Ever since the rumble in the ruins, and Skye and Raina's accidental transformation into Inhumans, this season's Agents Of SHIELD has maintained a thrillingly rattling pace. But it's nice to squeeze the brakes and bask in the scenery every now and then - a sentiment that clearly informs 'Love In The Time Of Hydra'.
Splintered story-lines can be problematic, even for a show as slickly calibrated as SHIELD. So there is much to applaud about an episode that deftly blends foreshadowing, character advancement and a reconnection with ghosts from the past.
Of the three interweaving narratives, the most consequential, arguably, is Hunter's meet-and-greet with the 'real' SHIELD. A suited, booted cabal sequestered aboard an aircraft carrier - how have they kept that under wraps? - they are on a slow-burn mission to expose Coulson as a pathologically secretive control freak whose win-at-all-costs mindset was responsible for the disaster in Puerto Rico (and, it follows, the death of Tripp and the transformation of Sky and Raina).
This is all info-dumped on Hunter by Agent Gonzalez (Edward James Olmos), flanked by a scrum of dapper apparatchiks. Also present is Bobbi, who pleads with her significant other to understand her subterfuge is in service of the greater good (obviously he rolls his eyes and calls her out for demonstrating, once again, world-class commitment phobia).
Oddly, the screaming irony of an underground conspiracy assembled explicitly to confront Coulson's cult of secrecy seems lost on all involved - if the thought occurs to Hunter, he's too angry to point it out. Still, it's nice to see the Bobbi-Mack alliance hurtling towards a denouement. Early on, you worried their plotting would be spun out endlessly, so that, when it finally did resolve, we would all be past caring.
We end with Hunter giving Bobbi a 'we're breaking up, for reals this time' speech, after which he tangles with some worryingly ineffectual SHIELD 2.0 heavies and slips off the carrier via submersible. He'll be on land - and in contact with the 'other' SHIELD - in 12 hours. This doesn't leave Bobbi long to get back to Camp Coulson and precipitate his overthrow. "Twelve hours?" she says, with an imperious eyebrow waggle. "All I need is six."
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Less engaging is the tete-a-tete between Skye and Coulson as they jet to a cabin in the woods. There, the newly-minted Inhuman will have the time - and isolation - necessary to master her powers. To be clear, this isn't Skye's bright idea. So far as she is concerned, she is in control of her 'earthquake' abilities and fit for active service.
The catalyst here is May, in agreement with the prognosis of shrink-to-superhero Andrew Garner (who, oh yeah, happens to be her ex-husband) that Skye is far too dangerous to have around - an assessment with which Coulson, after some token hand-wringing, goes along.
Truthfully, Skye isn't particularly shocked. She has seen this coming. Besides, she gets to spend quality time with Coulson, who spins one of his hokey triumph-of-the-human-spirit yarns, this time about the beat-up car he helped his dad rebuild back in the day.
"So in this story I'M the car right?" says Skye, unmoved by her boss's folksy sermonising. At the cabin, there is good news (Steve Rogers stayed at this very facility following his defrost) and bad news (it's surrounded by an electric fence - technically Skye could be considered in captivity).
"I didn't think you'd lock me up like a damn werewolf during full moon," she says. Coulson's wounded shrug suggests that this is exactly what he is doing.
The dramatic grist of the episode is provided by a returning Ward and Agent 33. The latter is the SHIELD operative temporarily brained-washed by Hydra. She was horrifically scarred, a face-changing 'nano-mask' her only defence against a cruel and judgmental world.
Flung together by circumstance, she and Ward have forged a weird connection. It turns even weirder as she engages the nano-mask and comes onto Ward in the guise of Skye. Only - woah - it's Skye speaking in May's voice (the taciturn agent being the device's default), thereby delivering an entire season's worth of Freudian brain-bending in a five-minute sequence.
At this point, they've already kidnapped a dorky nano expert in a restaurant heist straight out of Pulp Fiction's 'I love you honey-bunny' sequence (seriously, it HAS to be a homage). With the mask repaired (and the techie um 'taken care off'), it's off to air force HQ, to capture her nemesis Bakshi.
Why go to the trouble? Because, Ward explains, Agent 33 must confront the Hydra villain in order to achieve closure (by 'confront' he of course means an all-night torture session involving sticky tape and creepy TV static).
Action and humour are adroitly blended as 33 poses as General Talbot's wife - she passes off May's Amazonian baritone as a cold - in order infiltrate the base and spring Bakshi from his cell (Ward, for his part, slips in by simply walking up to the front desk and killing people).
Back at Ward-33's chillingly bland hotel suite, a freaked-out Bakshi asks if they'll go easier on him if he co-operates. "Nothing you say will make a difference," says 33, her tone low, her eyes bright with vengeful glee.
For an episode with several super-dense strands, not a lot actually happens in 'Love In The Time Of Hydra'. But, as placeholders go, it is breezy, intriguing fare. You can already sense a devastating pay-off hurtling down the track and if this dispatch is a story of signposts rather than destinations, it nonetheless serves as a giddy diversion. It's good to know SHIELD can carry off cool and calm as impressively as hot and heavy.
