Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. follows a group of SHIELD agents, surprisingly, as they get into and out of complex situations on the fringes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Check out how it started here.

In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, as seen in The Avengers, SHIELD has become known to a hacker group called the Rising Tide, and the existence of super heroes in general is known to the world. Of particular interest is a new previously unknown person with super abilities, caught on camera saving a woman from an explosion. This new hero, a guy by the name of Mike Peterson, is quickly tracked down by Rising Tide member Skye. Meanwhile a mysteriously resurrected Agent Coulson puts together a special team within SHIELD and starts to track Mike down himself, starting by attempting to recruit Skye as a field asset. He recruits the specialist, Agent Grant Ward, for his field experience, Agents Fitz-Simmons, a close-knit pair of scientists, and the apparently legendary Agent Melinda May as the crew’s pilot, despite her reservations about going back into the field.

It takes a while for Skye to warm up to the idea of helping out “the man”, but it quickly becomes apparent that Mike is in actual physical danger as they discover that his powers are the result of an experiment being run out of a secret lab run by a mysterious group called Centipede, the same lab that exploded and exposed him to the world. It doesn’t take the agents long to realize that the explosion wasn’t actually a bomb but was in fact another of the lab’s test subjects, and that Mike is headed on the same path. Unfortunately they make this realization around the time that Mike is beginning to really lose his mind from the compounds streaming through his system, and he kidnaps Skye, “saving” her from the agents.

Coulson and Mike end up in a standoff in Union Station, with Mike giving an impassioned speech about the plight of the little guy and the downtrodden as Coulson tries to calm him down and his team races to find a way to stabilize Mike before they have to kill him or risk him exploding and killing everyone in the area, while agents of the organization that experimented on him try to kill him as well. Fortunately Fitz-Simmons comes through at the last moment with a temporary cure, and Ward is able to deliver it with a shot to Mike’s head, while Agent May takes out Centipede’s forces.

With Mike out of danger, Coulson asks Skye to stay on with the team as they are called out for their next mission.