- "We have no authority to do this. We're no longer S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. We're..."
"We're vigilantes."
"I was gonna say, "doing this because it's the right thing to do", but... yeah." - ―Phil Coulson and Leo Fitz[src]
Ragtag is the twenty-first episode of the first season of the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
Synopsis
In the last episode before the epic season finale, Ward's betrayal and HYDRA's shocking secrets are revealed as Coulson's Team goes undercover on a mission that leaves no one unscathed.
Plot
Fifteen years in the past, a teenage Grant Ward meets John Garrett at a juvenile detention facility, where he is being held after trying to burn down his family's home.
After agreeing to join the secret organization Garrett says he works for, Ward is left in the wilderness alone, forced to survive for months until Garrett returned. Garrett eventually tells him about HYDRA's presence within S.H.I.E.L.D., and Ward agrees to join.
In the present, Coulson's Team connects Centipede Project, Garrett, and others to a common source: Cybertek. Phil Coulson and Melinda May infiltrate Cybertek to activate Skye's Trojan horse she had left on the hard drive, only to find file cabinets instead of mainframes.
However, they learn that Garrett had been the first subject for "Project Deathlok", which began in 1990. As such, Garrett's implants are currently failing, with a few months to live, desperate to complete the Centipede Serum to save himself.
Coulson's team finds the Barbershop Headquarters in Havana, Cuba, but Garrett's men have already left, except for several Centipede soldiers. Ward captures Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons, who split from the others to find the Bus, but Fitz is able to use an EMP Joy Buzzer to short out Garrett's body.
The dying Garrett orders Ward to kill Fitz and Simmons, who are hiding from him in a locked medical pod. Ward struggles with following through on the orders, deciding to eject the pod into the ocean instead of putting bullets in their heads.
Raina injects Garrett with the synthesized GH.325 drug to work with his Centipede Serum. Initially, the drug seems to cause an Extremis reaction, before Garrett stabilizes and claims to "feel the universe".
In Washington, D.C., Ian Quinn proposes the sale of Centipede Soldiers and Deathlok Soldiers to the US government, using Mike Peterson's assassination of a Colombian drug lord as evidence of the program's success.
Cast
Main Cast:
- Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson
- Ming-Na Wen as Melinda May
- Brett Dalton as Grant Ward
- Chloe Bennet as Skye
- Iain De Caestecker as Leo Fitz
- Elizabeth Henstridge as Jemma Simmons
Guest Stars:
- Bill Paxton as John Garrett
- J. August Richards as Michael Peterson/Deathlok
- B.J. Britt as Agent Antoine Triplett
- David Conrad as Ian Quinn
- Ruth Negga as Raina
- Austin Lyon as Teenage Grant Ward
- Glenn Morshower as General Jacobs
- Paul Elia as Diaz
- Joel Johnstone as Ott
- Jeffrey Muller as Agent Kaminsky
- Ramon Hilario as Ernesto
- Mark Berry as Admiral Jolnes
- Jay Montalvo as Reporter
- Aaron Landon as Pizza Delivery Guy
- Barbara Grace Dior as News Reporter (uncredited)
- CJ Brady as Hipster Agent (uncredited)
- Greg Duncan as Special Forces Soldier (uncredited)
- James Timphony as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent (uncredited)
- Mike Serlin as Cybertek Security Guard (uncredited)
- Lex Lang as Agent Decker (voice, uncredited)
- Unknown actor as Alejandro Castillo
Appearances
Locations
- Plymouth, Massachusetts
- Los Angeles, California
- Palo Alto, California
- Havana, Cuba
- Washington, D.C.
- Wyoming
- Bogotá, Colombia (mentioned)
- Brazil (mentioned)
- Cambodia (mentioned)
- Syria (mentioned)
- Rome, Italy (mentioned)
- Hunan, China (mentioned)
- Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (mentioned)
- Miami, Florida (mentioned)
- S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy (mentioned)
Events
Items
- Centipede Device
- Backscatter X-Ray Eye Implant
- Cybertek Prosthetic Leg
- Forearm Rocket Launcher
- GH.325
- Berserker Staff
- Medical Pod
- Howling Commando Gear
- Hand-held Hypno Beam
- Transistorized Blast Gun
- EMP Joy Buzzer
- Cigarette Laser
- UHF Pin
- Zip-line Gun
- Quarter Walkie-Talkie
- Noisemaker
- Portable X-Ray Scanner
- Coulson's Team Hard Drive (mentioned)
- Night-Night Gun (mentioned)
- I.C.E.R. (mentioned)
- Dendrotoxin Grenade (mentioned)
- D.W.A.R.F.s (mentioned)
Vehicles
Creatures
Organizations
Mentioned
- Mrs. Triplett
- Christian Ward
- Grant Ward's Mother
- Grant Ward's Father
- Kyle Zeller
- Ace Peterson
- Calvin Zabo
- Osama bin Laden
Trivia
- The episode's stinger begins with a shot of Washington, D.C. that clearly shows Theodore Roosevelt Island, which was established in Captain America: The Winter Soldier to be the location of the Triskelion. However, the ruins of the building are not present in the shot, constituting a continuity error.