Ward “Hail HYDRA!”. The police come in and draw on Skye and Ward. Skye tells them that he (Ward) is dangerous. Three or four police officers still let Ward kick their asses, in one of Ward’s most bad ass performances of the season. Skye runs out of the bar where 2 more officers are, she assaults them so that they can detain her and Ward shoots the two of them. Skye drives off in the police cruiser. As she is driving down the street, Deathlok jumps in the air crashing into the police car.
Skye, Ward and DeathLok are on the plane. Ward is trying to tell Skye that he is a spy and this is just a mission but his feeling for her are real. Skye calls Ward a Nazi. DeathLok is trying to decrypt the drive without Skye. Skye tells Ward that the Red Skull was a Nazi therefore HYRDA was founded by a Nazi. Ward sticks to the point that he is a spy doing a job for Garrett. DeathLok gets a message saying that Garrett is growing impatient and to go to plan B. DeathLok and Ward go into the room and Ward tells Skye to unlock the drive or DeathLok will kill her. She tells them no. DeathLok tells them that isn’t the plan. DeathLok shots some sort of device into Ward which gives him a heart attack. If Skye doesn’t decrypt the device, Ward will die. Deathlok asks her is she a murderer? Skye tries to bring the good out of Deathlok speaking of his son and this is a no go. As Ward is barely hanging on, Skye tells Deathlok that the devices encryption isn’t location-based its altitude based. If they get the plane to 33,000 feet she can run the hack. Deathlok resuscitates Ward and tells him to get the plane off the ground. Ward is hurting badly and tells Deathlok he can barely walk. Deathlok gives him a charge and slaps Ward on the face (telling him that should help). Deathlok frees Skye in order to do the hack. As Ward is about to get the plane in the air, Hill and Triplet are in front of the BUS on another plane and tell them to keep the plane grounded or she (Hill) will send F-16’s to ground them. Ward calls her on that as SHIELD doesn’t have that kind of pull anymore. Hill tells Ward that she never liked him but didn’t take him for Garrett’s lap-dog. Ward tells her that he hated Hill ever since Fury made her 2nd in command. Stating that if Fury wanted some eye candy, Fury should have picked Romanoff. Ward prepares to put the plane in the air. Triplet asks if she (Hill) wants him to follow them. Hill tells her no, she is just hoping that they brought enough time. Coulson is boarding the BUS via the landing gear.
Coulson boards the plane and frees Skye in the lock up room. Skye tells Coulson that she decrypted the drive, Coulson tells her no worries they have to move to get Ward. Skye asks Coulson how he got pass Deathlok? Coulson looks in shock at Skye and says “Deathlok is on this plane? The plan has changed. Coulson tells Skye to go to the cargo hold and Deathlok is in front of Coulson. Coulson tells Skye to get into Lola and buckle up. Coulson shoots Lola’s guns at Ward and Deathlok and Ward shoots back hitting Lola. Coulson drives Lola out of the BUS and Skye falls into the air because she didn’t buckle up for safety. Lola goes out of control as they are failing to the ground. Coulson finally gets Lola under control and they land into a parking space. Their hair is both a mess, the attendant at the Nokia theater asks for the 20 dollar parking fee. Ward tells Deathlok that they have to go back and get Skye Deathlok tells Ward that is not the orders. Ward tells him if he tries that heart stunt again he will kill him. Deathlok tells Ward “nothing personal”.
Coulson is loading up his gun telling Maria that they need ammo, guns and a base. Maria tells him that it’s over. Fury is dead and they have no support. She understands that he wants to get Garrett and Ward but after that give up. Hill tells him she can always get him a job working for Stark. Coulson doesn’t like the sound of that, being Tony still thinks he’s dead and all. Fitz and Simmons have a moment by the pool. Fitz asks Simmons to reassure him that she isn’t HYDRA. She tells him that she isn’t. Coulson, Fitz, Simmons and Triplet are all at a motel.
End credits scene + Something I sorta forgot to mention…
Coulson goes into his motel room where May is standing there. Coulson is glad that she is back and she tells him that he needs to see something. When Hill meet May in the beginning of this episode. Hill mention that Fury told her that he buried anything about Tahiti with Coulson. Also stating that Fury spoke in riddles. In a scene during the show, May is seen digging in what was Coulson’s grave and retrieves a hard drive. What follow is what was on the hard drive, which IS the end credits scene.
Footage of Agent Coulson stating his resignation. He tells Fury that he can no longer perform and go along with overseeing the testing of the Tahiti project. Fury started the project to bring back to life an Avenger in case of extreme circumstances. Coulson says that outside of the physical all of the subjects experienced some sort of psychosis or complete psychosis. Coulson also states that the only thing that didn’t lead to the psychosis is totally erasing the subjects memory and even that did not work in 100 percent of the subjects. Coulson states that he can not recommend nor continue to do the experiments on test subjects and recommends that project Tahiti be shut down. Upon Coulson hearing the tape he says “Oh”
The Analysis
I was freaking out from the opening when Hill was mentioning working for Tony Stark! I could have given that episode a 10 just from the opening sequence and tie in. Not only that we got Colonel Talbot AND Deathlok. Best episode ever. As I have stated before Marvel can give us all that “we” want when “they” want. Should they do it every week, NO it would take away from the enormity of the episodes. This show is amazing to be honest I don’t understand why another channel has never “thought” to integrate a TV show with a movie in some sort of way. Leave it to the genius that is Marvel!