Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: End Of The Beginning Recap

The episode begins with Agents Garrett and Triplett entering a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house in Sydney, Australia. They chat a bit until Garett tells Triplett to get Coulson on the sat phone. He wants to go over potentials in the search for the Clairvoyant. Triplett asks Garett if he thinks the Clairvoyant was on the Index. Garrett suggests that the Clairvoyant may have been rejected from the Index. At this point, an alarm goes off alerting the agents to an intruder. Deathlok bursts in the door. Garrett and Triplett manage to fend him off using a small arsenal of high-tech weapons, but Deathlok escapes through the roof. After the opening title, we cut to the bus landing and picking up Agents Hand, Sitwell, Garret, Triplett and Blake. Coulson tells them that he brought them all onto to the bus to best protect them from the psychic powers of the Clairvoyant. They believe the Clairvoyant sent Deathlok after Garret and Triplett because they're close to discovering his identity. Garret says they've narrowed the list of potentials to 13 Index rejects who showed signs of psychic abilities. The plan is to let Skye narrow down the possibilities and send random pairs of agents to track the targets down. Skye is still in the medical bay being treated by and discussing her situation with Fitzsimmons. Ward tells her the brass is looking for her. She meets with the Agents and suggests making the missions double blind, so no one mind holds all the keys to the missions. They finally bestow on Skye full agent status. We cut to Deathlok, in some shady looking living quarters. There's a knock at the door and message in his eye camera that reads "Don't say I never gave you anything." A package is on his doorstep. It contains a high-tech armband that attaches itself to Deathlok. He receives another message through an upgraded camera hub that reads, "They're coming for me. It's time we meet." Coulson and Sitwell are discussing the mission. Sitwell doesn't like the double-blind. Hand arrives and tells Sitwell he's needed at the Triskellion. Hand is heading to a place where she can coordinate the teams via satellite. Skye and Garrett are talking in the holding room, where they finally, officially meet. Garret tells her stories about his own wounds, and shows her a burn scar in his chest. Skye thanks him for risking his life to save her. They begin discussing Ward, Skye's S.O, just as Garrett was Ward's S.O. Garrett says the relationship goes both ways, and that Skye is rubbing off on him. Ward is different. Garrett says Ward as someone to fight for now. Fitz is showing some tech to Agent May when Simmons walks in. She begins rattling off information about Skye's blood before noticing that May is in the room. May inquires about any odd side effects or behavior that might be a result of the GH325 in Skye and Coulson's blood. They say there have been none, but asks them, with uncharacteristic kindness, to contact her if they do notice anything. Coulson is with Skye. Coulson is explaining to Skye what he needs her to do: find an "exploit" in the information and patterns they have on the Clairvoyant. Ward and Triplett, both trained by Garrett, are out in the field. They both have "axes to grind" with the Clairvoyant – for Ward, Skye's nearly dying, for Triplett, a dead partner. Triplett wants to kill the Clairvoyant if they find him, Ward says otherwise. We see May with Agent Blake before we cut to Coulson and Garret in a car together. Garrett is telling Coulson a story he's already heard (because he was there). They get a file on a potential Clairvoyant with ties to the Yakuza, but hit a detour on the way. Back to May and Blake, they're looking for a potential who is in a coma. Back with Triplett and Ward, they find the building they entered empty. Garrett and Coulson are immediately suspicious of the "detour." Blake is ambushed by Deathlok. Blake tries to talk sense into Deathlok, reminding him of his son, Ace. Deathlok says "Mike Petersen is dead," and crushes Blake. May calls in for backup then engages Deathlok, who fires a round from his small arm cannon and gets away. Blake is in critical condition, being loaded back on the bus. May says Deathlok is stronger than we thought. They discuss how the Clairvoyant knew they were coming. Hand says the mission was flawed to begin with and wants to debrief Simmons to know what Deathlok is capable of. They at least have a suspect: Thomas Nash, the supposedly catatonic patient who was not where he was supposed to be. Fitz and Simmons are talking about Simmons going to the Hub. Triplett shows up and says that he will be staying at the Hub as well. Back on the bus, Skye is telling May and Coulson about Nash (dropping an Easter egg by describing a "Department H" like program). Coulson says the whole catatonic story was to throw S.H.I.E.L.D. off his trail. Coulson then discovers that Blake hit Deathlok with a tag round, meaning they can track him down. A S.H.I.E.L.D. strike team is getting ready to storm Deathlok's compound. They bust in the door. Fitz launches a handful of drones to find where Deathlok is in the building. Skye is watching through the drones from an uplink in a van outside. She finds Deathlok and sees what they did under his skin (which looks much more like comic book Deathlok). Ward moves in, but his team is blasted by one of Deathlok's explosives. May and Coulson give chase, but Deathlok leaps down en entire set of stairs in one jump. Coulson and May lose sight of him. Coulson tries another route and runs into Garrett, then Deathlok comes up behind them. Coulson turns around just in time. One of Fitz's drones reveal that someone else is down there with them. They enter a room with a paralyzed man and a lot of monitor screens. The man says, through a screen, "Agent Coulson, Agent Garrett, I surrender." The man tells the agents he doesn't like to be touched. Coulson wants to check for explosives, but the man, revealed as Nash, says there are no traps. He reveals that he is the Clairvoyant and says they were all destined to meet. He wanted to see them with his own eyes. He says he couldn't see Coulson after he died because even Coulson couldn't see himself, a broken man who didn't know he was broken. Nash agrees to go to prison, but says he will still be able to see them just like he saw Coulson holding Skye when she was shot. Coulson says they'll put him in a box, and Nash says Coulson is angry because he's been betrayed and he's scared. Nash says a force they cannot comprehend is coming for them and that Skye has something they want and that she'll die giving it to them. Nash continues to monologue until Ward suddenly shoots him. Everyone is shocked. Garret and Coulson are discussing Ward's actions. Coulson wants to talk to Ward before he goes in for review. Garrett goes back on the hunt for Deathlok. May shows up and tells Coulson that Nick Fury is back at the Triskellion, and maybe now Coulson can talk about what's been bothering him. Ward is on the bus, in the holding room, when Skye comes in. Skye wants to know why Ward did it. Ward says he lost it. Skye says the missions was capture, not kill. Ward reminds her of everything the Clairvoyant has done. Ward says he'll face a S.H.I.E.L.D. review board, take whatever punishment he gets, but he doesn't regret what he did because it kept Skye and the team safe. Fitz sets up an encrypted line to call Simmons. The line is choppy so he tries to fix it when he finds a tap on the hardline. Simmons says everyone is rushing to the situation room at the Hub and hangs up. Fitz continues to investigate the tap. Skye goes to see Coulson. Coulson says he's worried that Ward killed the wrong man, that they don't know Nash was the Clairvoyant. He only spoke through a screen, which could have been controlled from somewhere else. Skye suggests that the Clairvoyant has access to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s psyche files. They talk it through, discovering that everything he knows can be found in those files. It would also explain why the Clairvoyant couldn't see Coulson after New York, because only Fury had access to that file. They determine that the Clairvoyant must be an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson enters the room with Ward and begins questioning him hard about whether he made the call to kill the Clairvoyant, or was ordered by someone else. Fitz continues his investigations and uncovers May's encrypted line, just as May enters the room. Fitz mumbles his way out of the room, then runs into Skye. He tells Skye about the encrypted hardline. Skye tells him to cut the line immediately. May is piecing together what Fitz found, then tries to make a call. Fitz cuts the line before she can make another log. May grabs a gun and leaves the cockpit to chase Fitz. Ward insists he wasn't working with anybody. Skye bursts in to tell them about May. Fitz leads May into the bay of the Bus, where Coulson shows up and puts a gun on her. Skye shows up and does the same. May says she can't tell them what it is she's doing. She lowers her weapons, says she can explain but not here. Coulson asks who she's talking to on the other side, and May says he can't say. Coulson says it makes says that she is working for the Clairvoyant, but May just seems confused. The Bus suddenly turns completely around, throwing everyone off their feet. We see Agent Hand looking at the Bus on a map-screen. She gives the order to kill everyone on board except Coulson when the Bus lands. In the episode tag, we cut to Washington D.C., where we're treated to a scene straight out of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Nick Fury is being chased by police officers. He gets away and demands to be taken off of the grid, but his vehicle is taken out by the Winter Soldier and we fade to black.