The gloomy sensibility Agents of SHIELD frequently wraps itself in can feel like a concession to a non-geek audience. See - we're grim and grown-up, just like your favourite shows. Nothing to be frightened of here.
So it's always a joy when SHIELD forgets that it is supposed to be sucking in its cheeks and looking miserable and gets on with the satisfying business of being a high-powered comic book adaptation.
There is plenty of gleeful chicanery in 'One of Us', which drills deeper into Skye's existential confusion over her newly-awakened powers while tacking on a satisfyingly loopy villain(s) of the week plot, enhanced by reliably zany overacting from Kyle MacLachlan as Skye's father, Cal.
In terms of the wider arc of the season, the big reveal is right at the close as Mack shares with Hunter, abducted at the end of last week, the bombshell that he and Bobbi work for a secret organisation called... SHIELD. "Huh?" Hunter mouths silently (he's spent the entire episode locked in a cupboard so you can't blame him for lack of verbal ingenuity).
"SHIELD," says Mack. "The real SHIELD."
It's a gawp-inducing payoff in an instalment that sometimes seems as if it is having fun for its own sake. It begins with a nicely low-key opening, as a dishevelled women with high maintenance nails - actually metal barbs that can rip your throat - is interrupted at dinner.
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A glance through the spy-hole reveals the caller is Cal, with two random goons. She presumes they are from SHIELD, which earns her a winningly bonkers glare. "We are absolutely NOT from SHIELD," Cal insists, explaining in his rambling, peripatetic manner that he is assembling a team of anti-superheroes: brave souls driven underground by SHIELD because they are different ( "Feels good doesn't it… freedom?" he cackles).
Less immediately compelling is the unfolding Skye storyline. She's still wrestling with her powers - to date they have consisted of an ability to remotely demolish shelving whenever anyone shouts in her direction - and has been talked into consulting a shrink who may help her make peace with her drastically altered circumstances.
But what psychologist is qualified to analyse a SHIELD operative? Agent May knows just the chap: her ex-husband Dr. Andrew Garner. As wryly portrayed by Blair Underwood, Garner is a likeable foil for the hard-boiled SHIELD maven - deadpan and not in the least impressed by her take-no-prisoners exterior.
The tete-a-tete between May and Skye is sweetly staged but already her weekly outpouring of angst feels overplayed. We get that she's confused and conflicted at being placed on SHIELD's 'Index' of individuals with potentially dangerous abilities. Nonetheless, her lip-wobbling is stuck on repeat - there is a sense the character is in a holding pattern until the screenwriters can figure out what to do with her.
In any event, Skye's spirited back-and-forth with May is interrupted by a pivot to Cal and his tag-team of woe as they raid SHIELD's maximum security asylum. Here they liberate the actually-scary David Angar, aka Angar The Screamer, whose Hannibal Lecter mask safeguards against the numbing force of his supernatural shriek.
But why is Cal putting together a squad of damaged, disturbed drop-outs? He leaves a bloodied clue scrawled across the wall of Angar's cell - 'Fight On'. The next shot is of Cal and chums crammed into a van driving towards Manitowoc, Wisconsin - home of the 'Fighting Outlaws' .
In addition to reminding us what a wild card Cal is, the episode goes some way towards explaining his motivation. In a memorable scene at a diner, he reveals that his superpowers are self-created and not entirely within his control.
"I'm just like you. I wasn't strong," he tells his compadres, all the camp showiness drained from MacLachlan's performance. "I couldn't protect the people I loved. I tried to change, to improve myself with chemistry. The results were inconsistent - some volatility issues."
Just how volatile he can be is made clear in the final showdown. It turns out that Manitowoc is where Agent Coulson grew up. Coulson's father taught at the local school until his sudden death (the future SHIELD honcho was just nine) and it is here Cal and his rogue's gallery have chosen to make their stand.
True to their expectations, Coulson unravels the 'Fight On' clue - a reference to the battle-cry of Manitowoc high-school. Cue a show-down on the football field, Coulson (with Bobbi creeping around the shadows) versus Cal, Angar and the rest.
As he glances around at Cal's rag-tag of murderous outcasts, Coulson's chances appear slim. We've already witnessed the full horror of Angar's sonic boom - he paralysed an entire field of students (and caused birds to drop creepily from the sky) by merely sucking in his chest and yodelling for 30 seconds. The fate of Coulson - who has done more than any to drive Angar and his like into the margins - will surely be sorrier yet.
But the moment of revenge is delayed. First May - with Skye and Garner reluctantly along for the ride - gatecrashes the stand-off, pretend-threatening Skye in the hope Cal will back down. He's too slippery for the ruse, understanding his daughter is still committed to SHIELD, and instructs Angar to do his worst.
Then comes a genuine surprise - the man with no eyes introduced two episodes ago materialises in his trademark blue globe of flame and whisks Cal away. Meanwhile Skye, pushed to snapping-point by the tug of love, stumbles, turns an unhealthily purple shade and falls unconscious.
Back at headquarters, Garner reveals that Skye has been directing her power inwards, resulting in grievous tissue injuries. His advice? Get her as far away from SHIELD as possible - for everyone's sake. "We're her family," says May. Her ex-husband's glance conveys a straightforwardly withering message: to find true freedom, sometimes a doting family is the last thing you need.
'One of Us' concludes with a teasing two-card trick. Cal is in the lair of the eyeless man, about to be introduced to whoever his abductor takes orders from. And Mack drops the bombshell that he and Bobbi are agents of the real SHIELD, not the sham organisation Coulson heads. At the end of a sometimes throwaway dispatch, it is a conclusion freighted with portents.
