The Magical Place

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."The Magical Place"
Season 1
Number 11
Episode information
Written by	Paul Zbyszewski & Brent Fletcher
Directed by	Kevin Hooks
Original airdate	January 7, 2014
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Episodes
Previous	"The Bridge"
Next	"Seeds"

"The Magical Place" is the eleventh episode of the ABC/Marvel series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It first aired on January 7, 2014.

Plot

During a negotiation over valuable Chitauri metal, Ward and May break in and chase the owner Vanchat. Trying to evade Fitz's nanobots, he ducks into an elevator controlled by Skye and he gets out on the top floor where Agent Hand and a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are waiting to apprehend him and find out what he knows about Centipede and Coulson's whereabouts.

Hand debriefs the agents on the Bus about the events from the bridge, including the abduction of Coulson and the burnt remains that are believed to be Mike Peterson's. In the interrogation room, an agent interrogates the prisoner. An alarm begins to sound informing Hand of a security breach which May knows to be Skye. She says she is searching through Vanchat's accounts in order to find out where he had wired money. Hand is not happy and says that Skye is to get off the plane. Grant sticks up for Skye but May insists that Skye is not going to be of help on the plane when consulted by Hand. Downstairs, Skye is disappointed by May's choice but Fitz-Simmons secretly gives her a device that will temporarily allow her to get past security.

Coulson has his recurring dream of Tahiti but awakens in a dark room where Po is interrogating him for his after death memories while he is hooked up to a machine. He begins to shock Coulson to get him to talk.

In a cafe, Skye switches on the device but it makes not only her computer but also the other cafe patron's devices lockdown because of S.H.I.E.L.D. firewalls. She leaves and looks at a magazine. Noticing a rich man on a page, she decides to target him after buying a leather jacket to make her look more like an agent. She takes his car after he leaves it at valet and crashes it. When roadside assistance answers, she has them tow it home.

Fitz-Simmons work on the new form of the dendrotoxin while Grant decides to move in on Vanchat in the interrogation room. He relieves the interrogator and begins his usual harsh methods by seatbelting into a chair and opening the top of the plane so that Vanchat is nearly sucked out.

The centipede soldiers chain Coulson to the bed, but using a file he picks the lock. A soldier brings Coulson a meal but is taken down by the hidden agent. He runs out into what used to be a bomb testing ground where mannequins are placed everywhere and Coulson is apprehended by Po.

Skye arrives at the mansion with the wrecked car and places a call to the owner Lloyd Rathman's office, pretending to be the police. When he returns, Skye has put on her leather jacket and pretends to be Melinda May. She confronts him about moving money to offshore sources. He attempts to call his lawyer but she offers him immunity if he cooperates. On the way to his office, he trips a silent alarm.

On the way to Sydney, Australia, Agent Hand confronts Ward on his "unique" methods but thanks him for the information he retrieved. She mentions that she has been receiving calls from Director Fury and Agent Hill but is unable to understand why they care so much about a single agent. Ward however knows that Coulson is very important.

Po is using his methods to try convincing Coulson with electrocution. Raina sees that Coulson is in pain and questions Po's methods. During their conversation, Po receives a call from "the clairvoyant" who also wants to talk to Raina. She hands the phone back but a jolt of electricity is discharged into his skull and he falls down dead.

Grant visits May in the cockpit to vent about his frustrations with Hand and to ask why May let Skye get kicked off the Bus. May reveals that she wanted Skye to work off the plane so that she will not be scrutinized by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. She turns the plane around when she is given new coordinates to the potential location of Coulson in the Mojave Desert.

Skye gets Rathman to access his Swiss bank account but she is interrupted by security guards responding to the silent alarm.

Raina still tries to put Coulson at ease. He negotiates with her, reminding her of the people she has harmed. She reveals that her call earlier was her first communication with her boss, the Clairvoyant. She again wants him to submit himself to their machine to relive his dream so that he can see the secrets that S.H.I.E.L.D. is keeping from him.

Using technical talk, Skye talks one of the security guards through the process of hacking into the bank account. She finds the information she needs, prints a copy, and drives away in Rathman's Lamborghini.

Coulson doesn't believe that the Clairvoyant can see the hidden things of his mind and still expresses his faith in the system. She brings up his deceased mother as well as his lost love. After she mentions it, he softens and willingly gets into the machine.

Fitz and Simmons explain the new device they've made to administer the dendrotoxin to the super soldiers since they are unaffected by the night-night gun. Skye contacts Simmons but May takes the call to find out what she has found. Hand is doubtful of Skye's lead but Ward leads his team to find Coulson.

In the machine, Coulson relives his dream but this time he begins seeing certain things different. Instead of a juice boy, he sees a surgeon in scrubs.

As Skye arrives at the compound where Coulson is being held, she is creeped out by the mannequin presence and even more by a pursuing super soldier. He chases her but is taken down by the S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicle driven by Ward. Raina sends another soldier out to investigate the noise. Coulson continues to dream and the Tahitian scenes become an operating room. He puts on a facade so that Raina will not know what really happened.

Grant grapples with the dispatched soldier and applies the dendrotoxin injection to him by mouth, while the other agents search the nearby buildings for their commanding officer. Coulson clearly sees what happened after he died. A robot surgeon operates on his brain to return him to life. He begins muttering and screaming, drawing the agents to him. Skye knocks out Raina and May unplugs the machine.

Back on the Bus, Raina is taken into custody. Hand informs Coulson that Director Fury is relieved. He thanks her for what she did, but she is glad to be leaving the plane. Coulson then goes on to thank his field agents and sends them back to work. Impressed by Skye's valiant efforts, Coulson removes her monitoring bracelet.

The uneasy doctor who watched as the robot performed Coulson's life-saving operation gets into his car where Coulson is waiting. The doctor tells Coulson that he wasn't dead for 8 seconds but rather several days. The man tells Coulson that it was Nick Fury who insisted on restoring Coulson and that the successful procedure was really the seventh. He tells his patient that they planted a pleasant memory so that he would still have his will to live.

In an unknown room, a badly burned Mike Peterson awakens. He removes the blanket to reveal that one of his legs has been amputated. Through his eyes, the viewer sees Mike's reflection and a typed message just like that of Akela Amador's eye... his eye has been rigged with the kill switch.