We Have Some Questions For 'S.H.I.E.L.D.'

The finale of the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. put the show into overdrive. It solved most of the team's obstacles in less than an hour: Garrett is vanquished, Mike Peterson is free and his son is safe, Fitz and Simmons both escaped their watery prison alive, Ward has been captured, Nick Fury is alive, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is being rebuilt from the ground up by Agent Coulson. Suddenly, this has become a much bigger show — not just about a ragtag gang of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but the fresh beginnings of the entire organization.

And somehow in all of this, the show managed to ask almost just as many questions as it answered. There are still some significant mysteries floating around this show, ones that it will probably spend the entirety of next season trying to answer. Like...

What Are Skye's Origins?

We already knew that Skye was "special" after Coulson told her she was an 0-8-4. What we don't know is how. The last few episodes of the first season have given us some insight by telling us more about her parents. We know that they're monsters, and now Raina has led us to the bloody hand of her father. There's something more lurking inside Skye. But when will it reveal itself? And does it make Skye evil?

What Happens to Ward?

At the end of this episode, it seems that Ward is going to be kept as the agency's very special prisoner. But we haven't been made to hate Ward yet, and it seems that he still has real feelings for Skye. Ward's dilemma now is what he's going to do now that the person he completely devoted his life to is dead. Ward will probably be in for a pretty big identity crisis next season, with the strong chance of a redemption arc.

How is the Serum Affecting Coulson?

Once Garrett is injected with the same formula Coulson was, he starts to draw strange, intricate patterns on glass. At the end of the episode, Coulson does the same thing. It seems that the side effects of this super serum are finally showing in Coulson, but there's a lot of questions about what that means. Does it mean his body has begun destroying itself? Is he gaining some sort of higher intelligence? Will this make him evil? Many theories have guessed that this super serum is derived from the Kree, a race of aliens in the Marvel Universe — are these drawings some kind of Kree language?

Image: ABC