Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
After HYDRA’s infiltration wrecks the agency, Coulson leads a reduced S.H.I.E.L.D. team while other survivors question his authority and rebuild under a rival leadership. The agents pursue HYDRA and try to understand the alien writing Coulson keeps carving. Ward, now a prisoner, remains dangerous and manipulates people around him. Skye’s search for her past becomes central when she learns that the doctor Cal is her father and that her birth name is Daisy Johnson. A Diviner artifact triggers her Inhuman transformation, leaving her with seismic powers she cannot yet control.
Gordon takes Skye to Afterlife, a hidden community of Inhumans led by her mother, Jiaying. There Skye learns to manage her quakes under Jiaying’s guidance, while tensions between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Inhumans grow. Jiaying initially appears to want peace, but she stages an attack to make S.H.I.E.L.D. look like the aggressor. When Raina threatens to expose the deception, Jiaying kills her in front of Skye. Daisy realizes that the mother she hoped to know is preparing a war, and she joins Coulson’s team to stop her.
Jiaying’s forces seize the S.H.I.E.L.D. carrier and plan to spread Terrigen crystals beyond the Inhuman community. Daisy quakes the crystals into the sea, where they dissolve and contaminate fish-oil supplements. Lincoln breaks with Jiaying and helps the agents. When Jiaying tries to drain Daisy’s life, Cal kills his wife to save their daughter. Cal then accepts S.H.I.E.L.D.’s memory-erasing treatment and begins a quiet life without his family’s past. Back at headquarters, Fitz and Simmons plan a dinner, but the Kree Monolith suddenly opens and pulls Simmons inside.