It has been a while since we’ve caught up with Agent Phil Coulson and his team in Marvel’s ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘. When we last saw them three weeks ago, the crew was hot on the tail of Ian Quinn, who happens to be working for the Clairvoyant. But after being introduced to Deathlok, they were forced to pause the mission in order to take care of one of their own that fell in the line of duty. Now, we’re finally going to discover what happens to Skye when the show set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe returns with a brand new episode next week, but the latest synopsis for the new episode might hint at more secrets being uncovered as well.

Previously, we learned that we would meet Bill Paxton’s Agent John Garrett in the upcoming episode titled ‘Tahiti’, as well as some new recurring cast members. Recently a set of photos from the next installment were released that include our first glimpse at one of these new agents, B.J. Britt’s Agent Triplett. You can check those out below:

There was also a new synopsis for the March 4th episode along with those pictures:

Coulson goes on the attack to save Skye–enlisting the aid of Ward’s former S.O. John Garrett (Bill Paxton)–and uncovers shocking truths about his own life and S.H.I.E.L.D.

Way back in the episode ‘The Magical Place’, we discovered the shocking truth behind the biggest mystery of the show: How did Agent Coulson survive the events of ‘The Avengers’? Well, after that episode aired, I had a suspicion that we didn’t get the whole story and that there was definitely more to it. This new synopsis definitely sounds like my hunch was right. After all, Dr. Streiten (played by ‘Firefly’ star Ron Glass) mentioned that it took seven different procedures to bring Coulson back to life. With Skye on the cusp of death, maybe they’ll have to utilize one of those seven methods to keep her alive as well. There are already some parallels between Coulson and Skye, especially in the last episode during her encounter with Quinn, so adding this layer might bring them closer together.

But moving back to Coulson for a minute, now that Deathlok has been introduced and cyborg technology has been established in this world, maybe some of the “shocking truths” in this upcoming episode are that Clark Gregg’s character is part machine. Seven is a big number for procedures just to keep a man alive and while we don’t know why Nick Fury wanted to keep Coulson amongst the living, we can assume that he would have tried everything at his disposal before the freaky needle to the brain method. Remember, Director Fury has multiple connections to magic, robotics, and military intelligence. One could assume that he used as many of those contacts as he could to get this job done.

The bottom line to all of this is that I think that there’s totally more to Coulson’s second life than what we’ve been told and this new synopsis somewhat supports my theory. Of course, we could find out a number of things about everyone’s favorite S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in this upcoming episode, but I’d say there’s a strong possibility that it will have to do with why he’s still up and about after his encounter with Loki.

While you ponder over all of that, check out this clip from the episode courtesy of Marvel’s YouTube channel where we get to see Coulson, Fitz, and Ward spring into action alongside Paxton’s Agent Garrett for the first time:

What are your theories on Agent Coulson’s existence? Do you think that there’s a lot more to it than what he and we have been told so far? And what do you think of the new agents joining the cast in this upcoming episode? Share your thoughts and theories in the comment section.

‘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.