Laws of Nature

"Laws of Nature" is the season three premiere of ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the forty-fifth episode of the series overall. It aired on September 29, 2015. It was written by Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen and directed by Vincent Misiano.

Plot
Six months after the alien substance Terrigen was released into the ecosystem,[1] Joey Gutierrez developed metal-melting abilities. Unable to control this power, Gutierrez is confronted in the streets by soldiers who are willing to use lethal force to detain him. Gutierrez is saved by S.H.I.E.L.D., and Inhuman agent Daisy Johnson attempts to explain to him that he is also an Inhuman, with a dormant gene within him that was activated by the Terrigen. Struggling to help Gutierrez accept what has happened to him, Johnson seeks the help of Lincoln Campbell, the Inhuman who helped her transition but has now renounced the ways of the Inhumans, wishing to live a normal life.

Agent Leo Fitz, searching for answers concerning a mysterious Kree monolith that has apparently consumed his partner Jemma Simmons, acquires an ancient Hebrew scroll describing it as "Death" (Hebrew: מוות‎‎). S.H.I.E.L.D. director Phil Coulson searches for the leader of the soldiers who have been taking new Inhumans, and discovers a woman who has worked for multiple government agencies around the world under different names. He and Agent Lance Hunter are able to confront her in what seems to be a weak point in her security, but is actually a trap. Giving her name as Rosalind Price, she confronts Coulson about his organisation’s killing of new Inhumans before her group can get to them, which he denies, and the two realize that there is a third party involved.

At the hospital where Campbell works, he, Johnson, and her partner Mack are attacked by the monstrous Inhuman Lash, and Johnson and Campbell barely manage to hold him off. The subsequent arrival of Price’s forces causes both Lash and Campbell to flee. Afterwards, President Matthew Ellis officially announces Price's organisation—the Advanced Threat Containment Unit—as a replacement for the now underground S.H.I.E.L.D., and they begin hunting their next target after Gutierrez: Campbell. A computer simulation informs Coulson that the Terrigen may cover the entire world within the next 18 months.

Fitz is unable to accept the fact that Simmons may be dead, despite Coulson urging him to move on, and an end tag reveals that Simmons is alive and on the run on a desolate planet.

Starring

 * Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson
 * Ming-Na Wen as Melinda May (credit only)
 * Brett Dalton as Grant Ward (credit only)
 * Chloe Bennet as Daisy Johnson / Quake
 * Iain De Caestecker as Leo Fitz
 * Elizabeth Henstridge as Jemma Simmons
 * Nick Blood as Lance Hunter
 * Adrianne Palicki as Bobbi Morse
 * Henry Simmons as Alphonso "Mack" MacKenzie
 * Luke Mitchell as Lincoln Campbell

Guest Starring

 * William Sadler as Matthew Ellis
 * Constance Zimmer as Rosalind Price
 * Andrew Howard as Banks
 * Matthew Willig as Lash
 * Juan Pablo Raba as Joey Gutierrez

Trivia

 * This episode scored 4.90 million viewers upon its initial airing.