Skye’s loyalty to the team is put to the test when a valuable SHIELD asset is kidnapped by an international businessman.

When a SHIELD transport convoy is attacked by an invisible force, leading to the kidnapping of scientist Frank Hall, Coulson’s team is brought in to investigate. They discover that the attack was performed using a weaponized form of the rare element called gravitonium, a substance that Dr. Hall is a leading expert on. They track down gold paid for equipment used in the heist to a mine owned by industrialist Ian Quinn, an old student of Hall’s, and determine that Hall is being kept in Quinn’s company headquarters in Myanmar. Unfortunately due to international laws, SHIELD is not able to legally operate there. At Quinn’s compound, Quinn tries to convince Hall to help him complete Hall’s life’s work and finish building a powerful gravitonium based power generator.

Skye uses her internet savvy and Rising Tide contacts to procure an invitation to a board of investors meeting Quinn is having at the headquarters, but the team is hesitant to send her in alone as she’s only recently begun training with Ward and is not really an agent, but they move ahead anyway. Her mission is to use the invite to get into the compound and bring down its defenses so Ward and Coulson can infiltrate and bring Hall out. Skye integrates herself with Quinn’s guests, and on meeting Quinn finds out that he would like to hire her for his company, based on her work with the Rising Tide. He catches her snooping around, looking to bring down the security grid, and she warns him that SHIELD is listening to them before cutting her connection back to May and Fitzsimmons on the Bus. She tells Quinn that she’s been spying on SHIELD from the inside, but this is also a bluff as she uses the time to finish taking down the grid, allowing Coulson and Ward access to the building. Ward goes in search of Skye for extraction while Coulson approaches Hall, but when he arrives Hall insists he is exactly where he wants to be and throws the security alarm.

Realizing that Skye has tricked him, Quinn threatens to shoot her, but Ward’s training kicks in and she is able to steal Quinn’s gun and jump away to a nearby pool where she is met by Ward. Quinn attempts to follow, but Hall activates the gravitonium generator, causing gravity in the compound to go crazy, and sending the generator into a self destructive spiral that could destroy the whole place. Coulson realizes that Hall himself leaked his location to Quinn, intending to be kidnapped so he could gain access to the generator to destroy it, believing the technology to be far to dangerous to be in Quinn’s hands. Coulson is able to convince him that killing everyone is not the way, but the only way to shut down the generator is to block the gravitonium reaction with a catalyst, and the perfect catalyst is a human body. Before Coulson can talk him out of it, Hall throws himself into the machine, stabilizing it, but vanishing in the process.

With the compound in rubble from the gravitational effects, Coulson, Ward, and Skye are able to return to the bus and SHIELD takes possession of the generator, burying it in an unmarked storage vault at headquarters at Coulson’s request, with no history of its existence on file. Skye confirms to Ward that she’s determined now to become a SHIELD Agent.

Deep in the unmarked vault, the gravitonium in the inoperative generator pulses, and a human shaped hand reaches out.