Rodriguez is inside the Framework, having entered to try to bring Mack back to the real world. She encounters Radcliffe, who saves her from being killed by a Hydra agent. He found her due to Daisy planting a trail to lead him there. The Framework is shutting down due to Ophelia working to transfer it into the real world. Ophelia wants to use the Darkhold to make S.H.I.E.L.D. suffer and Fitz in particular. Robbie Reyes, having returned to this world, arrives and fights the Ivanov machines to get to the Darkhold. He is shocked to find that Ophelia is no longer a machine but she is unable to kill him with her abilities so she retreats.

Ivanov brings the Darkhold to a meeting of international leaders at which Talbot is present and the topic of discussion at hand is S.H.I.E.L.D. and all its recent ongoings. Ivanov intends to use the book as a weapon against the Inhumans but the meeting is interrupted with a coordinated attack in which an LMD of Daisy shoots Talbot in the head. Talbot remains alive but is comatose. The real S.H.I.E.L.D. team and Robbie come to save Talbot and Robbie in particular is fueled by the Ghost inside of him wanting to destroy Ophelia, as she is made up of material from the Darkhold too. The military wants to expose Daisy for the crime they believe she commits but Coulson and May get away with the Darkhold. They meet up with Daisy and Robbie who have fought off Ivanov and destroyed the Daisy LMD.

Coulson wants to use the Darkhold as bait to lure Ophelia out but Robbie and the others insist that it's too dangerous to risk losing it. Also, Ophelia teleports away every time she sees Robbie flame on, knowing that he can destroy her as the Ghost.

Rodriguez struggles to convince Mack to leave the Framework, even as things and people are disappearing around them. In the real world, Ophelia stabs Simmons and threatens to kill her, forcing Fitz to offer to hand over the Darkhold. Ophelia electrocutes Simmons and teleports away to Coulson. The Simmons that Ophelia attacked was an LMD. The real Simmons emerges to shoot Ophelia. She heals her wounds but then Coulson grabs hold of her and reveals that he struck a deal with the Spirit of Vengeance to be the temporary Ghost Rider long enough to kill Ophelia.

Back in the Framework, Hope accidentally overhears Rodriguez say she isn't real. Rodriguez tries again to convince Mack to come back. A door reveals itself to give them the opportunity to escape. Radcliffe implores Rodriguez to leave but she doesn't want to leave Mack. The room around them continues to disappear and then Hope disappears right from Mack's grip. Rodriguez returns to the real world and Mack follows her, having nothing left in the Framework to stay for. Radcliffe stay behind, allowing himself to be deleted, as he makes peace with the fact that immortality without Kitsworth wouldn't be worth having.

Robbie and Coulson discuss some secret involving the Spirit of Vengeance that Coulson now knows after being possessed by it, asking Robbie to not tell the others since Coulson plans to tell them at the right time. Mack makes peace with Rodriguez, assuring her there is nothing to forgive, and plans to make a life with her.

Robbie leaves with the Darkhold through a portal, having learned how to open the portal himself since he last saw the team. Fitz wants to take the blame for everything that has happened, still harboring the guilt for what happened in the Framework, but Daisy insists that they are all a team and they will get through everything together. She knows she lost herself when she went rouge and blamed herself for Lincoln's death. They stay together and wait for the government to arrive and punish them for what has happened. But a mysterious group arrives and takes them instead. Fast forward an unknown period of time and Coulson is shown to be working on a space station.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will return for season 5 on ABC.

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Coulson is horrified to realise that Ophelia has Inhuman abilities in her new body after she teleports away with Fitz. All the agents on the Zephyr One plane must fight off Ivanov and his men, which are all robots that look just like him. Tensions run high as Rodriguez resent Daisy for not getting Mack to return from the Framework, though her anger is softened somewhat when she learns that his daughter is live in there, and May is somewhat perturbed that Coulson took so long to realise she had been replaced with a copy. Everyone on team S.H.I.E.L.D. must fight off Ivanov and the other robots to protect themselves and Mack's particularly vulnerable body still hooked up tho the machine.

Fitz and Ophelia are isolated while she discovers the new sensory experience of human emotions and Fitz remembers all the bad things he did inside the Framework. Ivanov launches torpedoes to try to destroy Mack's body but Fitz has already implored Ophelia to be good and focus on her empathy. She uses her new Inhuman abilities to save Mack's body. Simmons tranquilizes both Fitz and Ophelia to keep them in custody and everyone all escapes together. The team discuss what to do with Ophelia and the ethical problems of killing her since she is now human and rescued Mack. Simmons is upset when she learns from Coulson and May feel like they experienced another life by being put in the Framework and what the implications are for Fitz.

Fitz wakes in an isolated area with Ophelia. They discuss her new state of existence and the emotions that come with it. Fitz is shaken by everything he did inside the Framework but admits that even after everything that has happened, he still loves Simmons over Ophelia. Unbeknownst to them, Simmons is listening in on the entire conversation and Ophelia becomes enraged. Simmons tries to warn the others that Fitz needs to be extracted from the room and finds that Talbot has arrived at the base with many other soldiers. Fitz manages to get out of the containment unit but Ophelia uses her abilities to escape too. She kills many soldiers and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and in the process is how to be immune to gunshot wounds.

The surviving people escape in the Zephyr and Ophelia returns to Ivanov who reveals his intentions to use his knowledge from the Darkhold to transfer the reality of the Framework into the real world. Rodriguez enters the Framework in a desperate attempt to get Mack to return to the real world. Finally, the Ghost Rider returns through a portal from the dimension he had previously thrown himself into.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs on Tuesdays on ABC at 10/9c.

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When Daisy and Simmons entered the Framework, their bodies were left to be protected by Rodriguez on the Zephyr One aircraft. Since connecting the Framework to the plane is draining a significant amount of power, Rodriguez has to shut off the plane's cloaking ability, which means Ivanov and his men can find the plane.

In the Framework, Simmons is struggling with the idea of leaving Fitz behind but Daisy implores her to see that they have to save the rest of the team for the time being, since this version of Fitz is putting them all in danger as the head of Hydra. Simmons later runs away from the base and visits Fitz's father Alistair to try to get to Fitz. She forces him to call Fitz and when he warns Fitz of Simmons' presence, a struggle ensues and Simmons is forced to kill him with Fitz still on the call hearing the whole thing unfold. Fitz begins hunting Simmons while incentivizing Radcliffe to help by offering to send him through the machine which would restore his living body.

Ophelia is panic-stricken and initiates the sequence to be transferred into her new body. Daisy leads the rest of the group to Radcliffe's exit point, where she, Coulson, and May manage to cross back into the real world. Fitz arrives at the exit point and confronts Simmons and tries to kill her but it stopped by Radcliffe, who has come to regret everything since the Darkhold corrupted his mind. He send Fitz through the exit point and then Simmons, whom he apologises to for everything. Mack decides to stay in the Framework, not wanting to live in a world without Hope.

Fitz is horrified at all the things he did inside the Framework, overcome with remorse for all the people he hurt and people he killed. The newly human version of Ophelia confronts the group, and teleports away with Fitz.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs on Tuesdays on ABC at 10/9c.

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Daisy regains her Metahuman abilities and escapes Hydra with May, and break's Ophelia's back on the way out. Her injuries lead to Fitz's promotion to be in charge of Hydra but he is ordered by Ophelia to continue working on their secret Project: Looking Glass, which upon completion will render her Framework body obsolete.

Daisy and May reconvene with S.H.I.E.L.D. where they find the team still in recovery after Mace's death. May has access to her body cam footage from the recent attack on the Enlightenment Centre. Coulson uses the footage as a means of undermining Hydra's propaganda by broadcasting it to the world. An additional side plot is that Daisy gives Ward an ounce of redemption by seeing how willing this version of him is to help them get back to their world, even if it puts himself at the risk of dying by Hydra's hand in the process.

Simmons and Triplett are working together to infiltrate a Russian oil platform, which he believes is the location of the Looking Glass in the real world. This location is where Aida is running the Framework. The platform is empty when they arrive but Simmons realises that Aida is trying to use the technology from the Darkhold to grow real human tissue so Ophelia will be able to move from the Framework into a real human body in the real world.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs on Tuesdays on ABC at 10/9c.

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Flashback to Austria, 1945. Daniel Whitehall, formerly known as Werner Reinhardt, and his men are experimenting with the Diviner by forcing captured villagers to touch it. One woman is brought into the room and when her face is pressed to it there is no effect, save for the Diviner glowing. Reinhardt orders her to be put in a cage to be experimented on later after they get the news that The Red Skull has been defeated.

Reinhardt is captured. He then spends 44 years in captivity, finally set free as an old man by the machinations of a Senator Alexander Pierce (the Cap references are coming hard and fast), because the embedded Hydra agents have discovered something that he should see. So they take him to his old lab back in Austria, and they show him the woman from the very beginning of the episode. She hasn't aged a day. So Reinhardt decides to finally make good on his promise—he cuts her to pieces, until he finds what made her young, and after essentially scrapping her body for parts, he uses what he's found to make himself younger again.

Team SHIELD wants to keep a search going for Ward, though Christian doesn't want them to interfere. Bobbi is tasked with interrogating Bakshi, as the team needs to piece together Whitehall's story. Coulson, Skye, Trip, and Fitz are off in the field, going on missions first in Hawaii and then Australia. Simmons shows May research she has found in Peggy Carter's SSR records. This transitions back to a flashback of Whitehall/Reinhardt in Peggy's custody. He speaks of "blue angels"/visitors to the planet that came to conquer it. In the present, The Doctor tells Whitehall that he was misinformed and that these visitors intended to destroy the earth and that only someone who can hold the Diviner can enter a temple in a hidden city (are we still thinking it's Attilan?) The Doctor is confident that he can find this place but he wants men and money to help him. Whitehall doesn't trust him but The Doctor says that he simply wants to kill those that took everything from him and be reunited with the ones he lost that are now in the afterlife.

Grant Ward smashes older brother Christian's SUV window and forces him to come for a walk in the woods. They argue with one another all the way through their trip to the well from their childhood. They both think the other isn't entirely honest. Grant wants Christian to admit that his version of the story is the truth and Christian thinks that Grant needs to take responsibility for his crimes and stop disassociating. Grant orders Christian to dig up the well that their parents buried. Christian tries to escape after hitting Grant with a shovel but Grant quickly recovers. He holds Christian over the open well and threatens to throw him down if he doesn't admit that he made Grant throw Tommy down the well. Christian admits it, saying that Tommy was the only one their mother didn't torture and that he wanted her to feel the same pain that the two of them felt. He says he didn't have the courage to do it himself and apologises to Grant, who tells him it's okay and that this was all he wanted to hear. Grant helps Christian up, gives him a hug, and says it's time for them to go home and they head off together.

The interrogation and research leads Team SHIELD to discover Whitehall's strange lack of ageing. He was kept in "The Rat," this prison where Peggy Carter questions him with all her badassery. She tells him he'll stay locked up forever. He continued to be a prisoner for 44 years until Alexander Pierce has him released. A Hydra spy tells him that they have found "the woman" and she is still alive after all these years. They go to the same Austrian castle from before and when he sees the woman, she has not aged a day. Whitehall orders the experimentation to be done on her.

Bakshi tries to commit suicide through the use of a cyanide pill imbedded in his cheek but Bobbi is determined to not let him get off so easily. Bobbi and Lance later rekindle their affair, at least sexually. Coulson, Skye, and Trip begin their mission to reach a satellite array to retrieve the location of the secret city. But Hydra knew they were coming and a shootout ensues in which Trip is shot. One of the personnel hostage of Hydra offers to help and it's Skye's father, The Doctor. He's preparing to patch him up but when he shows his hand and reveals his knowledge of who they are, he opts to slice Trip's artery and clamp it shut with forceps to use him as a bargaining chip. The Doctor wants to meet Skye but under the right circumstances. Right now, he's focused on getting to the city and doesn't trust Whitehall entirely. He kept something secret, which he shares with Coulson, the fact that there's something very powerful in the city. He tells Coulson how to save Trip and while Coulson and Fitz work to save him, The Doctor makes his getaway. Trip begins to stabilise and the team is able to get the location of the hidden city. Coulson and Fitz refrain from telling Skye about her father's role in Trip's near-death, at least for now.

Finally, we see Whitehall talking to Grant Ward about second chances. Whitehall plays a news clip about Christian Ward and his parents dying in an apparent murder-suicide that was clearly orchestrated by Grant. The news media and law enforcement also got their hands on a recording of Christian's "confession," which was actually audio of what Christian had said to Grant at the well. Most horrific of all, we see how The Doctor performed gruesome, horrific experiments on the woman so that he could achieve his youthful/immortal (?) state that we now see him in. The Doctor is introduced to Ward by Whitehall. We then see in a flashback from 25 years ago, The Doctor discovering the woman's mutilated body and promising to tear the man apart that did this to her. That's right folks. The woman was Skye's mother.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs on Tuesdays on ABC at 9PM.

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Hydra sends some agents in to the UN to take out a number of dignitaries with Obelisk, all which claiming to be SHIELD and further sully the organisation's name. The Obelisk throws disks that makes people turn to ash. Skye and Simmons monitor Ward, who wakes up every morning at 5:30 on the dot to train despite not having a clock or any light to indicate what time it is.

Coulson sends May, Morse, and Hunter to Japan to go after the man who made the weapons, Toshiro Mori. Lance isn't all that comfortable to be back in the field with his ex-wife but Coulson tells him to stay focused on the mission. Surprisingly, General Talbot doesn't believe that SHIELD was responsible but senator Christian Ward (WARD???) tells him to put SHIELD in the ground. Talbot would rather take a level-headed approach but Christian Ward isn't hearing any of it.

Simmons comes to the lab and starts talking with Fitz. She asks for some help repairing a damaged hard drive she stole from Hydra. She wants to things to be as they were but he's not the same man and he hasn't healed from the wounds she left either. Fitz tells her outright that he's different now and she left when he needed help and someone to support him through his recovery. He was worried about her and doesn't understand why she left. She doesn't have a good answer for him, though.

Skye goes to ask Ward about his older brother and he warns her that Christian's dangerous and only cares about inflicting pain. Ward doesn't want to share information on his brother but Coulson ends the conversations, saying they have what they need.

The team in Japan is ready to have Bobbis go in and use her Hydra cover to try to get to Toshiro but May warns her to get out if she senses anything is off. Bobbi gets intel on the weapons and the Obelisk but Lance goes running out when they intercept a message that Bobbi is to be taken out. Cute the shoot-out and some epic butt-kicking, after which the team gets off free and Lance and Bobbi engage in some quality bickering.

Coulson pays a visit to Christian in his office. It's quite the move and Coulson messes with Christian's speech and his phone. Coulson tells him about Whitehall and the truth about the attack. Christian says the American public just need a public enemy so Coulson drops a bomb - that Ward is Hydra and he has him stowed in the basement. Christian appears concerned for Ward's well-being and is worried that he might have been tortured. Coulson says he knows about the well but Christian says that Ward is not who he seems and that all he tells are lies. While Christian is warning Coulson about Ward, Ward is doing the same thing to Skye, saying that Christian will do whatever it takes to manipulate people to his will. While Skye is ready to hear everything Ward has to say about her father, Coulson makes arrangements to have Ward handed over to Christian.

Ward says that Skye's mother is dead, having been killed by Hydra agents that had hunted down that family. Skye's father tore a village apart after learning he'd lost his family in a single day. Ward has connections, people he can talk to, to help them find her father. Skye thanks Ward for sharing everything he knows and says that he is being transferred. He will be placed into his brother's custody, and presumably be publicly denounced as a terrorist, and Christian will overturn his anti-SHIELD policies.

The field team has followed their lead to Belgium but the rest of the team puts together the fact that the target in Belgium is a ruse by Hydra so that a team of assassins can go after the field team and take them out.

Ward is trying to plead his case to Coulson but Coulson tells Ward he is not nor will he ever be a part of the team again. He is no longer of use. Ward asks whose idea it was to put him on trial and notes the political benefits this will have for Christian.

Multiple SHIELD members are murdered, but of course May, Hunter, and Morse are still alive by the end of it. They arrive at the safe house where Lance provides a distraction so May and Bobbi can come crashing through the windows and all kick off an epic fight against the team of Hydra mercs. It's but a small victory given all the fellow agents that died but the fight carries on.

Simmons goes to thank Mac for helping Fitz and being his friend but Mac says that Fitz doesn't need any help. He tells Simmons off, and that she left after he told her how he felt. He also points out that she just makes him worse and she says she knows. "Why do you think I left?"

Ward cooperates as Coulson hands him over to a military escort. Meanwhile, Christian is giving a speech about his brother being a member of Hydra. Talbot is meeting with May to apprehend the remaining Hydra members and he respectfully acknowledges the loss of her fallen comrades. Ward tells Coulson to tell Skye this doesn't change anything and that he keeps his promises. Christian is promising that Ward will be punished for his crimes and it's then that Ward breaks out of his restraints and takes out the guards escorting him.

A man walks into a tattoo shop, saying tonight they finish it. He says the pain helps him remember and we see that his torso is covered in the alien markings that Coulson has been carving.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs on Tuesdays on ABC at 9PM.

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