Unless you're a dyed-in-spandex Marvel obsessive, the intricacies of this season's SHIELD vs SHIELD storyline can make for confusing viewing. More than that, it occasionally has the air of a laboured dramatic device - a contrivance to pick up the slack from the essentially predictable Inhumans plot arc (which, we all understand, will eventually see Skye learn to control her powers and become winningly bad-ass).
You have to wonder what is supposed to be going through the characters' heads. After all, aren't Team Coulson and Team Bobby / Mack ultimately on the same side? Their true enemy remains Hydra - plus the grab-bag of freaks and villains gunning for vengeance (i.e. Skye's loopy dad Cal).
So why expend energy tussling over what is essentially a question of semantics - is Coulson correct to maintain a veil of secrecy around SHIELD? Or is his cult of subterfuge ultimately jeopardising the future of the organisation and playing into the hands of their enemies?
Such a disagreement could surely be hashed out over a few strong coffees. Instead, this week we see Coulson's SHIELD and the Bobbi / Mack 'real' SHIELD (led by Edward James Olmos's supremely grumpy Gonzalez) literally at one another's throats. Granted, this makes for some thrilling action - who, after all, hasn't wanted to see May and Bobbi go at it full tilt?
But, this brutal internecine dust-up is also strikingly implausible, if for no other reason than that the 'real' SHIELDs rap-sheet against Coulson is so threadbare. They're prepared to resort to violence in order to guarantee his overthrow because... he's somewhat of a control freak? Nick Fury's anointed successor? He used to be dead and now he's back?
None of these are compelling triggers for what amounts to an inter-agency civil war - and it's hard to believe smart, capable people such as Bobbi and Mack would put everything on the line because of quibbles over their boss's management style.
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Still, while the overarching premise may feel somewhat hammed up, the execution this week was almost pitch perfect. We began with a flashback to the overthrow of the original SHIELD (technically that's three distinct SHIELDS so far, if you're keeping notes).
On board an aircraft carrier a gun-toting Hydra soldier demands the ship's engineer step forward. When Mack hesitates, the villain shoots a SHIELD colleague, simply to confirm what a nasty piece of work he is.
Just at it seems things are about to turn truly, madly, deeply nasty, Bobbi swoops to the rescue. Here then are the seeds of the Mack-Bobbi relationship which will later bloom into full-fledged conspiracy. They were there for one another when nobody else was: it's clear that the bond between them verges on unbreakable.
Back in the present, though, things are not proceeding as smoothly. Coulson and Mack are admiring Lola when the SHIELD boss quietly makes it clear he knows Mack is up to no good - and has stooped to bugging the car in order to track the director's movements.
There's a weird face-off with Mack insisting he's loyal to 'SHIELD'. Obviously this is just word play as Coulson knows that the agent is working to undermine the organisation of which he is in charge. With the hair-splitting about to verge on absurd, the action moves up a gear, with May interrupting Bobbi as the infiltrator is retrieving Fury's 'Toolbox' of top secret SHIELD info from Coulson's office.
They go at it and you're looking forward to a proper smack-down. Only - boo - Bobbi unleashes some manner of electromagnetic pulse grenade, which cuts the power and she's out of there.
Back at Steve Rogers's cabin in the woods, meanwhile, Skye tries on Simmons's Gloves of Superhero Restraint and is spooked to find they're somewhat of a tight fit. Unease over ill-matching accessories is soon eclipsed by a more pressing concern - who is creeping, creepy-person style, outside the lodge?
"I know I shouldn't have watched Paranormal Activity," says Skye, one of those cast-iron Whedon-isms that, frankly, SHIELD could do with more of this year.
The lurker in the dark turns out to be Gordon - aka the eyeless teleporter introduced in episode 11. Like Skye, he's an Inhuman whose body changed in fundamental ways through exposure to the Terrigan Mist. Unlike Skye, he's at ease with his powers, having received the support he required post-transformation.
Has Skye received the same humane treatment from SHIELD? It's a rhetorical question as she obviously haven't - and besides, he doesn't have time to wait for an answer (Gordon's 'thing' is to vanish in a blue cloud just when you've thought of something clever to say to him).
Back at HQ, the drama is cranking up. There's a delicious scene in which Simmons pretends to be oblivious to Bobbi's scheming, then knocks the rogue operative unconscious using what, to the inexpert gaze, resemble a pair of Duracell batteries.
And yet, her quick thinking is for naught as - 'boom' - Gonzalez and his crew of besuited hench-persons have bust the door down. You can tell they mean business, too, as they are wearing scary gas-masks of the sort that usually feature in movies about time traveling Nazis.
Thus begins the lynch-pin sequence of the episode - a face-off between Coulson and Gonzalez. The former really isn't interested in SHIELD 2.0's conspiracy theories - their true foe is Hydra, and here the good guys stand, feuding amongst themselves.
For Gonzales, conversely, Coulson is the biggest threat: he was revived by Fury using alien blood - who the heck knows what disasters his stewardship of SHIELD might precipitate? (Implied is the possibility that even Coulson himself may be a dupe, guided by the alien haemoglobin zapping around his veins).
This is good, meaty stuff - helped by assured performances from two actors comfortable in the skin of their characters. Alas, they are interrupted by agent May, who knocks Gonzalez out and busts Coulson free via a Willy Wonka style ejector lift. Her parting message is that her boss needs to rescue Skye - in terrible danger should the 'new' SHIELD lay their traitorous mitts on her.
Actually, she frets needlessly. True, Bobbi and her away team have tracked Skye down to the cabin (though not before May tells the incipient superhero to disable the electric fence and flee). However the bad guys - which, let's be honest, is how we're thinking of them - really have no idea what they are messing with.
Cornered, Skye goes 'full Inhuman' and unleashes a genuinely terrifying hurricane-strength barrage, flattening Bobbi along with half a forest. That is exactly the cue Gordon needs as - bam! - he materialises and, satisfied Skye is ready for the next step, whooshes her away… to a location as yet undetermined.
In a noisy episode full of lots of clanking, grinding plot developments, 'One Doors Closes' ends with a delicious leitmotif. Sitting at a Tiki bar in blinding Hawaiian shirt, Coulson introspectively contemplates a giganto-cocktail when he is joined by Hunter, who confirms, via a signed napkin, he's 100 percent on board with SHIELD.
It's been a tough week - but Coulson seems surprisingly chipper. Perhaps he understands - as does the viewer - that the 'other' SHIELD's obsession with secrecy has led it down a self-destructive path and that it will in all likelihood eventually turn on itself. Also, Skye is still out there - how can you feel down and out with a weapons-grade Inhuman on your side?
