With Agents of SHIELD often functioning best as a full-throated romp, there were grounds for worrying the Skye-as-hidden-Inhuman plotline would drain the show's momentum as the second half of season two got under way.
But such fears turn out to have been overblown as, just one week after Fitz tearfully explained to Skye that she had been profoundly changed by her interaction with the Diviner, her secret is laid bare to the rest of the crew. The drama going forward will lie in the conflict between their wish to stand by a colleague and the dawning realisation that her powers could pose an existential threat to all humanity.
The reveal comes as SHIELD is forced to act as peace-maker in a pan-dimensional tussle between high-booted Asgardian Lady Sif and a Kree operative seeking to neutralise the 'abominations' unleashed by the Diviner - Skye and newly bristly Raina. Erase these over-powered freaks, he warns, or a terrible reckoning will be brought down on civilisation.
Just how awful that reckoning might be appears to be already obvious to Skye as she trains with May. Sensing the younger agent is holding back, May instructs Skye to lash out with everything at her disposal. The flash of terror across Skye's face confirms May really has no idea what she is talking about.
Her misgivings are swiftly rendered redundant however as, on a beach in faraway Portugal, Lady Sif makes her second Agents of SHIELD appearance, striding creepily from the sea in dead of night.
Never renowned for her playfulness, in this episode Lady Sif comes across particularly severe. She tells a group of strangers she is looking for 'Chava' - when one, albeit sleazily, offers to help locate him/her/it they are tossed 50 feet through the air for their trouble. You can take the Lady out of Asgard etc.
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A demigod striding among us is never going to stay undetected for long and the SHIELD team are duly summoned to Portugal, where a cop with a comedy moustache says the only thing Sif will talk about to anyone is the same, mysterious 'Chava'.
A tete-a-tete in a dingy police station confirms Sif has no recollection of her previous encounter with Agent Coulson. She knows she is from Asgard and that she would quite like to have Odin's autograph ('I met him? Shut up!' she says in a hilarious deadpan). Otherwise, her hard-drive is scrubbed clean.
The question as to how Sif came to be stomping along the shoreline in the pitch dark is answered in the traditional fashion: by searching the internet. Online footage shows her in a sword fight with a very angry man who, upon copping a direct hit from her blade, emits a creepy azure glow. The clip ends with Sif kicked off a pier, the Bluish Meanie disappearing.
But he hasn't gone far and is soon sniffing around a nearby hospital, searching for the liquid nitrogen he requires to metabolize. A face- off with Bobbi and Skye ensues, causing the latter to have another Inhuman freak-out.
Back at mobile command, Sif explains her foe is a Kree alien and that 'Chava' means 'key' in his language. Conveniently, the Portuguese city of Chaves - also meaning key - is nearby and it is here they finally intercept the Kree, hefting a huge metallic case.
The alien, named Vin-Tak, is surprisingly co-operative. Far from an intergalactic ne'er do-well, he is a sort of planet-hopping eco-warrior. Centuries earlier, rogue Kree had laid the groundwork for a race of genetically-modified 'living' weapons on Earth. The detonation of the Diviner was a signal that these nefarious plans had been triggered. He was here to weed out the abominations and secure the remaining Diviners (located in Chaves).
As Vin-Tak elaborates on just how terrible a threat these artificial superheroes pose, Skye begins to lose it again. Bottles shake, lampshades rattle, leading the Kree to realise Skye is one of the monsters he is here to deal with.
For a brief moment you worry Skye might be in real danger. But Bobbi intervenes, subjecting Vin-Tak to the pummelling he's had coming since their earlier encounter. Handily, his inter-dimensional 'truncheon' has the ability to erase memory (that's how Lady Sif ended up mooching, blank faced, around Portugal) - this power is used against him and, with Sif reunited with her ceremonial armour, the now oblivious Kree bids Coulson a warm farewell and beams back to his homeland.
Despite initial pledges of loyalty to Skye, as the episode ends, splinters are appearing in SHIELD's collective resolve. Fitz and Mack have it out about the danger their friend represents - awkwardly, Skye is revealed to have watched the entire exchange (in standing up for her, Fitz is in a minority of one).
However, the truly chilling twist has nothing to do with her story-arc. Instead, it hinges on the bubbling intrigue between Mack and Bobbi. Alarmed at the renewed cosiness between his co-conspirator and Hunter, Mack insists Bobbi push her lover away. But Hunter is already working things out for himself and his confrontation with Mack provides an ominous closing beat.
Earlier, Mack had told Coulson that violence did not come naturally to him. Such reticence is hard to square with the matter-of-fact manner in which he squeezes Hunter's wind-pipe, rendering him unconscious.
'Who You Really Are' is about many things: accepting your true nature, the depressingly conditional nature of friendship. But, in its closing coda are glimmers of a much darker message - that good people can do terrible things when convinced right is on their side.
