Skye has an idea, however.  She can go in, as she’s not affiliated with SHIELD and doesn’t have to follow “stupid rules”.  (“Laws”, Simmons corrects.)  Ward objects, as she lacks the skills necessary for the operation.  He could go in on the ground and in about a month could forge contacts that could get him inside, but Skye beats him to the punch, using her phone to score an invitation (“technically an Evite”) to a party at Quinn’s mansion.  Coulson agrees to the plan, but Ward privately objects despite the fact that Skye used her “insider backchannel voodoo” to get inside.  He knows that Fury feels like he owes Coulson because Coulson sacrificed himself (“and my card collection”) for the Avengers, but he thinks Skye’s presence is a mistake.  He has tried every strategy to get through to her, but Coulson says he needs to stop thinking like an operative and start thinking like a person.

Ward puts that theory to the test, in a great scene that serves several purposes.  He’s giving Skye a last minute lesson in how to disarm someone with a gun (no way that will come in handy later, right?) and when she complains that she just wasn’t born with the same skills as he was he tells her a story.  When Ward was younger, he and his younger brother were beat up repeatedly by his older brother for no reason.  He decided to learn to defend himself because it was the only way to protect himself and his younger brother from his older brother.  His story of the bullying he suffered gets through to Skye, as he tells her “that was my defining moment”.

The plan is finalized, and Skye will get inside carrying a compact mirror which is actually a wireless transmitter.  A light inside will turn from red to green when she’s in a location where the device will allow Fitz to hack into Quinn’s system and drop the laser shield for 3 seconds, allowing a two person team to get in and extract Dr. Hall.  May objects, saying she didn’t sign up for combat missions yet she continues to be put in positions where she has to fight.  Coulson tells her that she’s not on the extraction team, that he and Ward will be going in instead so she won’t have to fight this time.  He reminds her he saw plenty of action with the Avengers, but she mutters to herself “and you died.”

Skye arrives at the party, making small talk with Quinn’s bigger guests, all while being fed information on them by May and Simmons (with Fitz helpfully munching on popcorn while the women work).  Skye’s clearly enjoying herself, saying it’s “like Siri if it worked!”  She finds Quinn who knows who she is through her work on the Rising Tide.  He’s so impressed by the hacking she did to get an invitation that he offers her a job, before taking to the stage for a speech.  It’s like something out of an Ayn Rand wet dream, about how great minds should be free to do what they want, but all while presenting his pleasure at lack of oversight as an idealistic form of human freedom.  However, it’s clear that what he really wants is power and the freedom to pursue it.

Skye slips out during the speech to try to find a way into Quinn’s office, but is caught by Quinn.  She tries to pass it off as a simple mistake, and then as flirting, but when Quinn begins to call security Skye writes on a piece of paper “SHIELD IS LISTENING” and he invites her inside.  Simmons and May are surprised to hear that she got inside so easily, but Fitz thinks he knows how she did it, gesturing that she used her body to get in before giving up and explaining, “her boobs.”  Simmons is exasperated by his implication, but when Skye’s signal goes dark they assume the worst.  (Whether the worst that they’re assuming is that she is dead or that she has betrayed them is unclear.)

Skye, however, likes keeping her options open.  She’s admitted that SHIELD recruited her for the same skills that Quinn found so appealing, and he smiles at how predictable SHIELD can be.  He tells her how they target people with no ties and no family, which seems to strike a nerve with Skye.  Quinn preaches about freedom from what SHIELD represents, and asks Skye what her mission was in getting inside his mansion.  She pulls out her compact mirror, telling him she was to do anything it takes to get inside and bat her eyelashes at him.  As she opens it, the light inside turns green, allowing Fitz to drop the laser shield.

Outside, Ward and Coulson are attacked as they wait.  They easily handle the first wave of guards, but Coulson has trouble dismantling a captured firearm, something he used to do easily.  When Skye’s device goes active, Fitz races to drop the shield as more guards open fire on Coulson and Ward.  Coulson urges Fitz to hurry, but Simmons tells him, “Saying his name repeatedly does not increase productivity,” except that he then immediately drops the shield, causing her to add, “or maybe it does.”  The two get inside and split up, Ward looking for Skye and Coulson going to rescue Hall.

Coulson finds Hall, but discovers that Hall doesn’t need rescuing at all.  In fact, when he learned that Quinn had created a prototype of his Gravitonium device, he intentionally leaked his location knowing that Quinn would come after him.  He knew the power of a full sized device in Quinn’s hand, and is determined to activate it and destroy it, and Quinn, potentially saving millions of lives from the damage Quinn could cause.  He flips the switch and the world goes topsy-turvy for him and Coulson.

Up in the mansion, Quinn learns of the break-in, and pulls a gun on Skye as his security guards arrive.  He tells her that SHIELD is like Big Brother, clearly meaning the 1984 kind, but Skye defends them as the sort of big brother who looks out for people the way Ward did for his sibling.  She uses the move that Ward taught her and disarms Quinn, earning a respecting “kid’s got balls” from a security guard.  “Thanks… but yuck,” she replies.  Quinn is impressed, but doesn’t think she has what it takes to pull the trigger.  She agrees, and instead jumps out the window into the pool below.  More guards arrive, but she’s rescued by Ward, still playing big brother to the crew, who tells her to follow his orders and they’ll survive.

As gravity continues to shift, Hall explains to Coulson that Quinn “likes to feel smart”, but that he doesn’t care about anything other than his own power.  Coulson tries to object to Hall’s solution of destroying himself and the device, but Hall offers a fair criticism of SHIELD’s practices as well.  He points out that SHIELD’s quest for power helped bring alien invaders to New York, and that the world is better off without the Gravitonium.  He’s “seen the future, and it’s a catastrophe.”  Coulson tries to cut the power, and when it doesn’t work FitzSimmons tell him that it needs a catalyst in order to stabilize.  Hall says that he’s willing to die to protect millions, and that sometimes hard decisions have to be made.  Coulson agrees, shooting out the glass that Hall is standing on and causing him to fall sideways into the Gravitonium.  His body acts as a chemical catalyst, and his death stabilizes the Gravitonium and saves Coulson, Skye and Ward.

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