It’s always good to know your enemy. Gather as much intel as you can. Learn their weakness if possible. Basically just be prepared. Unfortunately for Agent Couslon and his Agents of Nothing, the people that they thought they knew are now their enemies and it turns out that they knww nothing about them at all. But in the latest episode of ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’, we all learn a lot more about Agents Ward and Garrett that could lead to their downfall in next week’s epic season (or series?!) finale.

In last week’s episode, Maria Hill returned to the show to lead General Glenn Talbot to the Providence base. However, when she learned that one of her very own picks for Coulson’s team turned out to be HYDRA, she wanted to personally take care of Ward, so she joined up with the crew to attempt to bring him down.

Now, armed with some Howling Commando gear (courtesy of Agent Triplett), Coulson and company emerge from their makeshift base in a seedy motel to pursue Garrett, Ward, and their HYDRA minions to stop them from causing any more damage. Also, they want to get their plane back. Meanwhile in flashbacks, we see how Garrett first recruited Ward, the young man’s checked past, and his training to become a sleeper agent within the Marvel Universe’s international peace keeping and espionage organization.

We learned three big things about three different characters this week. First, there was Grant Ward. The episode opened fifteen years in the past to find a young Ward in a juvenile detention center after escaping military school to burn his house down with his younger brother still inside. Later, we jumped to his training with Garrett in the middle of nowhere after spending six months to fend for himself with only a dog by his side. With switching between these scenes and the present, we almost got the feel that Ward was a redeemable villain. Maybe there was a shred of good left in him, just like Fitz has been saying the whole time. But then, that notion is squashed pretty hard when he’s tasked with killing his dog in the past and killing Fitz and Simmons in the future. Though he hesitated at first, he ended up carrying out his missions and earning a spot on many people’s sh*t lists for offing his loyal companions.

We also learned a big secret about Agent Garrett. First of all, it’s pretty amazing how Bill Paxton can go from your best friend to your worst enemy at the drop of a hat. He’s such an incredible actor and this role is perfect for him. But more importantly, we find out in this episode that the man formerly known as the Clairvoyant turns out to be the original Deathlok. Coulson and May discover this information when they infiltrate Cybertek and go through the hardcopies of files stored in the facility. Now that they know what they’re up against, the team prepares to take on Garrett and his HYDRA goons, but when the science division finds the bus without everyone else, they’re captured. Luckily, Fitz has the joy buzzer/electromagnetic pulse from Trip’s grandfather, which effectively kills Garrett. Unluckily, Raina has concocted her own mix of GH.325 to save her boss.

But that’s not the only thing that the girl in the flower dress uncovered. She seems to have learned some new information about Skye’s origins. By looking at Skye’s blood samples and the information on the hard drive, she is reminded of a story that she heard about two monsters tearing a village apart to find a baby. When Ward asked about the baby’s parents, Raina says that the monsters were the baby’s parents. Since we’ve previously learned that she is an 0-8-4, could she be a monster too? A better explanation could be that she’s an Inhuman. Oh man, this would be a pretty interesting way to introduce the Inhumans into the Marvel Cinematic Universe if this theory ended up being true.

Overall, this was yet another solid ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ episode. They’ve even managed to do better and more interesting things with FitzSimmons, who often emerge as weak points of an episode, this time around. With all these extremely awesome reveals in this episode (and even better jokes like the “large file transfer” gag with a file cabinet flying out a window), the stage is now set for the epic finale next week. We have Coulson and his team (which is still split up) against Centipede soldiers, Deathloks, and Asgardian weaponry all working for HYDRA. The odds are extremely stacked against them, but it’s sure to make for some awesome television!

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‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ starring Brett Dalton, Ming-Na Wen, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Chloe Bennet, and Clark Gregg airs on Tuesdays at 8:00pm on ABC.