10 Reasons You Should Give Agents Of SHIELD Another Chance

6. The Big Bad

This week's episode saw the reveal of the major villain who's been plaguing our eponymous agents since day one: The Clairvoyant aka Thomas Nash (played in a short but creepy cameo by the inimitable and immobile Brad Dourif), who's the mastermind behind the Centipede program and rent-a-bad-guy Ian Quinn's nefarious doings. Or is he? There were some definite shadows cast over whether or not Nash was really the Clairvoyant or just a patsy set up by the definite article to throw S.H.I.E.L.D. off his scent. He did have Deathlok bring them right to him, after all. But it's not like any answers are going to come from Nash any time soon, as the whole exercise was too much for Ward and he put a bullet in the gurning, wheelchair-bound fella. There was some headway made toward the Big Bad's true identity, though. The episode saw not one but two betrayals from agents: the first from Melinda May, who 's been spying on Coulson from the beginning for reasons we know not, but it's easy to imagine them not being so heinous as to kick her off the team (she is a fan favourite, after all); the second from Victoria Hand, who seemed intent on blowing everyone but Coulson out of the sky shortly after the team sussed out that the Clairvoyant is almost definitely an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Whether Hand's the head honcho herself or just another surrogate remains to be seen, but we'd bet on the latter as there are still six episodes (and a few more revelations) to go before the season's end. If the threat is coming from inside S.H.I.E.L.D., how high up does it go? And does it have anything to do with a certain terrorist organisation from a recent Marvel movie...?