Coulson’s past comes back to haunt him as a potentially super-powered individual begins a string of bazar heists.
Coulson’s team is called in to investigate after a single woman pulls off a diamond heist in complete darkness, taking out multiple armed guards and picking out the correct sealed case from a number of decoys. SHIELD recognizes the robbery as the latest in a series of similar instances and sets out to stop her.
Skye manages to retrieve a picture of the woman off of social media, and Coulson identifies her as a former SHIELD agent, a student of his named Amador, believed to have been dead for several years. The team is able to trace down a likely fence for the diamonds and track her down, in the process honing in on an unusual video broadcast that they eventually realize is coming from her eye. Amador disables the team on the ground and escapes.
Continuing to watch the video feed, the team realizes that Amador is receiving relayed instructions through her eye implant, and Coulson becomes convinced that she is being coerced and needs protection. May believes that he is feeling sentimental and guilty over the incident that led to her being declared dead in the first place. They begin to take shifts, watching the feed for signs of her current location and May eventually finds her and sets out on her own to bring Amador in. After she leaves Coulson finds more proof that Amador is actually in trouble, and rushes after May. When May approaches her, Amador apologies and warns her that having been seen, only one of them can leave alive, explaining that the people watching her have a kill switch. During the fight, Coulson bursts in and disables Amador.
When she awakes, Amador confirms Coulson’s suspicions, that she was taken after the incident when she was declared dead, kept prisoner for a long time, and outfitted with a replacement eye that would allow her captors to watch her every move, send commands, and kill her if she disobeyed. The implant also gives her x-ray vision when she closes her eyes, explaining her nearly precognitive seeming ability. She immediately wonders why her handler hasn’t already thrown the kill switch, but Coulson tells her that the handler doesn’t realize she lost the fight yet because his team has hijacked the feed, and Ward is currently impersonating her and attempting to complete her latest mission.
Fitz and Simmons begin to work on quickly disabling Amador’s implant while Skye backs up Ward on infiltrating a research building and Coulson attempts to track down Amador’s handler. Ward’s mission is apparently a success, as far as Amador’s handler is concerned, when he is able to get a look at an unusual set of symbols a group of scientists are studying. Unfortunately it goes south on his way out and during the chaos the handler is able to see Ward’s reflection and flips Amador’s kill switch, exploding her implant just after Fitzsimmons manages to extract it. When Coulson tracks down the handler he discovers that he too was being held captive, as a mysterious third party flips a second kill switch for the handler, effectively destroying any trail for SHIELD to follow.
Amador prepares to go on trial for her crimes, but thanks the team for freeing her from her captors. She also asks about Coulson, wondering what had happened to him, as she doesn’t recognize him as the same man she used to know.