Multiple parties start to catch onto Andrew's secret, as May takes the initiative to confront him first about it. Fitz gets a few revelations after examining Simmons' data from her time on the alien world.
Tropes:
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Hunter doubts that the group that sent Will through the portal was the same ancient order that built the machine to operate the Monolith, despite the fact that he's talking about an intergalactic portal that has been on Earth for hundreds if not thousands of years. Promptly lampshaded by Bobbi and Fitz.
- Apocalyptic Log: Simmons recorded lots of messages on her phone, we saw some in the flashback, now Fitz sees some more.
- Berserk Button: As Lincoln overhears May's conversation with Andrew over him being Lash through the comm-link, once he hears Andrew defending himself for the killings of Inhumans, and make rationalizations for their murders, Lincoln gets increasingly angrier, and more determined to get to Lash first, even after Coulson ordered everyone to hold their position. He outright blows his top on him once he reaches him, calling him out on taking a self-appointed position, and playing god with the lives of Inhumans.
- Black-and-White Insanity: Andrew sees himself as doing S.H.I.E.L.D. a favor because all those he's killed (and would, given the chance) have a dark side that could lead to them becoming bad. The idea that people can choose to ignore that darkness just doesn't factor into it.
- Blatant Lies: When May accuses Andrew of wanting to kill Joey, he denies that he would have. His Imagine Spot notwithstanding, it's pretty clear from his worldview that he absolutely would have killed Joey had May not interrupted.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Daisy believes Rosalind is overreacting to the Inhumans out of fear. Rosalind herself gladly concedes to the fear but points out in turn that Daisy is a best-case scenario, and for everyone like her, there's another like Lash. Given the number of cases, it'd be unrealistic to apply Daisy's method to every single one, but it definitely worked for Joey. For someone like Lash, even Daisy admits that Rosalind's method is the better option.
- The Bus Came Back: José "Joey" Gutierrez makes his first reappearance since the season premiere.
- Call-Back: Jiaying's booby-trapped ledger is a genealogy of Inhumans known to Lai Xi. This would explain how Andrew tracked down his victims before S.H.I.E.L.D. or the ATCU could, including pre-outbreak Inhumans, and his ability to give names to Dwight Frye (an SSA employee).
- Catch a Falling Star: Daisy uses her powers to slow a falling Rosalind to a survivable speed after Lash throws her off a balcony. She's surprised as anyone else that it actually worked. It's glossed over, but it's clear that Rosalind is also surprised that Daisy even bothered to try and save her life in the first place.
- Continuity Nod: Mack still really wants the shotgun/axe combination he suggested in the season premiere.
- Decapitated Army: Ward plans to kill Coulson, believing S.H.I.E.L.D. would fall apart without his leadership.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Andrew insists that he's only killing Inhumans with a "dark side", swearing that while that includes Lincoln, it doesn't include Daisy, and he also says that he wasn't planning on killing Joey. Whether or not he's telling the truth is open to interpretation.
- Expy: Andrew has a split-personality with one of them being scientifically-minded, while the other is basic instinct. This split personality was brought on by an accident. Differences aside, Lash, Hulk, and Hyde should get together and trade notes on Magic Pants.
- Fanservice: Bobbi is shown to be examining her almost completely healed wounds, wearing a bra and yoga pants.
- Failsafe Failure: Jiaying hid a tainted terrigen crystal in the spine of her list of Inhumans, to make sure it would kill any unworthy person trying to read it. Instead, it converted the one Inhuman that would be driven to kill everyone in the book.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Mack and Lincoln show signs of this despite their bad blood with each other as due to Mack having fought alongside him against Lash, Lincoln eliminates him as a suspect and trusts him enough to meet him secretly to require his help in confirming his theory on which S.H.I.E.L.D. member (or, rather, acquaintance) is Lash.
- Green-Eyed Monster: After subverting this two episodes previously by having Fitz push his jealousy to the side in an effort to help Jemma, here he gives in slightly to his frustration and pushes a box of stuff off his desk after seeing the selfie Jemma took of herself and Will.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Bobbi fears that Hunter (and herself) could get too obsessed with getting revenge on Ward and become monsters themselves.
- How Did You Know? I Didn't:
- Daisy had no idea if using her powers to slow Rosalind's fall would work.
- Once she gets him to revert back, May shoots Andrew in the chest several times to knock him into the containment module. When he awakens as Lash and is gassed, Coulson asks how she knew he'd recover. She didn't.
- History Repeats:
- At the climax of this episode, a female agent is talking down her Love Interest with a Superpowered Evil Side, which reverts them back to human form before said female agent places them in a fatal situation — which is basically what Black Widow did to Bruce Banner/Hulk in the climax of Avengers: Age of Ultron. This time, however, May is in an environment in her control and the emotional stake is way bigger.
- It's subverted with Werner Von Strucker. He is revealed to be in a comatose state rather than dead like his father.
- Hypocritical Humor: Andrew tells May they've both matured as people, then asks her "Wanna go steady?"
- Imagine Spot: Andrew contemplates transforming and killing Joey. The show's crew must have had fun trolling the fans about pulling a Bury Your Gays on the very first explicitly gay person in the MCU.
- Idiot Ball: Nobody thought to check Jiaying's belongings for booby traps. Without this precaution, it ended up on Andrew's desk and led to his transformation.
- Internal Reveal: The rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. learns about Andrew being Lash.
- It Makes Sense in Context: When Phil talks about how he lost his hand, he says "you kind of had to be there."
- Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Lash says that he only killed the Inhumans that deserved it, separating good from bad. Lincoln does not approve.
- Knight Templar: Andrew sees his actions as Lash as protecting the world from Inhumans by killing all those he sees as potentially dangerous. So far, the only one he's judged as not being dangerous is Daisy.
- Kirk Summation: Coulson points out that Andrew is not okay, because if he were, he wouldn't have May chained up.
- Laser-Guided Karma: (posthumous) Jiaying did a lot of awful things, but her main goal was to keep the Inhumans safe. When she hid a tainted terrigen crystal in the spine of her list of Inhumans, to make sure it would kill any unworthy person trying to read it, it instead converted the one Inhuman that would be driven to kill every other Inhuman in the book.
- Manly Tears: Fitz upon viewing Simmons logs from the alien planet, particularly the one where she talks about their past.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Lincoln let his emotions get the better of him and screwed up the chance of talking Andrew down. This led to the deaths of several red shirts and a great deal of trouble containing Andrew.
- No-Sell: Lash continues to shrug off most attacks made on him. ICERs and real bullets do nothing, and Lincoln giving electric his best only slows him down a little. It is only his feelings for May that reverts him back to Andrew, and in a vulnerable enough state to neutralize him. Then it turns out that even his human form is effectively bulletproof as well, as he instinctively transformed back into Lash when shot and healed the wounds.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Andrew when he realizes that he shattered the Terrigen Crystal hidden in the book.
- Everyone on the Quinjet when Lincoln and Mack tell them that Andrew is Lash, and they discover both he and May are missing.
- Relationship Upgrade: Coulson and Rosalind sleep together after a lot of flirting and opening up emotionally. (She even ties his tie for him!)
- The Reveal: At the end of the episode, we learn that Rosalind is working with Malick.
- Revenge Before Reason:
- Lincoln going after Andrew/Lash is this because it foils any attempt to solve the matter peacefully.
- Bobbi accuses Hunter of this in regards to Ward. He admits he was being stupid.
- During the Stinger, Malick explicitly warns Ward about falling into this, calling revenge a temporary pleasure.
- Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Lincoln tells S.H.I.E.L.D. and Rosalind that no Inhuman (so far) can shape-shift, and Andrew's ability to do that is because he is still in a transitional state with his Terrigenesis. Once his transition is done, he will be unable to go back to a human form.
- Ship Tease: Ros ties Coulson's tie for him, then tells him (talking about his hand), "sometimes it's important to look ahead, see what's in front of you."
- Shooting Superman: Despite everything else having barely fazed Lash so far (Lincoln's powers, ICER rounds from Mack, an entire tactical team opening up on him) Rosalind opens fire on Lash with a sidearm. It nearly gets her killed.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Andrew says he's only sorting out the "bad" Inhumans from the "good" ones, Lincoln blasts him with lightning. He then chews him out for his A God Am I and points out that all of those "bad" Inhumans were his friends.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Lash is described by Andrew as an "unlocked" aspect of his mind. Andrew further describes him as "instinct" and seems to only have limited control of himself in that state.
- Took a Level in Badass: Joey now has control over his power, and gained the ability to manipulate what he melts into new forms. In his words, "I feel empowered!"
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Posthumous example, but Andrew wouldn't have become Lash if it weren't for Jiaying's security measures.
- Villain Has a Point: Though his logic is faulty to be sure, Andrew does correctly peg Lincoln as having a dark side, Afterlife had a screening process for a reason, and the terrigen contamination makes that impossible. Ironically, as pointed out by Rosalind, for every genuinely benign inhuman like Daisy there are ones like Lash. It's zig-zagged by the fact that his drive to kill, by his description of it, is implicitly just some psychotic instinct and this is just an arbitrary rationalization; at no point is he given credence for perceiving an apparent darkness besides self-righteous assertion, and by all accounts he kills Inhumans indiscriminately, including ones before the outbreak that have been psychologically screened.
- Wham Episode:
- The NASA unit which sent Will through the Monolith is theorized by Fitz to be part of the secret society which created the device in "Purpose in the Machine". Hunter thinks it's a bit of a stretch, but it would explain their ability to open it.
- After establishing some amount of trust with Coulson and Daisy in this episode, Rosalind is shown to be associated with Gideon Malick. It's ambiguous whether she's a HYDRA infiltrator, or just unknowingly working with someone from HYDRA. If Malick is indeed the same character that Powers Boothe previously played in The Avengers, she may simply be operating under the assumption that he's merely a member of the World Security Council.
- Phil and Rosalind may have had a Relationship Upgrade and have slept together for the night.
