History Recap / AgentsOfSHIELDS2E20Scars

* GoodVsGood: Or rather, Inhumans vs S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson just wants to keep the peace; while Gonzales ''attempts'' to be a BigGood but definitely has ulterior motives for the Inhumans.

* {{Hypocrite}}: May and Gonzales insist that Coulson can't be the arbitrator for the Inhumans given his fatherly-like love for Skye, which is true. But neither Gonzales or May are impartial either: Gonzales' main trait is FantasticRacism, while May is still haunted what happened at Bahrain and clearly sees the Inhumans as threats.

** Coulson agreeing to send Gonzales when it's claimed Coulson's relationship with Skye doesn't make him an objective negotiator. Gonzales has proven the same for [[FantasticRacism the opposite reason]], a fact so transparent Hunter quips that he let "Captain Ahab" go. Coulson insists he didn't want to burn the bridge he just semi-mended with Gonzales' faction by arguing, but that hardly changes the fact that he could have made a better choice (Bobbi, for instance). The worst part is that May has the gall to claim Gonzales is objective, when he clearly isn't. If Coulson had shut Gonzales down for the perfectly legitimate reason that he is no more objective than Coulson, and in fact clearly wouldn't negotiate in good faith, Jiaying's plan arguably wouldn't have worked, if she had still gone through with it.

** Contrary to his actions in the last episode, Ward actually arranged to have Kara left behind because she wanted to get revenge on Bobbi for some past betrayal, and being able to impersonate anyone in the base made kidnapping Bobbi a breeze.

** May to Coulson, especially after Skye brings up Bahrain.

* BerserkButton: Every time Jiaying's treatment at the hands of Whitehall is brought up, she's taken it in stride... until an outsider like Gonzales tries to sympathize with her, and she's outright insulted at how someone who got just a leg injury to HYDRA compares it to her torture and vivisection at Whitehall's hands. The end of the episode is the first time we truly see her get angry.

** Despite the above, Gonzales actually ends up making a legitimate push for peace. He tries to bond with Jiaying by bringing up that HYDRA hurt them both and gives her back an important keepsake. He does, however, make two diplomatic blunders: coming in with an escort of armed agents and matter-of-factly bringing up the Index like it's non-negotiable. Plus he brought a gun, which Coulson had the good sense to know was a bad idea. Another bad idea was to compare his leg injury to the vivisection at Whitehall's hands

* OnlySaneWoman: ''Raina'' of all people is the only one to see the danger that's about to come. But naturally, [[ManipulativeBitch given her former reputation]] and that her transformation doesn't allow her to have much in the field of facial expressions, nobody believes her.

* FridgeBrilliance: The prosthetic used on Ruth Negga keeps her from showing much facial expressions. Thus viewers can't tell if she's lying or not about the vision that Jiaying will cause destruction on Afterlife.

** Despite the above, Gonzales actually ends up making a legitimate push for peace. He tries to bond with Jiaying by bringing up that HYDRA hurt them both and gives her back an important keepsake. He does, however, make two diplomatic blunders: coming in with an escort of armed agents and matter-of-factly bringing up the Index like it's non-negotiable. Plus he brought a gun, which Coulson had the good sense to know was a bad idea.

** Jiaying killed Gonzales and faked a gunshot to start a war.

** By forcing Coulson to stand aside in negotiations because he's too close to Skye, Gonzales gave Jiaying even further reason not to trust S.H.I.E.L.D. First, Skye told Jiaying that she'd be speaking to Coulson, not Gonzales. Second, Jiaying had reason to trust Coulson through their shared connection to Skye, with even Cal admitting that he cares for her. Instead, Gonzales gives the standard sell and Jiaying doesn't buy, starting a war. She may have pulled the same with Coulson, but at least they would have had some common ground. There's also no way in hell Skye would believe Coulson tried to kill Jiaying, meaning the plan to convert her would be dead in the water.
** Gonzales makes a terrible negotiator. Faced with an entire of community of people that are established to distrust S.H.I.E.L.D., he makes the critical diplomatic blunder of bringing up the Index and asking Jiaying to just allow S.H.I.E.L.D. to walk in and examine all of them with only the assurance that they mean well. He also comes in armed, which played right into Jiaying's hands, when Coulson's briefing made it clear he would have gone unarmed as a show of good faith.
* NobleBigot: Gonzales proves that, despite his mistrust of powered people, he is more than capable of honestly negotiating peace and even sympathising on a personal level with them. Too bad Jiaying didn't appreciate it.

** Offering to Index the Inhumans right off the bat only proved to Jiaying that she was in the right to kill Gonzales and start a war, considering she's old enough to remember [[ThoseWackyNazis the last group of people]] who thought that was a good idea.

** Gonzales and Jiaying. Both are ruthless war hawks who are determined to save their people. Gonzales even tried to invoke this by mentioning his own share of pains at the hand of HYDRA. Unfortunately for him, comparing a bad leg to ''being vivisected for being different'' does not sit well with her, so she kills him and shoots herself with his gun to start a war.

* OnlySaneWoman: ''Raina'' of all people is the only one to see the danger that's about to come. But naturally, [[ManipulativeBitch given her former reputation]], nobody believes her.

* BerserkButton: Every time Jiaying's treatment at the hands of Whitehall is brought up, she's taken it in stride... until an outsider like Gonzales tries to sympathize with her, and she's outright insulted at how an ordinary human could ever understand what she went through. The end of the episode is the first time we truly see her get angry.

** Mack quits S.H.I.E.L.D., saying he wants no part of S.H.I.E.L.D. as long as Coulson's in charge due to the GH325 serum in Coulson.

* ShoutOut: The first thing we see after the "previously-on" sequence is a bedsheet with the pictures of ''Franchise/StarWars'', belonged to one of the Koenigs.

** Lincoln previously mentioned to Skye that [[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS2E16Afterlife she and Raina]] were the first two Inhumans in centuries to undergo Terrigenesis the "old-school" way -- through a Diviner and a Kree temple. Jiaying and Gonzales' meeting reveals that Lai Xi uses Terrigen crystals extracted and reproduced from a melted down Diviner. This also explains why [[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS2E12WhoYouReallyAre Vin-Tak]] only arrived after Skye and Raina transformed, even though the Inhumans have been using the crystals for thousands of years; because they don't activate the temple to transform, the Kree have no idea they exist.

** Lincoln previously mentioned to Skye that [[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS2E16Afterlife Raina and her]] were the first two Inhumans to undergo Terrigenesis the "old-school" way through a Diviner and Kree temple. Jiaying and Gonzales' meeting reveals that Lai Xi uses Terrigen crystals extracted and possible reproduced from a melted down Diviner. The lack of the temple to open a Diviner probably explains why the [[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS2E12WhoYouReallyAre Kree have not discovered]] their experiments were successful on Earth until now.

** Lincoln previously mentioned to Skye that [[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS2E16Afterlife Raina and her]] were the first two Inhumans to undergo Terrigenesis the "old-school" way through a Diviner and Kree temple. Jiaying and Gonzales' meeting reveals that Lai Xi uses Terrigen crystals extracted and possible reproduced from a melted down Diviner. The lack of the temple to open a Diviner probably explains why the Kree have not discovered their experiments were successful on Earth until now.

* AggressiveNegotiations: The meeting between S.H.E.I.L.D. and the Inhuman society is supposed to be a peaceful and diplomatic one so each can see that the other is not a threat. It ends with Jiayang killing Gonzales and pulling a WoundedGazelleGambit.

** May correctly, if a bit coldly, points out to Skye that the Inhumans can't expect S.H.I.E.L.D. to leave them in peace when they go teleporting into classified S.H.I.E.L.D. bases uninvited (although the Inhumans didn't know the artifact they were hunting was on a S.H.I.E.L.D. base at least not at first anyway.]]

** May correctly, if a bit coldly, points out to Skye that the Inhumans can't expect S.H.I.E.L.D. to leave them in peace when they go teleporting into classified S.H.I.E.L.D. bases uninvited (although the Inhumans didn't know that).

* BorrowedCatchPhrase: Jiaying, while remembering Whitehal's actions, uses his "Discovery requires experimentation" line.

** May correctly, if a bit coldly, points out to Skye that the Inhumans can't expect S.H.I.E.L.D. to leave them in peace when they go teleporting into classified S.H.I.E.L.D. bases without permission (although the Inhumans didn't know that).

* Cal says that Coulson is his least favorite person, but admits that he cares about Daisy/Skye.

* TakenForGranite: Gonzales, meet diviner. Bye bye, Gonzales.

** When Skye brings up Bahrain, May becomes even more abrasive than she was last week - her PTSD is getting worse.

* ParentalSubstitute: Skye openly admits that Coulson has been this to her.

* PoorCommunicationKills: If Raina had been upfront with her visions, rather than trying to benefit herself in the process, things probably would have not have gone so badly. The fact that she had openly expressed an interest in taking over in the previous episode probably didn't help.

* SentimentalSacrifice: Picking up from last week's sacrifice of the Bus, May looks longingly at an empty hangar and says she misses her plane. Promptly lampshaded by Coulson, who points out that a lot of terrible things happened on that plane.

* TakenForGranite: Bye bye, Gonzales.

** When Skye brings up Bahrain May becomes even more abrasive than she was last week - her PTSD is getting worse.

* {{Hypocrite:}} May and Gonzales insist that Coulson can't be the arbitrator for the Inhumans given his fatherly-like love for Skye, which is true. But neither Gonzales or May are impartial either: Gonzales' main trait is FantasticRacism, while May is still haunted what happened at Bahrain and clearly sees the Inhumans as threats who will have to be put down- even Skye.

** Cal says that even if Raina's visions do predict the future, they only have her word for it that she's telling the truth about what she sees -- and she has a well-deserved reputation for lies, half-truths and manipulations.

** May correctly, if a bit coldly, points out to Skye that the Inhumans can't expect S.H.I.E.L.D. to leave them in peace when they go teleporting into classified S.H.I.E.L.D. bases without permission.

** May correctly points out to Skye that the Inhumans can't expect S.H.I.E.L.D. to leave them in peace when they go teleporting into classified S.H.I.E.L.D. bases without permission.

** May to Skye: "I hope your mother is everything you wanted her to be."

* NoodleIncident: Kara has it out for Bobbi for some past betrayal. It's not made clear what that is, though the list of likely scenarios is pretty short.
** It's because Bobbi was TheMole at HYDRA as head of security when Kara was kidnapped by them and brainwashed. Either it's because Bobbi didn't help her fellow agent or even worse actually led HYDRA to her in order to secure her cover.

** It's made very clear actually. Bobbi was TheMole at HYDRA as head of security when Kara was kidnapped by them and brainwashed. Bobbi couldn't help her because she had to be undercover but it still sucks that she did nothing while a fellow agent's life was destroyed.