We catch up with Deathlok in a hotel room, where he’s examining himself in the mirror.  The scratch on his forehead where the ICER bullet hit him has exposed what looks like a metal skull underneath.  It seems pretty clear that the Deathlok program has involved more than just a new, mechanical leg and some more Centipede/Extremis juice.  There’s a knock on the door, and when he turns to investigate he gets a message in his eye saying, “Don’t say I never give you anything.”  He uses his x-ray vision to see a package sitting in the hallway, which he retrieves and opens to find a device that looks a bit like a cuff.  He puts it around his wrist as it painfully attaches itself to his arm.  He then gets another message saying, “They’re coming for me.  It’s time we finally met,” and we see that his vision has improved to include a heads-up display, that unfortunately seems to come with the side effect of a glowing red Terminator eye.

Sitwell leaves for another mission (which might lead to a Captain America encounter), while Hand abandons the group to run things back at the Hub in case things go badly.  Skye gives Garrett his half of his team’s information, and the two bond over shared work-related injuries (Garrett had some nasty 3rd-degree burns on his neck, in addition to gunshot wounds and having his throat cut once).  She thanks him for helping save her life, but he says that her team did most of the work.  They then discuss Ward, and Garrett remarks on how much he’s changed since Garrett trained him, particularly the impact Skye has had on him.  Instead of working alone Ward is now a part of the team, like “the difference between fighting against something and fighting for something… or someone.”  Clearly Garrett sees something that the rest of our team might have missed.

Down in the lab, Fitz is showing May the new tracking rounds he’s designed for her pistol, in case she needs to tag a fleeing vehicle “or a wild monkey.”  However, Simmons wanders in reading from her notes and talking to Fitz about Skye’s blood samples, oblivious to the fact that May is right there.  She stops once Fitz points this out, but too late.  May gives them a suspicious look and sweetly points out that if Skye or Coulson should start showing any side effects they can always come to her with their concerns.

Coulson gets his assignment from Skye, but when he sees the stress she’s under he gives her some advice.  “Stop worrying.  You wear your heart on your sleeve, and your face.  I trust your judgement, the way you see the world.  It’s different than the rest of us.”  It’s a sweet moment between the two, and he continues on by encouraging her to dig into the files and see if she can dig up something they haven’t discovered yet.

The teams split up on their missions.  Ward and Trip head off to a prison to investigate someone serving 18 life sentences.  On the way Trip lets us know that he did some digging into Ward’s background, comparing his family to the Kennedys.  Ward’s not particularly amused by the light-hearted chatter, and he reminds Trip that the Clairvoyant almost killed Skye.  Trip doesn’t need reminding, because Trip lost his partner to the Clairvoyant and had to tell his partner’s 6-year-old son that his father wasn’t coming home.  Ward’s taken aback, but reminds Trip that they’re not there for vengeance, but Trip asks Ward what he would do to the Clairvoyant if Skye had actually died, which gives Ward pause.

Garrett and Coulson are paired together, driving to check out a college-age girl while Garrett tells Coulson a story about diving through a skylight to shoot a guy with a flare gun.  Coulson doesn’t give him the enthusiastic response that he feels his heroic story deserves, and he asks Coulson whether he’s already told him this story.  Coulson smiles and reminds Garrett that he was actually there for the event, and that Garrett never dove through the skylight, even if it makes for a better story.  “Damn,” Garrett replies, “I must be getting old.  Either that or I drank a lot more in my 30s than I remember.”  “Or both,” Coulson replies.  The two are then suspiciously penned in by construction in front of them and a black car behind them, and Garrett prepares for another heroic story.

May and Blake arrive at a nursing home to investigate a man named Thomas Nash who has been catatonic for the last for years after a car crash.  They split up and while Blake is looking through some records someone grabs him by the shoulder and throws him against the wall.  It’s Deathlok, and Blake fires five shots at him before switching magazines and firing one more.  Deathlok grabs him by the throat while Blake tries to reason with Mike Peterson, reminding him of his son, Ace, who needs him.  With a tremor in his voice, Deathlok says, “Mike Peterson is dead,” before slamming him to the floor and stomping on his chest.  May shows up, having been drawn by the gunshots, and radios the base.  Deathlok holds up his arm and a small missile fires from his new cuff, exploding the wall behind May before running away.

The Bus is back at the Hub, and Blake just might survive if he’s lucky.  May tells them that Deathlok has become powerful, able to withstand six shots from Blake, and that the facility was just a cover because Nash wasn’t there.  However, Coulson points out that Deathlok was there, which doesn’t seem like a coincidence, so they decide to head back to investigate.  Hand’s not happy with the way the plan went down, and also isn’t happy that Garrett calls her Vic because it’s condescending.

Hand also wants Simmons to stay at the Hub to debrief everyone on Deathlok’s capabilities, seeing as how she probably knows the most about him.  Fitz doesn’t want her to leave, and doesn’t think there’s any more she can tell them, but Simmons is happy because it means she’ll be able to do a more thorough analysis on Skye’s blood samples.  (They also have a brief side debate over which one of them is Watson.)  Fitz promises to install an encrypted line in the Bus so they can stay in touch without being overheard.  Simmons will have some company in Trip, which earns a slightly panicked look from Fitz.

Skye, Coulson and May are going over Nash’s file and Blake’s belongings, looking for any clues as to Nash’s location.  He was recruited by an organization looking for someone who could control other people psychically, but he was unable to do so.  However he could occasionally predict their behavior.  The information that he was catatonic was just designed to throw SHIELD off his trail.  Coulson uncovers something interesting when looking at Blake’s magazines, and they realize that he made a point of switching over to the tracking round, giving them a possible avenue to Nash.

They head to a Pensacola, Florida racetrack and head inside, leaving Skye in the van due to her previous injuries.  They assume that the Clairvoyant knows they’re coming, so Garrett isn’t exactly quiet as he smashes down the front doors.  Fitz pulls out his “golden retrievers”, the little yellow tracking balls that we last saw months ago.  Skye helps with the tracking from the van, and pulls up the feed from one of the devices which gives us a multi-spectrum view of Deathlok, who looks like he’s becoming fully machine under his skin.

They finally corner Deathlok, who fires more missiles from his arms which Ward narrowly avoids.  May tries to chase Deathlok down on foot, but he makes a several story leap and heads into the basement.  Coulson heads after him, meeting up with Garrett as they continue to hunt Deathlok, who escapes into the sewer system.  The retriever discovers someone else, however, and they head to investigate.  They burst into a room filled with TVs, with a man sitting in a chair in front of them. It’s Nash (Brad Dourif), who, speaking through computer, greets Coulson and Garrett by name and says that he surrenders.

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