Despite the well meaning efforts of Fitz last week, it was only a matter of time until the team found out Skye was Inhuman. Well, one week to be exact. Skye tries to keep pressing on like it’s business as usual, at least until she confronts the Kree in the field and accidentally earthquakes apart her sidearm. I can’t fathom why Vin-Tak didn’t notice then and there who the Inhuman was, but later on in S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, everyone finds out about Skye, and the alien guests were united in one cause: getting Skye!
Sure, Sif and the Kree differ on degrees of severity, but they both agree on the idea that Skye is too dangerous to be kept at S.H.I.E.L.D. The whole thing blows up into a brief fight that ends with Skye shooting herself in the arm to stop herself from quaking out, which was apparently proof enough for Sif that things were under control. The plot seemed to peter out because you can’t have Lady Sif and the Kree Vin-Tak around for two episodes I guess, so it’s enough to know that Skye will injure herself to shut her powers off. All that was missing was Sif exasperatingly say, “Ah, screw the whole thing! I’m going back to Asgard.”
Although it’s fun to have Lady Sif around, which allows the wonderful Jaimie Alexander to say perfectly deadpan lines like, “Answer the question, elderly man!”, her presence was kind of superfluous to the character drama in the main cast. It was nice to see Fitz as Skye’s confidante through her struggles, but the show doesn’t give any added insight into how and why he suddenly wanted to help Skye keep her secret. One thing’s for sure, those hoping for a return to the FitzSimmons of old were disappointed as the distance between them is dug deeper when it’s revealed Fitz was hiding Skye’s condition. You want to talk about a killer, check out that look of hurt on Elizabeth Henstridge‘s face when Simmons realizes that Fitz knew.
Other secrets came dangerously close to being exposed as well. Whatever Mack and Bobbi are working on must be coming to a head, or at least it will be now that Mack has incapacitated Hunter when he gets confrontational about Mack and Bobbi’s secret project. That seems a bit rash on the part of Mack. I mean, what’s he going to do with Hunter, throw him in Lola’s trunk for the duration?
In addition, we’re still largely in the dark about what it is exactly that Mack and Bobbi are conspiring about, and why Bobbi was willing to bring Hunter in for reasons apart from their romantic past. Mack says that he doesn’t want Hunter involved in case he takes “their” side. “Their” as in Coulson and his original team? Why work against Coulson and the others, and who for? Mack invoked the feeling of betrayal he and Bobbi felt when it was revealed their S.H.I.E.L.D. were really HYDRA, so are they worried that the others are a front for something else now?
“Who You Really Are” did us a mercy by quickly dispatching this “Skye has a secret” dynamic to get to the much more interesting drama of how the others will react, and how Skye will cope now being seen again as an outsider after all her hard work to be turned into an agent in May’s image. The Bobbi and Mack drama could use some more context now, because as compared to how quickly Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s been burning through other developments, this one’s progressing at a glacial pace.