Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Making Friends and Influencing People' Review: Simmons Returns

The first two Season 2 episodes of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. presented the new landscape of the series, which was fundamentally altered by the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his team have multiple threats with which to contend in Season 2, but we learned in Episode 3, "Making Friends and Influencing People," that the director is trying to stay one step ahead in the game.

The latest installment featured the return of the flesh and blood Simmons (Elisabeth Henstridge), not the hallucinatory version that's been chatting in Fitz's (Iain de Caestecker) mind for the past two episodes. At first glance, it seemed like she had betrayed her team and joined Hydra, but it turns out she did so on Coulson's orders. Simmons is now acting as an agent inside the enemy's organization, as Coulson tries to get her to move up the ranks and learn all she can about how Hydra works.

The danger here is obvious. Simmons said she disclosed her previous employment history to Hydra when she joined, which was all well and good when the organization assumed S.H.I.E.L.D. had been destroyed. But now that S.H.I.E.L.D. is operational again, albeit on a much smaller scale, wouldn't Hydra be smart enough to assume she's acting as a double agent? Or at least have some suspicions? Either way, it looks like Simmons is in for some trouble, as the end of the episode teased that Hydra would put her through the same brainwashing process that worked on Agent 33.

Much of the episode focused on Simmons and her new mission, but we also spent some more quality team with Fitz. Firstly, the show once again paired him with Mack (Henry Simmons), which was a nice bit of continuity from last week with Mack acting as Fitz's translator. The two even stayed behind, and Mack wanted to play Xbox with his new buddy!

But Fitz had more important things on his mind, such as figuring out what Coulson had been hiding from him. Unfortunately, he found it when he stumbled on Ward (Brett Dalton) locked up in the cell in the basement. Fitz, not of sound mind at the moment and still suffering the effects from when Ward dropped him into the ocean, tried to show the traitor what oxygen deprivation feels like by dropping the air supply in his cell.

He didn't kill him, but this all led to a conversation between Coulson and Fitz in which the director revealed that 1) he can't look at Ward and hates having to keep him in the basement, but they need the intel on Hydra and 2) he's going to keep things from Fitz because he's the director, and that's just how it has to be. This was a much better way to handle Fitz's situation than in the premiere, where Coulson basically put Fitz in day care.

Skye (Chloe Bennet) also made her first kill this week when she took out Blizzard (guest star Dylan Minnette). May's (Ming-Na Wen) training appears to be paying off, as Skye kept her heart rate steady throughout the entire ordeal. And she became quite skilled with that sniper rifle after just a little bit of practice!

But Skye's heart monitor watch started going bananas in the tag at the end of the show, when Ward revealed to her some information about her family. Skye and her father have been on a collision course for a while now, but Skye just wasn't aware of it. The two seem to be getting closer to a reunion, but it doesn't seem like it will be a pleasant one.

What did you think of the latest episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Let us know in the comments section.