Written by: Brent Fletcher

Directed by: Jesse Bochco

Plot: An elusive girl in a flower dress may hold the key to a mystery that brings Coulson and the team to Asia to rescue a young man with an unusual and dangerous power; and Skye has a secret that jeopardizes her relationship with the team right when they need her most.

Review: Some major developments have happened in this episode and I am digging the results!

Syke’s very foolish decisions cost her the team’s trust, and it’s a nice shake up  from what we’ve been getting. I haven’t really been crazy about how quickly Syke was allowed to train to become a field agent, and I like that Agent Coulson is feeling the hurt with his decision to keep Skye on the team (but for reals…STOP MENTIONING THAT COULSON WAS KILLED IN THE AVENGERS! WE GET IT! ) It seems like by the end of this episode, Skye will still be helping out the team, but under a house arrest kind of situation. That could be good.

This episode had plenty of nice reveals, including the return of  the doctor from the pilot. It seems like the team is referring to the ongoing threat as CENTIPEDE, and the Marvel fanboy in me is hoping that’s just a place holder name they are giving them and that “CENTIPEDE” is actually Hydra or AIM or any ACTUAL evil Marvel Comics organization. Whoever “CENTIPEDE” is, I am very interested in their development. Why do they need superpowered soliders? Who is the Clairvoyant?

I liked Ruth Negga as Raina, as she’s delightfully wicked in this episode. I can’t wait to see her get her comeuppance, which is good, since we WANT the bad guys to lose.

Coulson’s anger is justified in this, and I do like the no nonsense attitude that he is giving Skye. Even Ward gets a decent scene in the interrogation room. I feel like Ward’s is best used in the interrogation room. They should just keep him there and have him wait till May or Coulson bring in someone to question.

The actual plot in this episode was a great deal of fun. I really enjoyed the character of Chan Ho Yin, played by Louis Changchien. I liked the idea of naming him (Raina’s gave him the very comic book-y code name Scorch) and how giving him that identity does play into his self conscious and ego. I remember Louis from the movie Predators when he played the bad ass Yakuza, Hanzo. I really liked him in Predators and I thought he was pretty great in this episode. He sold me on his character, hell he sold me enough on his character that I was even bummed to see that he went crazy at the end.

It does seem like they actually do plan on explaining where Chan got his powers, and it does start some fun guessing games. They can’t call him a mutant since Fox owns the rights to that concept. Could it possibly be something…inhuman? This article from Hit Fix brought up a rather interesting theory concerning the Inhumans. Could Renshu be the first signs on that idea?

As for Skye’s story line, I liked that she not only  got caught really early for lying to the team, it was also a good reason for her to get knocked down a peg from her usual cocky attitude that seems to be getting on some viewers nerves.  I also dig the reveal of more of Skye’s backstory, and it didn’t feel as forced as it did in episode 3.

While I like the idea of the character of Miles, Austin Nichols’s performance of him was extremely underwhelming, dull and even annoying. I’m hoping to never see Miles again. Also, are ALL the members of the Rising Tide good looking fashion models who happen to be hackers? If not, then maybe this show should lay off of always casting extremely pretty people all the time.

For me, personally, this was a very promising episode. I was really engaged with this one and I do feel like the show is getting stronger as each episode keeps coming out.

Looks like next week we are taking a break from this show since the next new episode won’t be coming out till November 5. I’m looking forward to that one as it seems like it will FINALLY be an episode centered around Fitz/Simmons. They need to develop those characters, as their one dimensional use is starting to really bore me.

So, see you guys back on November 5!