Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D./Season One

The First Season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. premiered on July 18, 2013 on ABC.

Synopsis
Fresh from his role in the summer’s box office smash The Avengers, Agent Phil Coulson returns to the worldwide law enforcement organization S.H.I.E.L.D.. He puts together a small, highly trained, team of Agents to tackle the cases that haven’t been classified yet, the new, the strange and the unknown. That team consists of straight arrow Agent Grant Ward, an expert in combat and espionage; pilot and martial artist Agent Melinda May; and brilliant if socially awkward scientists Agent Leo Fitz and Agent Jemma Simmons. They’ll be joined by civilian new recruit and computer hacker Skye.

Prepare for an epic adventure that showcases the hope and wonder of the human spirit. This is a world of Super Heroes, aliens and the unusual – of action, spectacle and world spanning stories. The show will speak to the human condition through the lens of our very human, non-powered S.H.I.E.L.D agents – that together we are greater than we are apart, and that we can make a difference in the world.

Plot
Several months after the end of The Avengers, Phil Coulson, now alive and well after his apparent murder at the hands of the Asgardian Loki, puts together a small, highly trained team of agents to tackle the cases that haven’t been classified yet. They focus on the new, the strange and the unknown. The team consists of specialist Agent Grant Ward, an expert in combat and espionage; pilot and martial artist Agent Melinda May; and brilliant if socially awkward scientists Agent Leo Fitz and Agent Jemma Simmons.

On their first mission, the team tracked down unregistered superhuman Mike Peterson, and in the process recruited a young computer hacker named Skye. With Skye's help, the team uncovered a plot run by a secret Project that was using a new formula that combined elements of the Super Soldier Serum, Extremis, Gamma Radiation, and Chitauri technology to create ultimate super soldiers. The team confronted Peterson, the enemy Project's newest guinea pig, at a train station and subdued him.

For the following months, the team was charged with various missions, including recovering an 0-8-4 in Peru, rescuing scientist Franklin Hall, procuring an Asgardian weapon from a hostile group of Norse Paganists, and preventing the spread of an extraterrestrial infection.

The biggest threat faced by the team was the Centipede Project, a mysterious operation being controlled by a mysterious figure known only as the "Clairvoyant". The group is responsible for Mike Peterson's powers, and continually challenged Coulson's team, through various means such as former S.H.I.E.L.D. operative Akela Amador, whom the team saved from the organization's control. Having decided to stop Centipede once and for all, Coulson and his team brought in Peterson, who had enrolled in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, in tracking down the leaders of the project. The subsequent hunt resulted in both Coulson and Peterson being abducted by Centipede scientist Raina, whom the Clairvoyant tasked with discovering the secret behind Coulson's revival. During his time in captivity, Coulson was subjected to a Theta Brain-Wave Frequency Machine and discovered the truth behind his resurrection: after his death, Nick Fury ordered that Coulson be brought Project T.A.H.I.T.I., a top-secret operation that's purpose was to find a way to ressurect their subjects, where Coulson was subjected to numerous drugs and procedures that were so painfully endearing, Coulson was no longer the man he was previous to his death. He had "lost the will to live". In order to restore his spirit, Coulson's memories had to be re-written so the trauma of the experience wouldn't be remembered. Not long after he learned this, his team came to his aid and rescued him, having been under the charge of Agent Victoria Hand.

After a mission at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, the team learned that corrupt industrialist Ian Quinn was in league with the Clairvoyant and pursued him to Italy, where Skye discovered Peterson is in fact alive, but was under the control of the Clairvoyant. Quinn shot Skye and wounded her fatally. To save her life, the team joined with Ward's former commanding officer, John Garrett and Antoine Triplett. The group traveled to the Guest House, the facility where Coulson was revived, and recovered a drug from there called GH.325. Simmons injected the drug into Skye to regenerate her body and heal her. However, while there, Coulson discovered that the drugs actually originated from a dead alien organism, and feared the effects the drugs might have on Skye.

While Skye recovered, the team met the Asgardian Sif, and helped her apprehend Lorelei, a rogue Asgardian war criminal with the ability to bend the minds of men to her will. After she was captured and taken back to Asgard, Coulson's team began an operation to finally locate the Clairvoyant. However, their efforts were hindered by Peterson, who had been labeld "Deathlok" by S.H.I.E.L.D. after the project that gave him his new leg; while all of this was happening, HYDRA's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. was exposed by Captain America, and S.H.I.E.L.D. fell into anarchy. Believing Coulson and his team to be HYDRA loyalists, Agent Hand attempted to terminate the team. The team was able to convince her otherwise, and in a major twist, Agent Garrett was revealed to be the true Clairvoyant, the financier behind the Centipede Project, and a HYDRA insurgent. With help from Agent Ward, who was also a HYDRA mole, Garrett escaped with Agent Hand's death. Garrett freed Raina and Quinn, and together they resumed their work on the Centipede formula. . However, they required important information from Coulson's Team Hard Drive which had been encrypted by Skye, and Ward was sent in to manipulate her into opening the files for them. While most of the team rescued Coulson's former lover, Audrey Nathan, from Marcus Daniels, Ward abducted Skye with assistance from Deathlok. Teaming up with Maria Hill and escaping from Glenn Talbot, Coulson and his team pursued Ward from Canada to Los Angeles, rescuing Skye. The team later traced Garrett and Ward to Cybertek, a technology corporation that was responsible for the upgrades given to Mike Peterson; which was also a front for HYDRA. There, they uncovered files that revealed Garrett was the original Deathlok back in 1990, and his enhancements were failing, putting his life at risk. He was only allied with HYDRA so he may use their resources to save his own life. Raina managed to do so by synthesizing the drug that was synthesized from the dead alien with Garrett's enhancements, further augmenting his strength and perceptions.

After Fitz and Simmons were ejected from the Bus into the ocean by Ward, they were rescued by Nick Fury, with Simmons well, but Fitz in critical condition. Fury assisted the team in taking down Garrett and Ward once and for all. After a climactic battle at a Cybertek Manufacturing Facility, May subdued Ward while Garrett was killed by the freed Deathlok, then obliterated by Coulson using the Peruvian weapon. Ward was imprisoned, and Fury left Coulson to re-create S.H.I.E.L.D. as its new director before leaving to subdue the remaining HYDRA cells across the world. Deathlok, no longer bound to Garrett, departed to find a new purpose for himself.

At the end of the season, Raina visited Skye's father, informing him that she'd found his daughter, as she presented him with a photograph of Skye.

Starring Cast

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

Supporting Cast

 * J. August Richards as Michael Peterson/Deathlok
 * B.J. Britt as Agent Antoine Triplett
 * David Conrad as Ian Quinn
 * Ruth Negga as Raina
 * Bill Paxton as Agent John Garrett/The Clairvoyant †
 * Saffron Burrows as Agent Victoria Hand †
 * Ajani Wrighster as Ace Peterson
 * Cullen Douglas as Edison Po †
 * Patton Oswalt as Agent Eric Koenig †/ Agent Billy Koenig

Marvel Cinematic Universe Guest Stars

 * Samuel L. Jackson as Director Nick Fury
 * Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill
 * Jaimie Alexander as Sif
 * Titus Welliver as Agent Felix Blake
 * Maximiliano Hernández as Agent Jasper Sitwell †