Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 3.12: "The Inside Man"

“You gentlemen interested in changing jobs? The good guys are hiring. You don't get to kill people in cold blood, but we've got a really good retirement plan.”
-Coulson

“The Inside Man” was certainly an action-packed episode of “S.H.I.E.L.D.” The President and Coulson decide it’s a good idea to hold an invite-only symposium about the Inhumans in Taiwan. Coulson in particular hopes it will be a chance to learn more about whether or not other countries are harboring Inhumans. It’s not going to be just a sedate little symposium, though. There’s plenty of political intrigue and Hydra interference. We really haven’t seen political intrigue to this level on “S.H.I.E.L.D.” before, and it’s fun, albeit kind of stressful to watch. Too many life or death moments in one hour! We also start to get a sense of what Maveth might really be capable of, and it’s not good. I really don’t understand Hydra’s devotion to Maveth, although I guess we aren’t supposed to understand pure evil like that.

As the episode opens, we start with Maveth, who is still in the TV room at Hydra HQ. He is introduced to Lucio, who is the guy from Colombia who can freeze people with his eyes, and Maveth is the only person/creature in the room that Lucio can’t freeze. Maveth does his turning into sand thing with Lucio, although I’m still not really sure what that means. Later, Maveth and Gideon have a conversation, and Maveth is looking even more worse for wear. Gideon asks Maveth if he needs a new host, but Maveth insists that Ward will do until everything is ready. After Gideon leaves, Maveth tells Giyera and Lucio that he needs five living humans. When the five humans arrive, Maveth basically absorbs them. By the end of the episode, he rises from the carnage, covered in goo and looking stronger.

We next see General Talbot, newly appointed head of the ATCU, arguing with his wife in an airport before she leaves for her flight. I’m honestly wondering how he got past security without a boarding pass. People can’t have emotional conversations by an airline gate anymore these days. As Talbot is watching his wife’s plane, he is approached by Coulson, which is super awkward. Although Coulson says he’d rather be Talbot’s partner than his boss, Talbot has no intention of letting Coulson be either. As we learn back at S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, the first mission of the new S.H.I.E.L.D./ATCU alliance is the symposium I mentioned earlier that is going to be taking place in Taiwan. The team are all working on the preparations. Daisy is especially skeptical, since the symposium is going to be about the “alien contagion.” She feels strongly that terrigenesis is an “awakening,” not a disease.

Meanwhile, Lincoln is in Taiwan on a surveillance mission with May. He’s watching Coulson and Talbot arrive, but things kick into high gear when he spots Carl Creel, too. By the time the team decides to react, Coulson and Talbot are in a parking garage. Coulson shoves Talbot in a vehicle and locks it while Lincoln attacks. Creel deflects the attack pretty easily, though, by turning to rubber. May, however, comes in with the assist and turns Creel to metal. Lincoln can now easily attack him, although he gets a bit carried away, and it takes a lot to make him stop electrocuting Creel. Once he is let out of the vehicle, Talbot says that Creel isn’t a threat. He is protecting him.

Meanwhile, back at HQ, Daisy and Lincoln are sparring, because Lincoln needs to train for his upcoming S.H.I.E.L.D. agent exam. It’s clear that Lincoln has some trouble containing his powers. Just as the sparring is about to transition to something more intimate, Simmons interrupts because she has noticed something weird while testing Creel’s blood. It turns out that Creel’s blood acts as a vaccine for terrigenesis. She transformed an old sample of Daisy’s blood, then was able to change it back with Creel’s blood. Lincoln thinks this could be a good thing, but Daisy certainly doesn’t. The two actually get into a pretty significant argument about whether or not the vaccine is a good thing, with each saying some pretty hurtful things to the other. By the end of the episode, though, they’ve made up. Lincoln admits he’s a bit jealous about how zen Daisy is with her powers. And since I really don’t care all that much about Daisy and Lincoln, let’s move on.

So, on to the political intrigue! Coulson’s team searches the hotel room of the symposium attendees while the symposium is happening and Talbot and Coulson are cozying up to everyone. They use a machine created by Fitz to create gloves of the palm prints of the attendees to get into their rooms. While snooping, Hunter notices Creel going off-post, so he starts following him. Meanwhile, by snooping in the room of the Australian delegate, Bobbi figures out that the Australians have been keeping an Inhuman sedated for experiments. By following Creel, Hunter finds something unexpected in the back of a truck – a kid in a gel containment unit. He almost immediately gets stopped by guards, though. In the symposium, the group is about to vote in favor of creating an Inhuman sanctuary state in Russia when Talbot interrupts. He says they have a traitor among their midst, and that traitor is Coulson. Gideon takes the opportunity to make his entrance and says that Coulson is the director of Hydra.

Gideon quickly takes the opportunity to turn the symposium against Coulson, reminding the group that most of them now him from his work on the World Security Council or the good works of his foundation. He seems to be especially interested in cozying up to Petrov, the Russian delegate to the symposium. Outside, May saves Hunter from the Hydra security guards, and he tells her and Bobbi that he has a stash of guns. This makes May not hate him quite as much. We also learn that the person in the gel containment unit is Talbot’s son. That’s what got him to agree to be Gideon’s inside man at the symposium. Coulson is taken to lock-up, and when the entourage arrives there, Talbot is locked up too. Gideon orders both of them killed.

Creel of all people ends up saving the day by breakout Coulson and Talbot out of lock-up. They make their way out of the prison area while Bobbi and Hunter take on the Hydra agents still hanging around where the symposium had been meeting. Creel ends up saving Hunter, too, by killing an agent who is about to shoot him. To top off the success for the team, May pulls up driving the truck carrying the containment unit with Talbot’s son. Talbot watches over his son at the hospital, although Coulson assures him his son will be fine after some rest. Talbot and Coulson agree to a more cordial working relationship going forward. Bobbi and Hunter were told to tail Gideon, and in the episode’s tag, we see where he is. He’s giving Petrov a ride home on his private jet, and Bobbi and Hunter are stowing away in the plane’s cargo hold.