If season three of Agents of SHIELD has a message, it's that you should be careful what you wish for - especially if you're a previously closeted superhero who can demolish entire buildings with a waggle of their wrists.
Last year, we were gripped by the struggles of Daisy / Skye (Chloe Bennet) to come to terms with her Inhuman identity. The twist, we have learned, is that making peace with your burgeoning abilities can be as much burden as blessing.
As the season's third episode gets underway, Lincoln (Luke Mitchell) is on the run from the Advanced Threat Containment Unit, led by Rosalind Prince (Constance Zimmer). His face is all over television and even his closest friends are lining up to sell him out.
But in focusing on the government crackdown against the Inhumans, it's arguable that SHIELD is venturing down the wrong narrative wormhole. We've been here before - in the parallel big-screen X-Men universe, but also on last year's Agents of SHIELD and this twirl around the merry-go-round has become all too familiar.
No coincidence, then, that the most compelling strand of SHIELD season three has been Ward's rebooted Hydra - and Hunter / May's quest to take it down. As we catch up with SHIELD's unlikeliest tag-team, Hydra has gone deep, deep underground - undermining Hunter's not-as-bonkers-as-it-sounds plan to covertly join the organisation and topple it from within.
A street rat with a noise for trouble, Hunter's solution is to reconnect with 'avin-it-large mate Spud (Daniel Feuerriegel) who just so happens to double as a weapons supplier for Hydra.
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But there's a problem - May (Ming-Na Wen) has no wish to participate in an epic booze-a-thon. She barely keeps it together as Hunter and Spud knock back lagers and engage in lively terrace banter, their Danny Dyer-style back and forth hilariously subtitled for the benefit of American viewers.
Bizarrely this scene leads into a mini re-staging of David Fincher's Fight Club, as Hunter (Nick Blood) is required to prove his evil henchman mettle via the age-old rite of engaging another ripped dude in a bare knuckle boxing bout. The big reveal is that his opponent is none other than Spud, nursing a secret grudge all these years. What a palaver indeed.
Watching from the back of the grimy meat locker where the tussle is unfolding, May soon has problems of her own as three tattooed oiks drag her away. Did we say problem? Actually, it's an opportunity for her to demonstrate why she remains one of SHIELD"s most compelling characters.
Barely breaking sweat, May treats her assailants to a rib-cracking beating, then with a killer line insists she won't "tell anyone a tiny little Asian woman kicked your ass".
Grimy and propulsive, these scenes carry echoes of Marvel's other big televisual triumph, Daredevil. It's a reminder that the more upbeat SHIELD isn't quite as far removed from its gloomy sibling as received wisdom would have you believe.
The Hydra storyline is also a crucial counterpoint to what is developing into a frankly dreary dance-off between Coulson (Clark Gregg) and interagency rival Price. Starting out as enemies, all it takes is a beach-side confab spring-loaded with twinkling banter to have the pair on first-name terms.
An unlikely alliance is forged - ATCU gets Lincoln, while SHIELD agrees to lend its expertise going forward, with Daisy and her Inhuman recruits left unmolested in return. Coulson explains that he's tired of behind-the-scenes strife and would rather make friendly - even if that means selling out Lincoln.
You can appreciate his logic. Or at least you could were this anyone other than Coulson. From the SHIELD leader, however, this effective betrayal jars. As it turns out, with his electrical powers, the ACTU is incapable of detaining Lincoln anyway. So now he's on the run - and potentially hostile to SHIELD too.
Back at the playground, Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) is recovering from her temporary exile to an alien world - or is she? Bobbi (Adrianne Palicki) finds her scrutinising the fragmented remains of the Monolith - which, Simmons has deduced, remain unstable. She has to return, she says - has to go back to the alien world.
It's a confusing note on which to sign off, but the episode needed the enticing ambiguity. We're fully on board with the Hunter v Ward plot line. But Coulson's struggle to chart out a clear strategy for SHIELD is starting to feel dry and dusty.
The show could do with less corporate mergers between government bureaucracies and more scenes of people fighting in underground garages for the honour of joining Hydra. After a storming opening, let's hope that Agents of SHIELD, unlike Coulson, hasn't lost sight of why it got into this game in the first place.
