Agents of SHIELD Episode 320 Recap: Lincoln Answers the Siren Song

If, for some reason, you didn’t see Captain America: Civil War this weekend, the opening scenes of SHIELD give you a vague idea of what you missed: the Sokovia Accords were signed to essentially create an international registry for super-powered people. Also, Agent Carter died. Sad. Anyway, Coulson is mourning Carter in a bar in the middle of nowhere, where Talbot meets him on the President’s behalf. He wants SHIELD to relegitimize, but Coulson doesn’t want to. He would have to add his Inhumans to registry. It’s one thing for the Avengers to register; they are in the spotlight. But SHIELD and the Inhumans operate in the shadows. He did promise full transparency with Talbot, which means a full tour of HQ. The booth they are seated in drops down, right into HQ.

Lincoln is still locked up, but he wants out – bad. He fights with May when she brings him dinner, telling him his immune system is still compromised (it’s not) and that losing Daisy has made him irrational (it has). She warns him that with Talbot here, she is happy to turn him over. Lincoln settles down – for now. Next May visits FitzSimmons, who are working on “Daisy proofing” the computer systems. Daisy and Fitz are locked in a hacking war. She gets in; he locks her out. Over and over. May says it is time to forget about Daisy, get back on the offensive, and think like Hive; figure out his end game.

When alone, Lincoln whispers to Daisy, hoping she is listening. She puts up a ticker on his TV screen, promising she is listening. She makes a loop of Lincoln sleeping that she can play over the SHIELD system, giving them a few minutes to talk privately. Lincoln is locked up because they don’t trust him; they think he lost his mind over Daisy. He misses her, but didn’t want to be brainwashed. He wants to be with her, alone, away from everything.

Coulson and Talbot are touring the base and introduces him to Elena, who shows off her powers by stealing the medals off his jacket. Talbot again makes his case for the Sokovia Accords, promising the list is highly classified. Coulson doesn’t buy it and takes him to meet Lincoln next. He narrowly misses seeing Lincoln and Daisy talking. Lincoln agrees to register himself if it means he can get out of that room. He will do anything to leave. Coulson doesn’t think that is a good idea, and they leave Lincoln. He has seen the good; he has seen the bad. Now it is time for Talbot to see the ugly: Lash. Talbot is frightened and angry, calling what Coulson has here an “out of control freak show.” Back in the common area, Talbot asks where Daisy is. May says she is on assignment, but Talbot knows better, and shows satellite images of Daisy and Ward strolling through a ghost town.

Talbot is finally read in on Hive, that he is made of nanoparasites that give Inhumans a “desire to serve him.” Talbot sees this as a great argument for the Sokovia Accords, but the bad news keeps coming. Simmons thinks that Hive might be able to create his own Inhumans, an idea that Coulson dismisses when they shut town the Kree blood harvesting last week. Simmons reminds him that both he and Daisy have Kree blood. With the right cocktail, Hive could instantly turn any human into an Inhuman under his control. Talbot is freaked and wants to make a preemptive strike against Hive with the Army. Coulson says they don’t have time for government red tape.

But first, Hive must test Radcliffe’s new concoction, made with Daisy’s blood. He sets up a group of militia extremist who think the Sokovia Accords is a joke and wants all Inhumans destroyed. After a “tip” from a guy inside the ATCU, these militia men hunt a man in a black hoodie into an alley. James is the man in the hoodie, and he weaponizes a heavy chain to keep the men back. Their exit is blocked by Hive, who wants them to become what they hate.

Back at Hive’s facility, the test begins. Daisy doesn’t think they are deserving of being turned into Inhumans, but what Hive says goes. The men are locked into a cargo container and Radcliffe’s latest potion gasses them. There are screams – then quiet. Hive sends Daisy to rest while they wait. They might need more blood from her. Instead, Daisy returns to Lincoln, to help him “MacGyver” his way out of his room. When he rigs the door to open, he will have three minutes to make it to the exit.

Lincoln knocks out a guard outside his door and takes his communicator, which Daisy uses to direct him through the maze of HQ. He nearly runs into May, who Daisy distracts with flashing lights so Lincoln can slip by.

Fitz knows that Hive stole something from an ATCU facility, and Coulson wants Talbot to trust him as much as he is trusting Talbot. Before they can get anywhere, Fitz discovers Daisy is back in the system. What’s more, they realize that the video image of Lincoln they have been watching was on a loop. Rushing to his room, the team finds Lincoln gone. Talbot is pissed, and HQ goes into lockdown. Lincoln is worried when he realizes that all his escape routes are blocked. Daisy has one more trick up her sleeve, one that Fitz realizes he can’t override: if Lincoln can get onto the quinjet, Daisy can program the autopilot to get him out of there.

Daisy can’t access the camera on the flight deck, so Lincoln goes into the hangar blind. The camera is crushed on the floor and Mack tackles Lincoln. Lincoln struggles, doesn’t want to do this, but he has no choice: he electrocutes Mack and gets back to the plan. He makes it into the jet, and she promises it will just be the two of them. She is lying.

At the Inhuman factory, Hive opens up the container. The five men are huddled together at the back of the container, scared and deformed. James said it best when he described them as being “overcooked.” But when Hive tells them to remove their restraints, they oblige. He sends them to bring him Radcliffe, which they do. That is all Ward really wanted: an army of brainwashed muscle. The doctor thinks it is over for him and begs for one more chance, promising he can perfect the formula. Hive assures him they are just fine. “But they are abominations, and a poor show of my talents,” Radcliffe protests. Hive doesn’t see them as an abomination; he sees them like children. And he wants to make more. Hive visits Daisy, who promises Lincoln is on his way. She seems vaguely uneasy about having lied to Lincoln, but that could just be the massive blood loss. Hive promises that Lincoln will be happy when he joins them. Next he shows her the new Inhumans, “our children.” To procreate, though, they will need more blood. How much? “All of it.”

Back at SHIELD, Coulson, Talbot, and the rest of the team see Mack knocked out in the hangar just as the jet is leaving. Talbot wants to scramble the military to shoot it out of the sky, but May walks in – with Lincoln at her side. He didn’t escape. He, May, and Coulson came up with a desperate measure for a desperate time. They knew Daisy would be listening to everything in HQ, so he and May set up the plan with notes on his meal tray. Lincoln stopped trusting Daisy as soon as she was infected, but everyone else had to believe he still wanted to be with her.

At Hive’s facility, the jet lands. The door opens, but Lincoln is not there. It is Lash. May put Lash on the plane when no one was looking. He never killed Daisy, despite multiple opportunities, so they figured she would be safe. As Lash and Hive face off, Lincoln continues his tale in voice over. He believes that every Inhuman is here for a reason, and serves a purpose. Lincoln believes Lash’s purpose is to kill Hive.

Hive tries to infect Lash, and seems surprised when it doesn’t work. Instead, Lash blows a hole through Hive. It doesn’t seem to kill him, but it does knock him down and doesn’t heal. Hive’s mutants rush to his aide, as does Daisy when she sees what is going on. She is extremely weak from blood loss and has trouble balancing. Even still, she warns Lash to back up and tries to quake him awake. Daisy is too weak and collapses. Lash leans over her and removes the infection from her. Gently, he carries her back to the jet, but before they can leave, James kills Lash with his chain of doom. Daisy has enough energy to blast James back, and the jet doors shut. She radios to HQ that she is coming home.

Daisy is brought back into SHIELD HQ in handcuffs, which she clearly understands are necessary. Her friends greet her with cautious warmth. After blood transfusions and lots of tests, Simmons declares Daisy 100% Hive-free. But there is bad news, too. If Hive can get his cocktail high enough to disperse into the atmosphere, he could blanket the world in enough gas to turn everyone into his lemmings. Talbot finally reveals that what was stolen from the ATCU was a fully operational warhead.

In the final scene of the episode, Elena visits Mack and gives him a gift: a cross necklace. At first, I dismiss this as religious nonsense, but then I remember: the dead SHIELD agent had that same necklace on him or her.

You can watch a preview and view photos for next week’s two-part season finale below.