We open to a shot of fish oil tablets sitting on someone’s shelf, next to a photo of a man sitting in front of a motorcycle. What looks like a Terrigenesis cocoon stands crumbling in the center of an apartment in ruins. Helicopters approach billowing smoke coming from a building in the center of a city.
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The man from the photo is in the city, stumbling about as things explode and melt around him. SUVs pull up and government agents pour out. They put the man at gunpoint and try to bring him into custody. He tries to comply, but their guns melt and the man flees. The soldiers track him to an alley, but the ground shakes and the soldiers are suddenly knocked away by a strong force. Skye appears, followed by Mack and Lance. Skye introduces herself as Daisy, and asks the man for his name. He tells her his name is Joey. Daisy tries calm Joey down. Lance uses a device to summon a flying transport unit that shoots off into the sky with Joey inside. The soldiers walk the alley, but find it empty. Joey’s transport cell docks at Zephyr One, and Daisy’s team follow in a Quinjet.
A woman pulls up in a vehicle, and one of the soldiers reports to her. She complains that it is becoming harder to keep these operations going unnoticed. Coulson snaps a photo of the woman from the sidewalk.
Daisy talks to Joey, still in his containment vehicle. She explains what he’s going through as best she can, telling him that there is no cure. Joey wants to know why his powers aren’t melting the containment unit he’s in. Daisy explains it’s the material the unit is built out of, and encourages Joey to get some rest. She asks Joey if he takes fish oil. He confirms that he does.
Daisy reports to Coulson. Joey is the third incident this month. Inhumans are appearing everywhere, all the time. Five have disappeared, presumably taken by this mysterious new organization. Coulson is trying to identify the woman he snapped a photo of.
Meanwhile, that woman is having a similar conversation about the mysterious organization that interfered with her operation. Those five missing Inhumans are being examined, apparently via autopsy. One has a hole where his heart was.
Bobbi waits in a room made of the same material as Joey’s containment cell. The cell is lowered into the room, which is now Joey’s. Bobbi discusses what she knows about Joey from his Facebook page, including caring about others over himself. She explains that they’re keeping him safe from others, and others safe from him. She leaves, and the containment cell opens.
Lance tells Coulson that the agents they encountered are not Hydra, but they are well funded. Mack explains that the woman could be with anyone. The woman has worked with several organizations, all under different aliases, including the CIA and MI:6. Lance nods, as if impressed by that last one (Easter egg: Lance Hunter leads MI:6 in the comics). Coulson suggests tracing the hardware. He tells Lance to take the gun to Bobbi in the lab, but he refuses to go near Bobbi. Coulson says he’ll do it himself. They discuss Joey, who has the power to liquefy metal.
Mack and Daisy check on Joey. Joey tells her to give it to him straight. She explains that Joey is part of the small percent of the population born with alien genes, the Inhumans. His activation was triggered by the terrigen recently released into the ecosystem. She reveals that she is also an Inhuman. Joey cracks up laughing. He stops laughing when Mack and Daisy tell him that, for now, he can’t leave, and that he can never go back to his old life. Joey prepares to leave, but Mack turns on news reports about the chaos Joey caused in Seattle. Daisy says the world has been a little twitchy since Sokovia fell out of the sky (referencing Avengers: Age of Ultron). Joey gets heated and starts losing control of his power, melting Mack’s clipboard and trying to push Daisy out of the way. Daisy uses her powers to subdue him.
Coulson find Bobbi in the lab. She tell him there’s been no new info on the monolith that ate Simmons. Meanwhile, they identify the fish oil as what triggered Joey’s terrigenesis. They pulled the oil from store shelves, but they can’t retrieve previously sold bottles. The poisonous element sank to the bottom of the ocean, so it’s no longer deadly to normal humans. Unfortunately, it has spread to sea life. Coulson and Bobbi take a look at Coulson’s calcified hand in a containment cube. Coulson gives her the weapon to examine, and asks after Fitz, who is not at the base.
Coulson leaves, and Bobbi calls Fitz. She says she can’t cover for him any longer, that they need him. Fitz is in Tangier, Morocco, following up on a lead. He promises to come in soon. Fitz’s driver points him in the direction of where he’s looking for, but warns that Fitz shouldn’t go and that he won’t follow. Fitz walks up to a couple guards, and asks to see Youssef Addad. Fitz is carrying a briefcase he believes Yussef will want to see, but refuses to show it to the guards. The guards put a sack over his head.
Mack finds Bobbi in the lab and laments that they’ve lost Fitz again. Bobbi says Fitz has a theory. Mack says Fitz needs to start acting like a scientist again, but Bobbi points out that neither one of them want to have that conversation with him. Bobbi tests the gun they procured and asks Mack his opinion. He believes it’s from DARPA, which Bobbi already figured. Mack tells her to tell Hunter to tap contacts around the black market, but Bobbi says Hunter isn’t talking to him, and she knows why.
Fitz is brought to see Youssef, though Fitz is tied up and surrounded by guards. Youssef threatens Fitz’s life to get him to open the case, but Fitz isn’t bending. Fitz needs a parchment that was buried near the monolith in the Yucatan. The parchment is said to describe the monolith, and fell into the possession of Youssef’s extremists when they ransacked a museum in Iraq. Youssef shows Fitz the scroll. Fitz opens the case. Inside the case is a dozen splinter bombs, like the one that killed Bakshi. Youssef points out that only love makes a man so stupid, and tries to use one of the splinter bombs on Fitz. Instead, it flashes, blinding everyone in the room except Fitz. Fitz escapes with the scroll.
Daisy tells Coulson she wants to bring Lincoln in to help acclimate new Inhumans like Joey. Coulson agrees, and Daisy and Mack move to bring him in.
Bobbi has traced the weapon back to the woman. There’s a small opening where Coulson can catch her on a train. Coulson and Lance board the train with her, but find themselves surrounded by her agents. Lance and Coulson are cuffed to their seats. The woman introduces herself as Rosalind. Coulson questions Rosalind about her shifting organizations, but she also knows how both Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D. should be dead. She even brings up T.A.H.I.T.I. Rosalind plans to detain them and question them later. Coulson says that’s not necessary, so Rosalind asks where Coulson is hiding “them.”
Lincoln is working at a hospital. He goes to check on a patient and find Daisy and Mack inside. They ask him for his help, but Lincoln no longer believes being Inhuman is a gift, but a curse.
Rosalind says she’s tasked with neutralizing the Inhuman threat. She says the laws of nature have changed, and until the laws of man catch up they can only do what they think is right. Coulson agrees. Rosalind believes Coulson has been killing the Inhumans they’ve been recovering, but Coulson is also in the dark. Rosalind says the Inhumans have been killed, all with the same energy weapon.
Back at the hospital, things get heated between Lincoln and Mack. The lights start to flicker, but Lincoln says it’s not his doing. They run into the hall and see a monstrous man kill a guard by using energy emitted from his hand. He’s looking for the Inhuman, and charges Lincoln when he sees him. Mack and Daisy help defend him, but the man disintegrates a wall and runs through. They follow, as Lincoln notices a co-worker who saw him use his powers call 911.
Both Rosalind and Coulson get phone calls at the same time. Rosalind moves away to answer her phone. As a guard moves to pull out Coulson’s phone, Coulson pulls off his prosthetic hand, breaks free, and summons extraction.
Lincoln and Daisy catch up with the monster man and try to fight him. He stands up to direct assault, so Daisy breaks the floor under him. They leave the hospital as Rosalind’s men arrive. Daisy tries to convince Lincoln to go with her, but he flees.
Bobbi asks Lance why he’s not speaking to her. He says because you’re not supposed to see the bride on the wedding day, and hands over her wedding ring. Bobbi says she didn’t mean to imply they should get married again. Lance is determined to go after Ward for what he did, but Bobbi wants him to wait until she’s ready to go with him. Mack interrupts them to tell alert them to a news report.
POTUS addresses the nation over the many catastrophes that have occurred around the world, hitting the highlights of most of the marvel movies. By executive order, the president has formed the Advanced Threat Containment Unit, ACTU, with full license and authority to neutralize alien threats. The president recites the same line about laws of nature and man that Rosalind said earlier. Coulson watches a simulation that shows widespread Terrigenesis across the globe in about 17 months.
Daisy drinks a beer with Joey. He says he’s hid a secret before and was miserable. She says the world’s not ready to hear this secret.
Fitz returns and Coulson is waiting for him. Fitz thinks he has the answer to the monolith problem. Coulson says they tried to find Simmons in the monolith, even checking for her at microscopic size after the Pym Technologies incident (Ant-Man reference). Scans show the monolith is solid. Fitz believes it’s a black hole that warps space-time. Fitz opens the scroll, looking for answers. There’s a single Hebrew word. It reads “death.” Coulson says Simmons’ family deserves to know so that they can move on, and so the team can move on. Coulson laments the loss of his hand, and that May never came back from vacation. He says nothing will be the same, but they have to move on. Coulson leaves.
Fitz drops the scroll and stumbles out of the lab, then, with more purpose, goes to the room with the monolith. He enters the containment unit and demands the monolith do something. He screams at it, and punches it. It doesn’t react.
Simmons runs across a barren, craggy region, hiding behind rock. She rubs some dirt on her face and it seems to calm her. She looks out from behind the rock, and sees a planet and a moon in the sky behind her.
