‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Recap: A Traitor Is Revealed; Ward & Skye Kiss

“Turn, Turn, Turn” saw Agents of SHIELD finally coincide with the release of a major Marvel film, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the two synched up beautifully. Warning: to recap “Turn Turn Turn,” it is almost impossible not to include some spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

We began with Coulson (Clark Gregg) still reeling from the revelation that May (Ming-Na Wen) has a secret secure line in the plane and has been reporting on the team. He and Skye (Chloe Bennet) question her with Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), and she insists that she had a direct line to Director Fury – no traitorous activities included, and she has nothing to do with the plane switching course. May says that only HQ could take control of their plane, so the source of their problems must be coming from The Hub. She also forces Fitz to admit that he was looking for a secured line to communicate with Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), who disobeyed Coulson’s orders and took samples of Skye’s magically healed blood to The Hub.

Coulson shoots May with an icer, handcuffs her, and puts her in the interrogation room with Ward (Brett Dalton) while he deals with a distress call from Garrett (Bill Paxton). Garrett had been relaxing in his plane when he was suddenly attacked by two SHIELD drones and he is struggling to dodge their missiles. Coulson has Fitz manually override the guns on their ship to shoot down the drones, while Skye works on decoding a blanket signal blocking every SHIELD communication channel.

Coulson shoots the drones out of the sky and invites Garrett onboard. After Garrett informs Coulson that his plane is heading straight to The Hub, Coulson reveals his suspicions to Garrett that The Clairvoyant isn’t an evil mastermind with psychic powers, but a high ranking agent of SHIELD with access to classified documents. Just then, Skye is able to crack the signal coming out of SHIELD: “Out of the shadows and into the light. HYDRA.”

Note: for viewers unfamiliar with HYDRA, it is a secret organization that served as the villainous faction in Captain America: The First Avenger and was [SPOILER ALERT] revived in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Coulson, Garrett, Skye and Fitz quickly realize that this message and the attack on Garrett by SHIELD drones can only mean one thing: HYDRA has infiltrated SHIELD and is staging a coup d’état.

At The Hub, Simmons and her escort, Agent Triplett (B.J. Britt), are alone in a lab. When Triplett asks Simmons what she’s up to, she insists she isn’t really doing anything of importance, but her inabilities to lie come out and he convinces her to tell him the truth: she is trying to get some information on the mysterious drug that saved Skye’s life to Professor Weaver, a trusted scientist. Triplett teams up with Simmons and uses his security clearance to get a secure line to Weaver. When Simmons finally reaches Weaver, Weaver warns her that HYDRA is taking over SHIELD and massacring all who refuse to join them. She tells Simmons not to trust anybody and try her best to stay hidden. Triplett immediately moves to the door, locking it. He says he’s just doing what Weaver said, but Simmons is nervous. Triplett gives her a knife to prove to her that he’s trustworthy, and if she doesn’t kill him with it, he’ll know that she is trustworthy too.

Meanwhile, Agent Hand (Saffron Burrows) appears to be in command of The Hub, ordering her few trusted soldiers to round up all agents. She is the one who ordered the drone strike on Garrett and who has taken control of Coulson’s plane. She tells her men that the second the plane touches down they are to infiltrate and kill everyone on board.

Back on the plane, Coulson tells Garrett he believes Agent Hand is The Clairvoyant and the team gets ready to battle once they land at The Hub. Needing all the help they can get, they take May and Ward out of the interrogation room. Ward, Skye and Fitz suit up and get ready to be invaded. To ensure that HYDRA doesn’t get their hands on some of their top secret intel, Skye downloads everything onto a small hard drive and wipes the plane’s computers clean.

Meanwhile, Coulson takes May to her secret secure line to try to contact Fury. When an unfamiliar voice answers, May demands to know who exactly has taken over Fury’s private line. The voice doesn’t answer her question, but does tell her that [SPOILER for Captain America: The Winter Soldier] Nick Fury is dead. May tells Coulson why she had the line in the first place. Fury had come to her, knowing that Coulson would want her on his team, and asked her to help assemble a team that would be able to protect or kill Coulson if he started showing negative side effects from being brought back to life.

The team manages to escape the plane while it’s being stormed by SHIELD/HYDRA agents using a piece of tech Fitz created that can cut through metal – incidentally, this tech is used a few times in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Fitz is determined to find Simmons, and the team prepare a plan of attack: Skye and Ward will go to hack into disable HYDRA’s system, thereby freeing their plane from HYDRA control, while Fitz, Coulson, May and Garrett confront Agent Hand, who has found Simmons and Triplett.

Hand tells Simmons and Triplett that SHIELD has been infiltrated by HYDRA and that Fury is dead. She offers them a choice: swear allegiance to HYDRA or receive a bullet in the head. Simmons and Triplett choose the bullet, but not without taking at least one down with them. Triplett attacks the guard nearest him and holds a knife to his throat, ready to face death. With their allegiance to SHIELD confirmed, Agent Hand reveals she too is still loyal to SHIELD and, congratulations, they passed the test. The other agents they have been killing were HYDRA, and Agent Hand appears to be innocent of being The Clairvoyant. However, she tells them, Coulson is HYDRA. Simmons immediately refutes Hand’s claim, but Hand stands firm, saying that she won’t even give Coulson the benefit of the doubt because they must shoot first, ask questions later, just as Hydra would.

Ward and Skye share a sweet moment in a closet before Ward prepares to take down a dozen guards blocking the door to the processing center. Ward asks Skye if she’ll go out for a drink with him to “talk” after all this is over. He wants to ask now just in case he doesn’t get the chance later. Before he walks out the door, Skye pulls him in for a kiss. Of course, their worry was all for nothing, as Ward manages to take down the soldiers in the hallway with his gun and a knife, and the two set up explosives to blow up The Hub’s entire system.

Meanwhile, Coulson, Garrett and Fitz are working their way through the tunnels, discussing what their plan will be when they find Hand. Garrett encourages Coulson to kill her, and mentions the “girl in the flowered dress” (Raina), something Coulson never told him about. Garrett tries to cover his mistake, saying he must have read about her in a report, but eventually he gives up. “Hail Hydra.”

Garrett explains that HYDRA operatives have been infiltrating SHIELD since its inception, and, with a newly arrived HYDRA strike team at his command, orders for Coulson and May to be killed. Fitz, he says, he will keep alive and force him to work for HYDRA. Just as the team raises their guns, the explosives go off and the team is left in darkness. Chaos erupts and Coulson and May begin taking down HYDRA agents. It’s then that Hand arrives with Simmons and Triplett in tow. Hand says she heard the entire conversation with Garrett and knows Coulson isn’t HYDRA.

Hand and Coulson seem to be the highest-ranking SHIELD officials left loyal to the cause. Coulson gets his team together and takes back the plane for their new mission: survival. Hand takes custody of Garrett and plans to imprison him in the Icebox – she’s going to The Fridge, one of the last SHIELD headquarters left standing. Ward, feeling betrayed by his training officer, asks for permission to assist Hand.

On the plane, Hand tells Ward that she doesn’t particularly like the idea of keeping Garrett alive, and tells him that, if he wants, he can kill Garrett himself. Ward thinks about it for a moment, stands and raises his gun. In a shocking twist, Ward shoots the guards sitting next to Garrett and then kills Agent Hand. The episode ends with Garrett happily telling one of his old war stories while Ward stares blankly at the blood dripping from Hand’s dead body.

One question left from Tuesday’s crazy episode: Skye gave Ward the hard drive with all of the intel the team has acquired before they went into battle. Does he still have that hard drive, or did he give it back to Skye before they parted ways after the battle?

Agents of SHIELD will be all new next Tuesday at 9 p.m. on ABC.