Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Nothing Personal is the 20th episode of the season and has the team trying to track Skye after she was taken by Ward in an attempt to get her to decrypt classified data. But considering recent events it won’t be easy for them and one of those reasons is they’re shorthanded. This is something that Agent May understands as she tracks down Maria Hill and makes sure they have some private time to chat by leaving those following her incapacitated. Maria explains that the only reason she’s free is because she’s going to work for Tony Stark and no one can touch his army of lawyers. May tells Maria that Coulson needs help but won’t accept it from her any longer, and that he also knows what was done to him. And since S.H.I.E.L.D. was compromised the entire team it’s important they figure out who was behind Fury’s plan to bring Coulson back. Meanwhile, Coulson and the rest of the team are reviewing the base’s video surveillance to try to figure out why everyone is missing and they see that May left first, Skye and Ward left together and Agent Koenig never left. Coulson already knows that May left because of him but they can’t make sense out of anything else especially since the communication line has been taken down. So they search the base while Coulson and Triplett run through different scenarios, and Simmons finds Agent Koenig’s body at the same time Fitz finds the message Skye left in another location: Ward is Hydra. Can the team scramble in time and locate Skye before the worst happens or is there just too much stacked against them leaving Skye to deal with Ward on her own?

Every episode of this series is a must-watch for me as I’ve been enjoying this series much more than I originally hoped I would but I approached this issue with a very slight apprehension. And I know I sound like a broken record when I say again it’s due to concern about Ward’s interesting character development being reversed but this show is on a new level because of it and the dynamic it brings is easy to see. It was an excellent and tense sequence with the team searching for Agent Koenig, and even though the result was already known the writers and actors did a great job here. And the way Simmons on the verge of tears determined Koenig’s cause of death confirming that Ward was indeed the killer, and Fitz’s reaction to that were prime examples of why this dynamic works so well. Before it was just about an interesting series of events unfolding in an episode but now these events are gripping and give you something to feel without additional exposition being necessary, without beating you over the head with the obvious to get you to care about what’s occurring. And they still had a mission, which was to focus on tracking and rescuing Skye and they couldn’t deny that Ward was indeed Hydra. It wasn’t just Simmons and Fitz who now have more of an opportunity to be uniquely interesting characters but, ironically, the interaction between Ward and Skye this episode was probably the best it’s been this entire season as Chloe Bennett and Brett Dalton play off each other extremely well in all their scenes.

SUMMARY

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Nothing Personal continues the incredible second half run this show has been on and shows why it’s one of the best shows on TV right now. The characters’ reaction to discovering Ward was Hydra all along was pure gold, and his answer to Skye that it wasn’t personal is just one of the reasons why I’ve been enjoying Ward as a Hydra agent. Maria Hill’s appearance was a great addition, as usual, and her making it clear to Coulson that S.H.I.E.L.D. is over raises the stakes for the events that can unfold leading up to the season finale. The reason given for deceiving the team might have been “it wasn’t personal” but the bold story line has made this series my personal favorite.