1. WTF?!?
Literally. Where did that opening scene come from? May and
Ward? What the act of sex? Did I miss some chemistry between them in previous
episodes? What? The only theory I can muster is that ABC thought sex would
boost the ratings. Was this desperation? Were SHIELD writers' just flinging
poop at a wall to see what would stick? This made no sense. I'm still wondering
wtf...
2. Interesting...
Well, we finally learned a bit about May, and I do mean more than her choice of sexual partner. May's penchant for silence and violence were explained by revealing some of her history. Her back-story isn't anything particularly surprising (she faced an extremely tough combat situation and she lost a part of herself in it), but it was satisfactorily convincing in terms of why May is the type of agent that she is today. Skye's curiosity and concern about May hint that we could see a softening character develop in May's future, but her playing a practical joke at the end of the episode was a bit too far, too fast in terms of that development.
3. Huh?
The biggest puzzler from this episode (aside from the bizarre Mard Affair; trademark pending) was how the demon/ghost/dead-guy-from-the-blast thing worked. From what world was he appearing? (Hell? an alien world?) Could he control his vanishing act? (At times, it seemed like yes, but other times it seemed like no.) If he could appear to fight SHIELD and talk to his crush at the end, why couldn't he talk to her earlier to explain himself? The concept wasn't bad, but the execution left too many questions unanswered.