The Team (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

Plot

The Zephyr lands at Gideon Malick's base. Phil Coulson, Leo Fitz, Jemma Simmons, and Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie dodge Hydra soldiers while shielding a severely injured Melinda May. The Secret Warriors—Daisy Johnson, Lincoln Campbell, Joey Gutierrez, and Elena Rodriguez—storm the facility to extract them. Elena pulls the S.H.I.E.L.D. team to safety, Lincoln takes Malick into custody, Daisy overpowers Giyera, and Joey kills Lucio. They flee in the Zephyr, but Hive privately tells Giyera that he has already claimed one of the Secret Warriors during the rescue.

Under questioning, Malick tells Coulson that Hive murdered his daughter Stephanie and warns that Hive can dominate Inhumans. An autopsy on Lucio confirms Hive's parasites infected his brain. Realizing any Secret Warrior could be compromised, Coulson secretly locks down the base, telling only Fitz, Simmons, and Mack. During a blackout, Fitz and Simmons discover Malick dead in his cell, then a grenade obliterates his body, hiding the true cause. When Coulson tries to detain the Secret Warriors, they scatter and turn on each other, each accusing the other of being Hive's puppet, until Daisy herds them into a cell to stop the chaos.

Mack finds James's Kree artifact in Lincoln's locker instead of the Playground vaults, leading to accusations that Lincoln is Hive's thrall. Lincoln denies it and fights back, but Daisy subdues him. Joey and Elena, now distrustful of S.H.I.E.L.D. after being wrongly accused, agree to brain scans that clear them, then leave the Playground. While researching a cure for Hive's infection, Fitz and Simmons share a kiss.

Daisy breaks out of her cell and visits a jailed Lincoln, confessing she is the one under Hive's control. She admits she killed Malick and framed him. She urges Lincoln to join her and Hive, but he refuses, feeling betrayed and disappointed. Daisy steals the Kree artifact and several Terrigen crystals, then uses her powers to wreck much of the Playground, trapping Coulson, May, Fitz, Simmons, Mack, and Lincoln inside before escaping in a quinjet.

In a final scene, Hive tells Giyera that Daisy—whom he calls "Skye," drawing on Grant Ward's memories—has eliminated Malick, and they discuss what to do with the fortune he left behind.

Production

The episode "The Team," the season's seventeenth, was announced by Marvel in April 2016 with DJ Doyle as writer and Elodie Keene as director. The main cast included Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Nick Blood, Adrianne Palicki, Henry Simmons, and Luke Mitchell. Guest stars were Juan Pablo Raba, Powers Boothe, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Mark Dacascos, Gabriel Salvador, and Rob Silverman, though Silverman went uncredited. Raba, Boothe, Cordova-Buckley, Dacascos, and Salvador reprised earlier roles. Blood and Palicki did not appear.