History Recap / AgentsOfSHIELDS4E16WhatIf

* ForWantOfANail: The Framework lets a person experience their life without their biggest regret. Unfortunately, it's advanced enough to then extrapolate how future events may have unfolded without that defining event.
** May saved Katya during the Bahrain incident not knowing that she was the one who caused it, resulting in a sadistic EmotionEater whose favorite meal is pain being unleashed on an unsuspecting school in Cambridge. Reportedly, the body count was quite high. This caused anti-Inhuman sentiment to skyrocket, giving HYDRA a convenient excuse to stop hiding within S.H.I.E.L.D. and start operating openly. Under the pretense of protecting humans from Inhumans, they now rule the country as [[VillainWithGoodPublicity Villains with Good Publicity]]. May, blaming herself for the Cambridge incident, is now coldly and staunchly loyal to HYDRA.
** Fitz's father apparently having stayed in his life, paired with Simmons not being his strongest relationship, would lead to a colder and more ruthless version of him.
** Never having gone into S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson lives a quiet life as a high school teacher and goes along with HYDRA's anti-Inhuman propaganda. It's also possible he was indirectly responsible for HYDRA's rise; Coulson was always a stabilizing influence on S.H.I.E.L.D. in general and for May specifically, so the Bahrain and Cambridge incidents could have gone differently if he were there.
** Due to HYDRA's takeover, the Avengers Initiative never happened, and the applicants were all most likely assassinated by a Framework version of Project Insight.

* GutturalGrowler: Framework Simmons has the growling voice of a long-term chain-smoker. In-universe, it's probably a result of her death, but in a case of RealLifeWritesThePlot, Creator/ElizabethHenstridge really was [[https://twitter.com/MarkKolpack/status/849492077427789825 sick]].

** The Cambridge Incident parallels the Stanford Incident that triggered ''Comicbook/CivilWar'', where a mass murder instigated a fear of superpowered humans. The organization that responds to this sentiment also devolved into a fascist dystopian government.

* SchizoTech: While some technologies have advanced (such as anything that involves testing or torturing Inhumans), the world lags behind in others. There are no smartphones, tablet computers look like two bricks stuck together (possibly a 90's convertible), and every computer has an OS that would've been considered out of date twenty years ago even in real life, much less compared to those that Tony Stark lent to S.H.I.E.L.D.. HYDRA use tasers instead of I.C.E.R.s, while the Dwarfs (though advanced for our world) are significantly larger than those invented by Fitz back in the show's real world. There's also a distinct lack of holograms; while obviously still impossible in the audience's real world, in the MCU, they've been a common presence for quite some time.

* AbsenteeActor: Neither Henry Simmons (Mack), Jason O'Mara (Mace), Natalia Cordova-Buckley (Yo-Yo), nor John Hannah (Dr. Radcliffe) appear in this episode, though Simmons and Hannah are listed in the opening credits due to being official series regulars.

* RealityEnsues: While Simmons managed to get out of the mass grave with all her outer coverings intact, BeautyIsNeverTarnished is averted in that she looks quite dirty, and her clothes still have a few bullet holes and blood stains from the death blow that had been dealt to her. She also finds herself in trouble due to the fact that she's legally dead, which raises flags whenever someone looks up her name, and since she looks like hell because of the whole "digging herself out of a mass grave" thing, and is ranting about the world not being real, everybody but Daisy thinks she's a crazy lady off her meds.

** Daisy tries to convince Ward that she and Jemma have nothing to do with the Resistance. Then he says, [[ReverseMole "Well, I do."]]

* NeverLiveItDown: In-universe in the Framework, Vijay and Fitz seem to enjoy rubbing the Cambridge incident right in May's face.

** Due to HYDRA's takeover, the Avengers Initiative never happened, and the applicants were all most likely assassinated by a Framework version of Project: Insight.

* EyesAreUnbreakable: A corpse in the grave where Jemma was buried still has its eyes intact. Averted in that it appears to be the body of Deathlock who has a cybernetic eye.

** The lack of smartphones is more significant than it might seem. Newspapers are instead the main source of information... Hydra controlled newspapers.
* DeliberatelyMonochrome: The visuals of the Framework are slightly desaturated, adding to the grim nature of a HYDRA conquered world.

* EyesAreUnbreakable: A corpse in the grave where Jemma was buried still has its eyes intact.

* GasLeakCoverup: HYDRA slaughtered everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy and then wrote it off as some kind of mass contamination.

* ItsASmallNetAfterAll: Jemma searches a HYDRA database for Daisy Johnson and gets zero results, since the Framework version of Daisy presumably is still registered under her legal name of Mary Sue Poots.

* ShoutOut: The HYDRA-ruled Framework reality parallels dystopian literary pieces ''[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'' (a fascist dictatorial government) and ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' (a world without pain and regret). The Framework showing what would have happened if some significant event changed is also one to the Marvel "What If" series, which would show alternate takes on established lore and characters.

* DeliberatelyMonochrome: The visuals of the Framework are slightly desaturated, adding to the grim nature of a HYDRDA conquered world.