Last week’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. gave us our first peek into the deeper universe of the Marvel comics, by serving as an origin story for villain Graviton.  This week, we were introduced to a new character with ties to Coulson’s past, while the team continues to grow and evolve as they begin to find their roles.  This week’s episode, the punny-titled “Eye-Spy”, was written by Jeffrey Bell (one of the series’s showrunners and writer of my favorite episode of Angel, “The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco”) and directed by TV veteran Roxann Dawson (also known as B’Elanna Torres from Star Trek: Voyager).  Let’s jump right in!

Tonight’s episode kept up the international theme of SHIELD, beginning in Stockholm.  We watch some kind of dance party/event in a public square when suddenly twenty or so people emerge, all in matching black suits and red masks and carrying silver briefcases handcuffed to their arms.  They walk in a line, and as they move through the crowd they pass a woman wearing headphones, who closes her eyes as they go by.  They descend into the subway, and line up to wait for a train, but are followed by the woman.  They board separate cars on the train, and the woman climbs aboard as well, into a car with four of the masked figures.  As the train rattles along, the four figures turn to look at her, and after a moment she closes her eyes and smashes a panel on the wall which plunges the car into darkness.

We hear the sounds of a severe ass kicking, and when the train arrives at the next station, the crowd runs out in a panic.  A security guard boards the train to find the four masked figures slumped on the floor, either unconscious or dead, and one of them missing a briefcase with his severed hand laying nearby.  It won’t be the last gruesome image of the episode.  The mysterious woman has the briefcase, now covered in blood, and she opens it using the combination that she somehow knows.  Inside is a container full of diamonds.

Meanwhile on the Bus, Agent Coulson is once again in the cockpit trying to make small talk with Melinda May.  He says that maybe he should learn to fly, and asks her what she likes the most about it.  She deadpans, “the solitude”, and Coulson takes the hint and makes a swift exit.  He goes to check in on Ward, asking if he’s seen Skye recently.  He says he hasn’t seen her since weapons training.  “Has she stopped saying bang when she pulls the trigger?” Coulson asks, and Ward tells him that she still has trouble differentiating between the safety and the clip release.  FitzSimmons is showing Ward a new version of the night-night gun from the first episode (which Ward refuses to call the “night-night pistol”).  Simmons helpfully tells him that it holds 8 rounds, “in case you miss…”  Upon seeing the dirty look he gives her she adds, “or have multiple assailants.”

Coulson finds Skye hiding in the SHIELD SUV, which she says reminds her of her van.  He asks her if she’s ever robbed a bank, or an armored car, which Skye understandably finds a little insulting.  It turns out that there has been a rash of diamond thefts, and that the heist we saw at the beginning was just the latest in a long string.  The masked people were part of a new idea for transporting the diamonds, as traditional methods have been unsuccessful against this new crime wave.  There were hundreds of masked figures, all taking different routes throughout the city, and only one of them was actually carrying the diamonds.  Onlookers told police that the thief closed her eyes before attacking, which seems significant but puzzling to the crew.

Skye has a suggestion that she claims is a bit outside the box, to which Coulson replies, “I live outside the box.” (Theory: This is a clue to Coulson’s resurrection.  He’s some sort of machine that originally came in a box!  Or I’m overthinking this.)  Skye things the thief might have ESP.  May wonders why SHIELD wants them to investigate diamond thefts, but Coulson said this is a case he personally picked.  Skye thinks to use Instagram, correctly guessing that people would have posted pictures if a bunch of masked figures had been wandering around the subway.  Coulson is amazed the amount of coverage they find online, saying that “every year this part of our job gets easier,” and that between Facebook, Twitter and other such sites, “people are surveilling themselves.”  They find a picture of the woman who stole the diamonds, and Coulson immediately recognizes her as Akela Amador, a former agent who Coulson trained.

The official word on her was that she died on a mission, though Coulson was never able to confirm it.  May correctly guesses that Coulson chose the mission because of her, and he says that she is one of the few people he thinks would be up to the challenge of stealing the diamonds, the other person being May herself.  May starts to contact headquarters to update them on the situation, but Coulson asks her to hold off.  They track Amador’s movements to Belarus, and while the rest of the crew gets to work Coulson Skye share a sweet moment.  She asks him about Amador being his protege, and hints that she, Skye, is his new one, even though the two are nothing alike.  Coulson says that’s true, and that while they’re both smart and capable, Amador didn’t play well with others, and didn’t well as part of a team.  He worries that he pushed her too hard, and that everything that’s happened is his fault, but Skye refuses to let him blame himself for Amador’s choices.

In Amador’s room, she closes her eyes and somehow senses someone standing outside her door.  She opens it and grabs him, asking why he brought the other men who are in the building with him, despite not being able to see them.  They’re just his bodyguards, however, and he’s here for the diamonds.  She shows him how she’s hidden them inside golf balls, in a cool trick where she dissolves the coating with a pitcher of water.  In exchange for the 30 million worth of diamonds, Amador gets some sort of a key card.  The man asks what her plan is, but she cryptically replies “It’ll come to me.”

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