The Skye storyline began as a massive exposition dump, not very dextrously written, and presented by a new character Lincoln, whose powers of extreme prettiness seemed to come at the expense of an interesting personality. I swear, if he told Skye "I thought you knew" one more time, my eyes were going to roll so hard, they'd fall out of my head. The Coulson storyline was depriving us of the promised joy of seeing a cool team-up of Coulson and Hunter, because Hunter was being colossally stupid -- attracting unnecessary and unwanted attention, and basically being almost suspicious, to a point where you couldn't blame Coulson for not wanting to share any details of a plan with him. The story back at the base was rather mechanically putting the characters through paces, specifically manipulating Bobbi into a position where, in long term, she'll likely come to believe she backed the wrong side.
But then, at about the halfway mark, it's as though some writer burst into the room and screamed, "what the hell are we doing?" Suddenly, everything in the back half of the episode was frankly pretty awesome.
In the Skye storyline, you had a compelling character moment for Skye in her confrontation with Raina. You had the jaw-dropping revelation that Skye's mother is still alive! (Somehow not eviscerated by Whitehall? Though apparently with some scars on her face from that incident?) The further reveal that she and Skye's father Cal may have actually worked together to some extent in finding Skye? I have questions! And I'm suddenly a lot more interested in this mountain version of the Dollhouse (complete with Sierra).
The Coulson storyline got massively more interesting with the sudden arrival of Deathlok. I'm not sure who I was expecting the "backup" to be, but he was about the last character I was figuring to show up again this season. (And it looks like they've improved the costume quite a bit, to boot.) And though I'm a little fuzzy on Coulson's logic for now reaching out to Ward, I do think it's high time for Ward to be worked back into the stories in a more regular way. (So I'm cautiously on board, for now.)
The storyline at the base got more entertaining with the revelation that Fitz and Simmons had an unspoken patch up of their relationship, bonding over the invading "other S.H.I.E.L.D.-ies." They worked together to swap Fury's Toolbox out for a dummy so Fitz could smuggle the real one out. Like last week's moment where Simmons got the drop on Morse to my considerable glee, I was giddy at Fitz revealing subterfuge as a weapon in his arsenal.
I could maybe have done with a bit more subtle writing for the character of Gonzales, but I suspect this is all a consequence of the new breakneck storytelling pace the series has set for itself. The over-the-top dramatics of the gun scene were called out by May herself, but I was more uncertain about Gonzales' blind distrust-bordering-on-hatred of all things super-powered. His unkind characterizations of Skye and the long-suffering Mike Peterson left me wondering, if Captain America himself walked through the door, would Gonzales have a problem with him too, just because of the whole crazy-buff thing? I mean, I understand that the end goal here is paint Gonzales as Not the Greatest Guy, but I felt like it was all handled only slightly more delicately than all the Inhuman exposition at the Afterlife retreat.
But despite this episode's missteps, it did ultimately find its footing and deliver a lot of fun moments in the second half. So I'm going to call it a B overall. Certainly, they have me hooked for next week.
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