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Mission Briefing
Coulson’s team has been sent off the grid, but they’re not out for the count yet. The team decides to track down Garrett and Ward through Cybertek, a technology company that has repeadedly appeared in the team’s dealings with The Clairvoyant and HYDRA. Meanwhile, we get flashbacks to Ward’s past, detailing his history with Garrett and his initation into HYDRA.
Mission Fallout
After a drug kingpin with known ties to HYDRA is murdered by Deathlok, the team wonders what the connection is to Garrett and HYDRA. Coulson discovers that all of their run-ins with Deathlok, Ian Quinn, John Garrett, and the Centipede project all route back to one central point: Cybertek, the tech company that built Deathlok. Luckily, Cybertek has a public office in sunny Palo Alto, so the team decides to infiltrate the office posing as former S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists on a job interview. Tripp unveils an old suitcase full of vintage WWII-era spy gear that the team can use on their mission.
The present day action is intercut with flashbacks to Ward’s past with Garrett. Fifteen years ago, Ward was a troubled teenager serving a stint in juvie for burning down his old house and nearly killing his older brother, which may or may not have been his intention. A younger agent Garrett shows up and offers him an ultimatum: train and become an agent of a secret organization, or spend the rest of his life in jail. Ward takes Garrett up on his offer, and the two break out of the facility. Garrett takes Ward to a secluded forest and leaves him there, seeing if Ward has the mettle to become an agent of Hydra.
Back in the present, May and Coulson go undercover inside Cybertek. They manage to sneak into Cybertek’s mainframe, but discover that the company only uses hard copies of files. Coulson and May find files on the Deathlok project, which reveal that Garrett was the original Deathlok. His body was partially rebuilt after an explosion fatally injures him. Coulson jettisons the files out of a window, and the team escapes the facility. The file reveals that Garrett needs the GH-325 serum to repair his body since it’s starting to reject the aging cybernetic implants, and help bolster his centipede soldiers.
On the captured bus, Raina begins synthesizing a new batch of GH-235 from the information stolen off of Skye’s hard drive. Garrett suddenly becomes ill, and reveals that he only he only has a month left to live unless Raina can successfully recreate the serum. The team manages to track down Garrett and Ward in Cuba, and specifically, to a barber shop that has quite a suspicious amount of electronic activity radiating from its basement. Elsewhere, Fitz and Simmons track down the bus but are captured by Ward. Once on the plane, Fitz gravely injures Garrett with one of Tripp’s gadgets, and Garrett tells Ward to kill the two agents before he dies. Ward finds Fitz and Simmons, who have locked themselves into a containment room on the plane. Fitz pleads with Ward to help them, but his pleas fall on deaf ears. Ward jettisons the containment room out of the plane and into the ocean. There’s no turning back for Ward now. In a last ditch effort to save Garrett, Rayna injects Garrett with an early version of the GH-235 serum, which appears to heal him. While scoping out the basement of the barbershop, Coulson and the other agents run into centipede soldiers armed with stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. weaponry.
Most Valuable Agent Award
This weeks MVA award goes to Tripplet for dusting off all of his Grandad’s Howling Commando stuff. It all sure came in handy during the mission, but it also gave Coulson a chance to let his geek flag fly.
Mission Highlights
– “Get ready for a large file transfer.”
– “I want my plane back.”
– Ward: “Give me one reason not to blow your head off.” / Garrett: “I brought Tacos?”
– Next week is the long-awaited season finale. Hopefully, we finally get some answers about Skye’s parentage.
