"A Hen in the Wolf House" is the fifth episode of the second season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
Coulson's team is up against the beautiful and deadly Bobbi Morse--Security Chief for Hydra. Meanwhile, Skye's father forces Raina to reunite him with his daughter at any cost!
Plot[]
HYDRA tests a weapon based on their work with the Obelisk at a wedding where the attendants are Navy officers part of a Hydra task force. However, the test was deemed a failure, so Daniel Whitehall calls a meeting of his best scientists to see where the test went wrong. One of those called to the meeting is Jemma Simmons, who is still working their undercover. She then communicates information back to S.H.I.E.L.D. using a plastic sheet that disguises itself as a discarded menu.
Meanwhile, Raina still needs to deliver the Obelisk to HYDRA or the device Daniel Whitehall placed on her hand will kill her. She returns to Skye's father, who is in the middle of operating on some criminals. Angry that Raina would interrupt this procedure, he lashes out at her and places his hand around her throat. Although he won't hand over the Obelisk, he does remind her that he still needs for her to reunite him with his daughter. Raina leaves and finds Simmons while she is sending the message to S.H.I.E.L.D. and takes a picture of her. She then calls S.H.I.E.L.D. and sets up a meeting with Coulson, who has already revealed to Skye that that he is the source of the carvings they have been investigating and that she might be an alien.
HYDRA meanwhile has been tipped off that one of their agents has been communicating with S.H.I.E.L.D., and they have the plastic sheet Simmons used to send her messages as evidence. Bobbi Morse, Hydra's chief of security, leads the investigation, and while she is questioning Simmons another HYDRA agent finds one of the sheets at her boss Kenneth's workstation. Once Kenneth is knocked out and taken away, Simmons goes to the bathroom to calm down, but Morse followed her in there and resumes questioning her.
Meanwhile, Coulson has met Raina at a nearby restaurant, while Hunter, Skye, and May are positioned throughout the location in case it went bad. Raina shows Coulson the picture he took of Simmons, and threatens to send it to every Hydra agent's email unless he hands Skye over to her. This offer gets to Skye, who wants to meet her father, forcing May to restrain her. Despite the threat, Coulson refuses to hand her over to Raina, and the picture is sent to HYDRA. With her cover blown, Simmons tries to escape from the HYDRA facility, but finds herself being approached by Bakshi on one side and Morse on the other. However, Morse takes out two batons and attacks the Hydra agents accompanying her, and reveals herself to be another undercover agent working for Coulson. The two of them head for the roof, where a cloaked Quinjet piloted by Triplett is waiting to pick them up.
At the restaurant, Raina questions why Coulson would risk one of his own agents. As Hunter joins him, he states that he doesn't take risks in this business. With her leverage gone, Raina pleads to be taken into his custody to flee Whitehall's wrath, but is refused. Coulson then deduces that Skye's father possesses the Obelisk and asks for his location. When she gives it up and they send Raina off with a tracker injected into her leg, Skye leaves for his location alone. He is already gone by the time she arrives, but Skye finds a framed picture of him on the ground. Coulson and the others show up soon after, and find the bodies of the criminals he was working on earlier brutally murdered. Skye calls him a monster, causing her father, who was waiting outside, to smash the tablet he was watching them on and drives away.
Both teams regroup back at the Playground, where Morse almost immediately gets into an argument with Hunter, her ex-husband. Simmons goes to see Fitz, while Coulson takes Skye up to his office to show her the runes. He confides in her that it frustrates him that he has no idea what the carvings mean, but Skye thinks it is a map. Back at HYDRA's offices, as the HYDRA agents are preparing to move house, Skye's father barges into Dr. Whitehall's office, effortlessly killing the HYDRA agents he sends to stop him. He then gives the Obelisk, the "Diviner" in its mother language, and offers to teach Whitehall how to unlock its secrets. Together, the two of them will take on their common foe, Phil Coulson.
Cast[]
- Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson
- Ming-Na Wen as Melinda May
- Brett Dalton as Grant Ward
- Chloe Bennet as Skye
- Iain De Caestecker as Leo Fitz
- Elizabeth Henstridge as Jemma Simmons
- Nick Blood as Lance Hunter
- B.J. Britt as Antoine Triplett
- Adrianne Palicki as Bobbi Morse/Mockingbird
- Henry Simmons as Alphonso Mackenzie
- Ruth Negga as Raina
- Reed Diamond as Daniel Whitehall
- Kyle MacLachlan as The Doctor
- Simon Kassianides as Sunil Bakshi
- Adam Kulbersh as Kenneth Turgeon
- Dale Waddington as Dr. Lingenfelter
- Chase Kim as waiter
- Caleb Smith as bartender
- Amir Talai as Schneider
- Valorie Hubbard as Aunt Cindy
- Adam Dunnells as Brick
- Ronnie Gene Blevins as Deacon
- Charles Fathy as Head Chef
- Jessen Noviello as Lead Tac Agent
- Jamal Kazak as Pete Leitner
- Brie Mattson as Mariah Leitner
Continuity and References to the Marvel Cinematic Universe[]
- Barbara Morse is introduced.
- Grant Ward returns.
- Jemma Simmons returns.
- Raina returns.
- Daniel Whitehall returns.
- Calvin Johnson returns.
- Sunil Bakshi returns.
- Kenneth Turgeon returns.
- HYDRA appears.
- The Obelisk appears.
- The Strategic Scientific Reserve logos appear.
- Rising Tide is mentioned.
- Captain America appears on an old propaganda poster.
- Johann Schmidt is mentioned as "our founder".
- Tesseract is mentioned.
- Bessie the Hellcow is mentioned.
- John Garrett and his injection of GH.325 are mentioned.
- A Quinjet appears.
- Bobbi Morse's fighting techniques mirror Black Widow's.
Bobbi is revealed to be Lance Hunter's ex.
Trivia[]
- The Hydra research base appears to be located in Pittsburgh, PA. When Jemma Simmons and Bobbi Morse jump from the rooftop to land on the Quin-Jet, the skyline appears behind them. At least four buildings in that shot match ones from the Pittsburgh skyline.
- There's a brief reference in one scene at the Hydra lab of a comic book character named Bessie the Hellcow.
- Both Adrianne Palicki and Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill) have portrayed the DC Comics character Wonder Woman: Adrianne had done so for the aborted live-action Wonder Woman, while Cobie had voiced her for The Lego Movie and had also been attached to a proposed live-action.
- Coulson refers to CDC being a navy top branch, however the Center for Desease Control is a US non military institution that should not be confused with USAMRIID.
- At the end of the episode, Hunter says to Bobbi Morse - who is now a brunette - that he preferred her as a blonde. Bobbi Morse (aka Mockingbird) is a blonde in the comics and Adrianne Palicki is also a blonde in real life.
Gallery[]
