Daniel Whitehall and his right hand man, Bakshi, are trying to break a former SHIELD agent. She only goes by the name of Agent 33.  Agent 33 is undergoing brain washing techniques (similar to those from the movie A Clockwork Orange) and these techniques are the basis throughout the episode.

For the first time this season, we see actually Simmons and not just the Simmons that is running around in Fitz’s head. Simmons is going to work and enjoying her day like a normal individual. Then we find out that Simmons is working for Hydra.

Product Placement Alert 

Skye is at the shooting range with May. Skye hits all of the targets and tells May that she imagined that the targets were all Grant Ward. May wants her to take this more serious. In what can be described as a the worst overrun advertising campaign ever, Skye checks her pulse thought one of those cool BPM wrist devices that no one in hell that is not training for the Olympics (or SHIELD) would ever buy. Skye, checking her pulse is something that happens in pretty much every scene in this episode that Skye is in.

Enter The Blizzard 

Somewhere in Morocco, actually Marrakech, we find Donnie Gill – the science nerd that shared a close bond to Fitz in season one. He repairs an electronic item for a man at a resort and then asks for a job because he actually likes it there. The man he asks tells Donny that he can stay there because he knows that Gill is hiding from something. Gill gets enraged because he realizes that this man has sold him out and he touches him, turning him into ice. Gill gained the ability to freeze anything by touching it through the weather balloon accident in season one. Two Hydra agents immediately show up and try and “recruit” Gill. This doesn’t exactly work out as Gill freezes one of the man. The other runs away. Gill then pushes over the man who works there and his head falls off.

Simmons goes back home after a long day at the Hydra office. Coulson is there and wonders why Simmons only has beer and sriracha in her fridge. Coulson cooks an actual meal for her while she tells Coulson what she knows.  I haven’t made it clear that Simmons is working undercover at Hydra for Coulson. Simmons feels that she is being undervalued by Hydra because they have not promoted her yet. Coulson tells her that she needs to make friends. Simmons tells Coulson that Gill is being pinpointed by Hydra. Coulson takes this information to the team, but he leaves out the part that Simmons is his informant.

In Gill’s hostility toward Hydra he actually goes to the place where the two agents were to take him to Maribel Del Mar. Gill freezes the boat at this pier. Back at Hydra, Simmons gets taken upstairs to Bakshi. Bakshi says that Hydra doesn’t trust her because she never revealed that she know Gill. He basically tells her that she will accompany them to bring back Gill, or she will die.

The two major points to this whole episode

A team of Hydra agents led by Simmons head out to get Gill, as does the team of SHIELD agents, including May, Skye and Hunter. They all encounter Gill on the boat. Hydra gets to him first. Simmons tried to bring Gill in by using his triggers. Yes, Gill had been brainwashed in the past by Hydra but escaped. She doesn’t exactly do it correctly.

Back at HQ, Fitz goes to the vault where he finds Ward. Fitz is taken aback by this as he didn’t know who or what was down there. Fitz feels betrayed by Ward because he sorta tried to kill him and Simmons. Ward tells Fitz that he tried to give them a fighting chance. A chance in which Fitz came out alive so everything is good right? Fitz doesn’t see it that way and tells Ward about his brain damage. He then shows Ward first hand what that is like by cutting Ward’s oxygen. Luckily for Ward, he convinces Fitz not to kill him by telling him that Gill has been brainwashed and is a danger to SHIELD.

May and Hunter are over top of Gill and Hunter levels his gun to kill Simmons, not knowing who she is.  May saves Simmons by shooting Hunter (getting revenge for him shooting her last week). May is the only one that knows that Simmons is working undercover, and this was the only way to save her without blowing her cover.

Simmons and Gill run towards Bakshi. Who then properly triggers Gill. Bakshi gets Gill to freeze the door and to make sure any members of SHIELD do not get out alive. Skye is overheard with a sniper rifle and then shoots Gill, the first kill of her life. Gill drops overboard into a sheet of ice that he created while trying to freeze the boat. Skye again checks her pulse.

After Credits scene

Skye goes down to the vault. The two (Ward and Skye) chit chat and Ward tells her that her father is alive. He tells her that he is looking for her and Ward wants to one day bring her to meet him. Skye rushes out of the room and checks her pulse again. For the first time this episode, it is not level and is skyrocketing.

At the very end of the episode, Whitehall is in his office and Agent 33 comes in and is completely brainwashed and subservient now.

This episode really disappointed me. The episode just seemed to drag on. Of course it’s always good to see Marvel using one of their lesser known villains. It just seemed as if there were not enough. Maybe in the coming weeks this episode will be key as to Simmons infiltrating Hydra, but today, I was just not feeling it.