Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – What They Become

The show's mid-season finale (it won't return until March of 2015) finally delivers on storylines the season has increasingly dragged its feet on rather than fully explore. Skye (Chloe Bennet) finally meets her father (Kyle MacLachlan), her true name is revealed (suggesting she's the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of a well-known S.H.I.E.L.D. comic character), and the show all but confirms what I've believed since last season: Skye in an Inhuman. Oh, and she also shoots Ward (Brett Dalton) in the back, which is pretty funny (although I think we'd have all been happier if she shot him in the head).

Not revealing everything just yet, "What They Become" continues to tease us (unnecessarily) with the true purpose of Bobbi (Adrianne Palicki) being part of Coulson's (Clark Gregg) team. The episode also unceremoniously ends the Hydra storyline which the show has been riding since the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier with Daniel Whitehall's (Reed Diamond) anti-climactic death throwing Skye's father into a homicidal rage, although Ward and Agent 33 (Maya Stojan) still remain at large.

We get a tearful goodbye to Trip (B.J. Britt) but the episode is far less clear in the final fate of Mac (Henry Simmons), who was under the city's spell for the entire episode, and although Skye's mutation is easy to understand the show is less obvious about what Raina (Ruth Negga) has become after being exposed to the Terrigen Crystals or what her future is going forward. As a payoff for a very long lead-up, several parts of "What They Become" work well even if the show doesn't do much to tease us with what comes next (other than suggest we may be getting a slew of Inhuman stories, rather than 084 or Hydra stories, and likely a prolonged arc of Skye coming to terms with her new powers) when the show returns.