End of the Beginning

End of the Beginning is the sixteenth episode of the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..

Synopsis
Agents Garrett and Triplett are back to help Coulson's Team track down S.H.I.E.L.D.'s nefarious enemy--The Clairvoyant. But will Deathlok destroy them all to protect his master's identity?

Plot
Garrett and Triplett are attacked by Mike Peterson, who has been reborn as Deathlok, at a S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse. Several weeks later, they along with Agents Hand, Sitwell and Blake join the team in their hunt for the Clairvoyant. The agents split into teams to pursue leads on different Clairvoyant candidates. At a nursing home searching for Thomas Nash, a catatonic man who once claimed to be a psychic, May and Blake encounter Deathlok. Before critically injuring Blake before escaping, he claims that "Mike Peterson is dead" upon being reminded of his son. However, Blake manages to tag him with a tracker before he flees. Concluding that Nash is the Clairvoyant because of Deathlok's presence along with the falsifying of his nursing home records, the team converges on Deathlok's next location, an abandoned horse racing track, while Triplett and Simmons stay behind at the Hub with Hand. The team briefly encounters Deathlok again, but he flees into the sewers. However, they discover a hidden room where Thomas Nash, a vegetative man on life support who must speak through a computer, is hiding. Nash surrenders and boasts that as the Clairvoyant, he will always be watching them, but when he says that Project Centipede will kill Skye, Ward shoots him dead. Meanwhile, Fitz attempts to create a secret phone line so he can speak to Simmons from the Bus, but he discovers a bug that leads him to May's secure line. Coulson realizes that Thomas Nash was not the Clairvoyant, and when Skye presents the results of her studies on the S.H.I.E.L.D. psychological files of the potential Clairvoyants, they realize that the Clairvoyant is a member of S.H.I.E.L.D. with access to the same files, giving the Clairvoyant knowledge of how to manipulate the agents. Coulson accuses the detained Ward of working with the Clairvoyant and shooting Nash to misdirect away from the Clairvoyant's true identity, but they are interrupted by Skye, who learned of May's unapproved phone line from Fitz. Coulson and Skye end up in a standoff with May in the Bus's hangar. But as May tries to explain that she cannot identify who the line goes to, control of the Bus is hijacked. At the Hub, Victoria Hand orders everyone aboard to be killed, except for Coulson.

Cast
Main Cast:
 * Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson
 * Ming-Na Wen as Agent Melinda May
 * Brett Dalton as Agent Grant Ward
 * Chloe Bennet as Skye
 * Iain De Caestecker as Agent Leo Fitz
 * Elizabeth Henstridge as Agent Jemma Simmons

Guest Stars:
 * Bill Paxton as Agent John Garrett
 * Saffron Burrows as Agent Victoria Hand
 * J. August Richards as Michael Peterson/Deathlok
 * B.J. Britt as Agent Antoine Triplett
 * Titus Welliver as Agent Felix Blake
 * Maximiliano Hernández as Agent Jasper Sitwell
 * Brad Dourif as Thomas Nash
 * Unknown actor as Elijah Fordham

Locations

 * Sydney, Australia
 * North Pole
 * United Kingdom
 * Milton Keynes, England
 * Milton Keynes Prison
 * Macon, Georgia
 * Tranquility Bridge
 * Muncie, Indiana
 * Pensacola, Florida
 * The Hub
 * The Fridge (mentioned)

Items

 * Centipede Device
 * Backscatter X-Ray Eye Implant
 * Cybertek Prosthetic Leg
 * Forearm Rocket Launcher
 * Golden Retrievers
 * Bulletproof Vest
 * I.C.E.R.
 * Medical Pod

Vehicles

 * The Bus
 * Lola
 * S.H.I.E.L.D. SUV
 * S.H.I.E.L.D. Jump Jet
 * Lemurian Star (mentioned)

Organizations

 * S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * Centipede Project
 * HYDRA

Mentioned

 * The Clairvoyant
 * [[Wikipedia:Kreskin|The Amazing Kreskin]
 * Lorelei
 * The Index
 * Triskelion
 * Damon Rowe
 * Enrico Sato
 * Ball State University
 * Ace Peterson
 * Department H
 * Edison Po
 * Raina
 * Ian Quinn
 * Robert Coulson

Trivia

 * Agent Jasper Sitwell is ordered to report to the Lemurian Star, setting up the beginning of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
 * This is the only episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that does not have an after-final-commercial epilogue, because it was replaced by footage from Captain America: The Winter Soldier.