| "Scars" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode | |||
 "The Art of Evolution" poster for the episode. | |||
| Episodeno. | Season 2 Episode 20 | ||
| Directed by | Bobby Roth | ||
| Written by | |||
| Cinematography by | Feliks Parnell | ||
| Editing by | Kelly Stuyvesant | ||
| Original air date | May 5, 2015 (2015-05-05) | ||
| Running time | 43 minutes | ||
| Guest appearances | |||
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.season 2 | |||
| List of episodes | |||
"Scars" is the twentieth episode of thesecond season of the American television seriesAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Based on theMarvel Comics organizationS.H.I.E.L.D., it followsPhil Coulson and his team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as they make contact with a secretive community ofInhumans. It is set in theMarvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and acknowledgesthe franchise's films. The episode was written byRafe Judkins andLauren LeFranc, and directed byBobby Roth.
Clark Gregg reprises his role as Coulson from the film series, and is joined by series regularsMing-Na Wen,Brett Dalton,Chloe Bennet,Iain De Caestecker,Elizabeth Henstridge,Nick Blood, andAdrianne Palicki. The episode ties into the filmAvengers: Age of Ultron, exploring the aftermath of it.
"Scars" originally aired onABC on May 5, 2015, and according toNielsen Media Research, was watched by 4.45 million viewers.
In flashbacks to the previous year, it is revealed thatSam Koenig has been overseeing the secret Theta Protocol project, which involves refurbishingNick Fury's disusedhelicarrier. This helicarrier is later used by theAvengers and Fury to rescue thousands of civilians fromSokovia duringUltron's attempt to destroy the world.[a]
In the present, Coulson is allowed to be the Director ofS.H.I.E.L.D. again due to his role in saving the Sokovians. The council (Robert Gonzales,Melinda May,Bobbi Morse,Anne Weaver andOliver) become his advisors. Still unable to trust Coulson,Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie resigns from S.H.I.E.L.D.Skye tells Coulson and May thatJiaying is her mother and thatEva Belyakov andKatya Belyakov wereInhumans, and May admits the truth about the Bahrain incident[b] to Coulson.
Raina is revered by the other Inhumans for her precognitive powers, and becomes content with her new form and abilities. When she mentions toGordon that she had a vision of a stone with the ability to become a liquid, he and Jiaying explain that this is the Monolith, aKree weapon intended to eradicate the Inhumans. Gordon's attunement to Kree technology leads him and Raina to the Monolith, which is in theIliad's cargo hold.Lance Hunter sees them, and they are forced to flee to evade capture, after which the council plan to find the Inhumans, considering them a threat.
Using salvagedHydra technology, Weaver is able to trace Gordon's teleportation and determine Afterlife's location. Gonzales suggests they attack, but Coulson instead sends Skye and Lincoln to liaise with the Inhumans and arrange a meeting between him and Jiaying. Raina has a vision of S.H.I.E.L.D. attacking Afterlife after the meeting, and begs Gordon to let her represent the Inhumans instead of Jiaying. Convinced that Raina is manipulating the other Inhumans and planning to seize power, Jiaying has her placed under house arrest. The council insist that Coulson should not meet with Jiaying due to his lack of objectivity concerning Skye, and Gonzales is nominated to stand in.
S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel travel to Afterlife inquinjets, but Morse's plane is hijacked byKara Palamas posing as May. She takes Morse to a remote location, and when Morse tries to escape,Grant Ward appears and shoots her with an I.C.E.R. At Afterlife,Cal surrenders to S.H.I.E.L.D. as a gesture of goodwill from the Inhumans. Meeting in private, Jiaying shows Gonzales a Terrigen crystal, explaining that the Inhumans have never been able to remove the Diviner metal properties, making the Terrigen they produce lethal to humans. She shatters the crystal, and the Terrigen mist petrifies Gonzales, after which she shoots herself with his gun, and tells Skye and the other Inhumans that he tried to kill her.
In an end tag Ward and Palamas plan to torture Morse, in revenge for giving Palamas' location toDaniel Whitehall, which Morse did to ingratiate herself with Hydra.
In March 2015, Marvel announced that the twentieth episode of the season would be titled "Scars", to be written byRafe Judkins andLauren LeFranc, withBobby Roth directing.[1]
In March 2015, Marvel revealed that main cast membersClark Gregg,Ming-Na Wen,Brett Dalton,Chloe Bennet,Iain De Caestecker,Elizabeth Henstridge,Nick Blood, andAdrianne Palicki would star asPhil Coulson,Melinda May,Grant Ward,Skye,Leo Fitz,Jemma Simmons,Lance Hunter, andBobbi Morse, respectively.[1] It was also revealed that the guest cast for the episode would includeHenry Simmons asAlphonso "Mack" Mackenzie,Ruth Negga asRaina,Patton Oswalt asSam Koenig andBilly Koenig,Kyle MacLachlan asCal,Edward James Olmos asRobert Gonzales,Jamie Harris asGordon,Christine Adams as AgentAnne Weaver, Mark Allan Stewart as AgentOliver,Maya Stojan asKara Palamas / Agent 33,Dichen Lachman asJiaying,Luke Mitchell asLincoln Campbell, Alicia Vela-Bailey asAlisha Whitley, David Douglas as Michael and Crystal Coney as scientist.[1] Vela-Bailey, Douglas, and Coney did not receive guest star credit in the episode. Simmons, Negga, Oswalt, MacLachlan, Olmos, Harris, Adams, Stewart, Stojan, Lachman, and Mitchell reprise their roles from earlier in the series.[2][3][4][5][6]
Following the events of "The Dirty Half Dozen" leading up to the opening scene of the filmAvengers: Age of Ultron, this episode deals with the aftermath of the film, containing "plot threads and other connective tissue" with it.[7] Comparing this tie-in tofirst season tie-in toCaptain America: The Winter Soldier, executive producerJeffrey Bell said, "Our stories have to stand on their own. We're not getting blown up like we were last year with Hydra and Captain America, but some elements or some things from the movie do affect some of the relationships in our episodes moving forward, in an interesting and constructive manner."[8]
"Scars" was first aired in the United States onABC on May 5, 2015.[9]
For the final twelve episodes of the season Marvel once again ran the "Art of..." initiative, in which an image was released the Thursday before the episode aired, depicting a first look at a key event from the upcoming episode, with the season's title being "The Art of Evolution". The different artists were once again chosen to create the teaser posters, based on their previous work and how it connected to the themes and emotion of the intended episode.[10]Marguerite Sauvage provided the poster for "Scars", which prominently featuresJiaying and her scars in a way that the series cannot do with special effects, while also depicting Skye near the former's stomach to cement the maternal connection between them.[8]
The episode began streaming onNetflix on June 11, 2015,[11] and was released along with the rest of the second season on September 18, 2015, onBlu-ray andDVD.[12]
In the United States the episode received a 1.5/5 percent share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49, meaning that it was seen by 1.5 percent of all households, and 5 percent of all of those watching television at the time of the broadcast. It was watched by 4.45 million viewers.[9]
