Down in the med bay, Coulson opens the lock and is almost bashed in the skull by Simmons with a fire extinguisher.  “What the hell are you doing?” he says, easily grabbing it from her, as she explains that they weren’t sure whose side he was on.  He wants to get upstairs to free Sif, but Skye says that she’s been sucked out and is gone.  Coulson says what all of us are thinking, “She’s an Asgardian!” and tells them to reopen the roof to let her back inside.  Sure enough, we see her clinging to the top of the plane, while Coulson and Simmons head back upstairs.

Lorelei goes into the cage (ignoring an overly eager Fitz) to retrieve Sif’s sword, only to find Sif waiting for her.  The two discuss Sif’s insistence on following orders and being obedient while she never gets what she wants, in this case Thor.  Lorelei doesn’t take orders, and the two fight.  They wrestle of the double-bladed sword, which conveniently breaks into two evenly matched swords.  Fitz spots Simmons and chases after her, calling out to Ward that they have a problem.  This distracts Ward for just a moment, giving May all the edge she needs to grab his gun and fight back.

While two fierce battles rage between Ward and May and Sif and Lorelei, Fitz chases Simmons down to the lab.  Coulson calls his name, and when he turns, saying “sir?” automatically, Coulson clocks him and knocks him out cold.  “Aww, poor thing.  He’s always getting knocked out, isn’t he?” Simmons says in the most adorable way imaginable.  I guess Fitz is now officially the Giles of SHIELD.  The two fights are evenly matched, with some serious blows traded back and forth.  May tackles Ward through a window but ends up with a gun pointed at her head, while Sif finally defeats Lorelei and points a sword at her throat.

Lorelei says that she’d rather die than go back as a prisoner, and tries to goad Sif into killing her.  She talks about a man that Sif once loved who Lorelei stole away, but before she can say too much Sif slaps the collar around her throat, silencing her for good.  Ward tells May that he’s sorry and pulls the trigger, but May’s a step ahead of him, having removed his clip during the fight, leaving the gun empty.  (Whew!)  Ward stands up with his arms out, saying that he’s back and it’s really him.  May says, “Good,” and then punches him as hard as she can in the face.

Sif apologizes to Coulson for causing so much damage to their “flying boat” but they all admit that it’s seen worse.  She assures them that Lorelei will be punished, and Coulson is impressed that she was able to overcome her emotion to follow her orders and bring Lorelei back alive.  She says that she has her code as a warrior of Asgard, just like SHIELD does, and tells May it was an honor fighting by her side, before heading home to Asgard.  May and Coulson share a moment, with Coulson advising May to talk to Ward about what happened and hash out their problems.  She proposes that he take some of the same medicine and talk to someone about his troubles, particularly to Skye if he won’t talk to May.

They both take that advice a bit, with Ward waiting for May in the cockpit so he can apologize.  He even figures the answer is for her to keep punching him again and again until she feels better.  She says everything is fine, but he doesn’t believe her, and he says he never wanted to hurt her.  She reminds him that she told him that getting hurt was never something that she was in danger of in their relationship.  However, “if what Lorelei said was true, you were more honest with her than you are with yourself.”  Food for thought for Ward.

Down in the med lab, Fitz is examining his bruised face from where Coulson punched him while being told by Simmons that all men are weak.  (It’s tough being Fitz some days.)  When Coulson shows up Fitz makes a point of saying that he forgives Coulson for punching him, though Coulson seemingly couldn’t care less and asks for a moment alone with Skye.  After they leave Skye sits down, having read on his face that whatever he’s going to say she’ll probably want to be sitting down for.  Coulson fumbles about trying to find the right words, but eventually dives right in, confessing that GH-325 is “alien.”  “Alien, as in unfamiliar?”  But that’s not what Coulson means.

He tells her that as soon as he realized what it was he tried to stop them from injecting her, but was too late.  There’s clearly a note of pleading in his voice, begging for forgiveness for the suffering his actions are causing her, which he assumes is similar to his own.  He straight up apologizes, berating himself for being so desperate to save her that he didn’t stop to consider the consequences or side effects.  “I’m sorry to say this, sir, but so what?” she replies, which takes Coulson aback.  Skye is happy they are both still alive, and points out that Coulson has been back for a while and doesn’t seem to have any negative side effects, not even a pointy tail.  Coulson’s a bit pissed that she’s so unfazed by something as major as this, and how in the dark they are, but Skye points out that they’re always in the dark.  She’s an 0-8-4, whatever that means, and at least they’re in the dark together.  Coulson takes her point, but says they won’t be in the dark much longer.  “To hell with any protocols, or any code, I used to be bound by.  We have a long list of questions we need answers for, and we’re going after them ourselves.”  He wants to find out answers to everything, but that he wants to keep the secret between himself and Skye, for the others’ safety.  Skye asks who they go after first, and Coulson points to her stomach and says the person responsible for her wound.  “And we make ’em pay.”

After the break, it seems like there’s a problem with the feed, as we see part of the same scene again, but this time the camera zooms in on a dot on the wall.  The dot’s actually a microphone, and someone is listening in on the conversation.  For a minute it looks like we won’t see who it is, but it turns out to be May.  After the conversation she opens a box revealing a phone and presses her finger to the button.  A voice on the other end says she has a secure, encrypted line.  “Agent Melinda May,” she says, “update log 93.  He knows.  I repeat: Coulson knows.”

That was a hell of an episode.  We got some great action and some fun moments, as the episode was really well balanced.  We also got an exciting new mystery to ponder, as well as some big character moments.  Coulson and Skye are now on a mission for answers, while May is keeping tabs on them for someone.  And then there were the big relationship moments.  Clearly Ward hasn’t been honest about his feelings, either to May or to himself, and it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in the weeks ahead.  Top all that off with a great plot and guest stars and I’d say that SHIELD has really hit its stride.

 S.H.I.E.L.D. Thoughts

So let’s start at the end of the episode with May’s mysterious phone call.  Who was she calling?  The obvious answer would be Nick Fury or Maria Hill or someone higher up in SHIELD, who sent her along with Coulson to keep an eye on him following his resurrection.  Given everything else we’ve heard about Fury and his secrets, this seems the most likely scenario.  However, just to keep our possibilities open, could she be working for the Clairvoyant, and was calling to let him know that Coulson has finally learned the secret to his resurrection and that he’s now free to kidnap Coulson again for interrogation?  I don’t think that’s very likely, but it’s still possible.

However, when you add in the tease for the next episode (in two weeks, I assume, after the Marvel Studios: Assembling a Universe special next week) things get a little murkier.  We only got two teases, one of which shows Mike Peterson/Deathlok returning (yay!) and firing weapons from his arm, probably at our heroes (boo!).  The other clip was more interesting, as it had May pointing her gun and saying “It’s not what you think, Coulson.”  This could go all kinds of ways, meaning either that Coulson suspects she’s reporting on him to SHIELD and that she’s really working for someone else, or vice versa.  It could also be completely unrelated to the phone call she made, only time will tell.

I loved so many of the little details and callbacks in this week’s episode.  In particular, I loved Fitz’s back slap on Ward, which looked like a recurring gag early in the first few episodes but hasn’t made many appearances since.  Of course, Ward sells it with the grimace he gives each time.  Other highlights were Skye calling Couson “AC” again, Fitz finally coming up with a better name for the night-night gun, now called the “icer”, and Lady Sif referring to Coulson as “Phillip, son of Coul,” echoing a fan favorite line from Thor.  It’s little moments like these that are a big payoff for those who regularly watch the show, but would go over the heads of more casual viewers.  As for Fitz being the one who always gets knocked out, that’s a Joss Whedon trope we all love.  He needs to be careful or he might wake up in a coma one day, as Cordelia might say.

Each week I’m more and more impressed by the production of this show.  Whether it’s the sets, the costumes, or the visual effects (even if they’re sometimes kind of lame), this is an extremely well put together show.  Tonight it was the stunts and the fights.  Choreographing action and stuntwork on a weekly TV show is not an easy thing to do, particularly to keep it fresh and interesting for the viewer.  Both of Lady Sif’s fights were very well done, as was the May/Ward fight, particularly the stunt fall through the window and onto a table.  Repetitive fights on TV often become boring, so kudos to the stunt/fight team on SHIELD for keeping things fresh.

Let’s not forget to give a shout out to Jamie Alexander’s turn as Lady Sif in tonight’s episode.  Poor Sif has been mostly pushed aside in the two Thor movies, even if she did get a couple of badass moments, wisely pointed out tonight by Coulson.  We probably got to spend as much time with her tonight as we did over two movies, and I thought she did a great job.  It’s tough to try to sell Sif as a tragic character hopelessly in love with a man who loves another when we’ve been given such a small opportunity to establish that relationship, and I thought she really sold it in an understated way.  Obviously, there’s more backstory to the relationship between Sif, Lorelei and Thor than we’re seeing, but I thought Jamie Alexander managed to show the internal conflict of duty versus vengeance in a subtle way.  Elena Satine was also good as Lorelei, but it’s often a lot easier to make a villain entertaining than it is to make a hero interesting.  (And it’s always great to see strong, powerful, intelligent, badass women on the show, beyond just our main cast.)

Don’t know what to expect in terms of answers from Skye and Coulson’s quest, but I can’t wait to see how it plays out.  I can’t imagine they’ll find anything that’ll make them particularly happy, but I loved the way their final scene played out.  There was such a range of emotion from the pair, with Coulson almost on the verge of panic as he tried to apologize for what he considers an unredeemable crime switching to indignant that Skye wasn’t as bothered by his news as he was.  As for Skye, her initial fear turned to determination as she coped with the news.  The partnership between the two is one of my favorite aspects of the show, and they play off each other so well, I’m glad they’re finally (seemingly) working together with no more secrets.  Of course, how long they can keep their secrets from the rest of the team is another matter entirely.

What do you think?  Did you enjoy “Yes Men”?  Did you like having another big crossover with Asgard?  What’d you think of Lorelei and Lady Sif?  Did you like all of the little character moments in the episode?  What do you think happens now with Ward, May and Skye?  Are you upset that MayWard might be over, or happy that SkyeWard might be happening in the future?  Or do you not care about the romantic relationships at all?  Who do you think May was talking to on the phone?  What do you think Coulson and Skye will learn in their quest?  Are you going to watch the Marvel Preview of Everything (featuring Joss Whedon) next week?  Let me know in the comments!