One thing the episode did exceptionally well -- better than most action movies including, sorry to say, Age of Ultron -- is tell a story through its fight scenes, rather than pausing story for a fight scene. Take the very first confrontation, where Skye takes on May. The way May casually fended Skye off at first, one-handed, told you everything you needed to know about who was really in control there. Only by using her powers to swing the battle did Skye win out.
This sort of turning the tables continued throughout the episode. Even after grisly torture, Bobbi seemed more than a match for Ward. Only when the odds went against her, with Agent 33 joining the fight, did she fail. When Skye took on multiple copies of the self-cloning Inhuman (in another cleverly staged single take), her superior training kept her in it for a time -- until sheer numbers won the day. Then there was Mack's hopeless stand against Gordon, until Coulson and Fitz (and Fitz's tech) showed up to swing the outcome.
The story between these clever conflicts was fairly engaging too. Despite (I hope not because of) the discomfort of the torture, the Bobbi storyline was the most effective to me. And that's even though we knew that neither she nor Hunter was going to end up dead at the end of it (because they were just talking about a possible spin-off for them). Morse never backed down from being all-business, never apologized for making the strategic call. She managed to endure, escape once, and then still save Hunter's life despite being chained to a chair. A rather thorough thwarting of the damsel-in-distress cliche.
The Cal storyline didn't work nearly as well for me. I understand the writers' choice to take killing Jaiying out of Skye's hands, but I have a hard time with giving Cal a redemptive story arc. He was responsible for a lot of death and destruction this season, and I'm not sure one moment undoes all of that. It's the Darth Vader redemption arc (which I don't buy either), except Vader ends up memory wiped and working as a veterinarian.
What did work for me is pushing Ward deeper into villain territory. I feel like any other show would probably have tried to redeem him and get him back with the team. Putting him in charge of HYDRA certainly seems to take him past redemption. (Indeed, it seems to set at least a general expiration date for his time on the show.) He got a nice jolt of personal motivation at the end too. May's trick that led to Ward killing Agent 33 himself was both brilliant and cruel.
It was hardly the only change for the main characters. Some of the changes likely won't take, once the show spins up again in September. Bobbi surely won't leave SHIELD as she threatened, nor will May stay away (though she could soften up in demeanor). But other changes seem built to last.
Mack cutting Coulson's hand off was to me the episode's biggest shocking moment. Even if he ends up with some kind of prosthesis, it still made me recoil to see it. The prospect of putting Skye in charge of an emerging group of supers certainly seems like it's pushing the show in a very different direction next year -- one that hopefully doesn't marginalize the existing non-super characters too much. Ah... but then perhaps that's changing too. Who knows what Simmons will be like when they get her back from that morphing obelisk? (The one thing I'm guessing is: fundamentally changed enough not to pursue the romantic relationship with Fitz that they again teased us with.)
Whatever the show is next season, several good guest stars for the show won't be around to see it. Raina was probably the greatest loss, a villain since season 1 who had only managed to get even more interesting. Still, she had a good send-off, walking into a death she knew was coming. Jaiying had run her to me inconsistent course, as had Cal and Agent 33, but Gordon felt like he might have still had some life in him. Maybe this makes room for Lincoln to get more interesting if they keep using him. (You'd think Skye would look to start her new team with him.) And it seems like Mack might bump up to series regular status next year.
In all, I found S.O.S. a satisfying wrap-up to the season. I give it an A-.
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