Former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Daisy Johnson, now the vigilante "Quake", is hunting gang affiliates of the terrorist group Watchdogs in Los Angeles when Aryan Brotherhood members are murdered by the fiery "Ghost Rider". Agents Phil Coulson and Alphonso Mackenzie, who were forbidden from searching for Daisy by new S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Jeffrey Mace, are tipped off to her location by Agent Melinda May. Agent Leo Fitz discovers that S.H.I.E.L.D. ally Holden Radcliffe has created the android Aida and agr
S.H.I.E.L.D. and Daisy independently investigate the figure, an apparent ghost of a woman named Lucy Bauer, both concluding that she worked at an abandoned facility, Momentum Energy. Daisy confronts Reyes again and he once more overpowers her. Restraining her, Reyes searches Daisy's belongings and discovers her research on Momentum. He leaves and Daisy escapes her restraints. As Mace plans to officially announce S.H.I.E.L.D. as a legitimate organization again, the infected May grows increasingly
Inhuman S.H.I.E.L.D. asset Elena Rodriguez is caught in a blackout in Miami. Reyes and Daisy are caught in another in Los Angeles. A group claiming to be the Inhuman resistance, fighting registration after the Sokovia Accords, takes responsibility. Reyes explains that his uncle, Eli Morrow, was imprisoned for causing an explosion at Momentum that apparently created the ghosts; he believes that atoning for Morrow's sins will pay his debt to the Devil and rid Reyes of the Ghost Rider. At the Reyes
Daisy coerces Simmons to help track the Watchdogs' actions, discovering that the group hacked the Inhuman list using an Inhuman's monitoring device. Coulson visits Morrow in prison, but gets no answers. Reyes arrives to talk to Morrow and Mack recognizes him as the Ghost Rider; they capture Reyes and earn his trust. He visits Morrow and learns that the Momentum explosion was caused by a group of scientists studying the Darkhold, a mysterious book. Only Lucy's husband Joseph, whom Morrow put in a
Lucy uses her ghostly state to wake Joseph and ask where he hid the Darkhold. Coulson arrives and is able to learn of this before Joseph dies from her "infection". Coulson decides to use Morrow against Lucy, but doesn't tell Mace. The latter, whose public approval was already high after heroics during a bombing in Vienna, becomes more popular after he reveals his Inhuman status in a television debate with Nadeer. However, Simmons threatens to reveal the truth about his Vienna actions and he agre
Mace sends Simmons on a secret assignment, then takes a team aboard Coulson's plane to arrest Reyes and Daisy. The pair hide with a newly picked up Gabe, where Robbie explains that he and Gabe snuck out to race in Morrow's car, but were attacked by the Locos. Gabe was paralyzed and Robbie was killed. Robbie promised an unknown voice that he would seek vengeance if given a second chance and was resurrected when the spirit of the Ghost Rider was passed to him by a stranger. Mace finds the fugitive
Coulson, Fitz, and Reyes get trapped between dimensions and helplessly watch as Morrow kills several agents before escaping. Fitz overhears Mace arguing with Nadeer; he needs Simmons to understand Morrow's technology, but she has been taken to Nadeer's brother, Vijay, who she helps break out of his terrigen cocoon. In Simmons' absence, Radcliffe studies the technology and is presented with the Darkhold by May in her desperation to save Coulson. Radcliffe believes the book contains too much knowl
Coulson tells Mace that Aida is an android and he agrees to use her in the fight against Morrow. He also approves a strike team consisting of Rodriguez, Reyes, and Daisy, as long as the latter two keep a low profile. The team attempts to enter an abandoned building in which Morrow has barricaded himself via his growing abilities but, at first, only Reyes can make it through Morrow's initial trap. By viewing Reyes' body-cam, Fitz deduces that Morrow is drawing his power from the other dimension a
Fitz and Radcliffe are sent to clear Aida's memory of the Darkhold, but she reveals her new-found sentience and overpowers them. Taking control of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s systems, Aida finds the Darkhold after Coulson gives its location to the May LMD (which doesn't know it isn't the real May). Fitz is able to take control of the systems before Aida escapes and Mack beheads her. Radcliffe later laments about this to a new model of Aida, as he had programmed the original's apparent sentience in an attempt
Mace holds a press conference for Daisy, celebrating her "undercover" actions, until a sniper attempts to assassinate him. Coulson and Mack escort Mace and PR agent Burrows—who is often seen near Mace with a mysterious briefcase—to a quinjet, but it explodes mid-flight. Burrows is flung from the plane with the briefcase and the others crash land in a forest. There, they find ex-Hydra agents, hired by the Watchdogs, who have recovered Burrows' body. In the ensuing fight, Mace tries to get a serum
Daisy and Mace attend a Senate hearing to ratify the former's signing of the Sokovia Accords, with Senator Nadeer questioning Daisy's undercover actions. Coulson and Rodriguez infiltrate Nadeer's office to install surveillance devices, but are caught, giving Nadeer an excuse to start a full investigation of S.H.I.E.L.D. The May LMD realizes that she subconsciously leaked the details of Coulson's plan and confronts Radcliffe, as Fitz discovers Radcliffe's treachery from the original Aida's progra
Agent Billy Koenig, whom Coulson entrusted with the Darkhold, is abducted by the Watchdogs. Nadeer directs Radcliffe to the Superior, reclusive industrialist Anton Ivanov, and Radcliffe scans Koenig's brain to learn that the Darkhold was hidden in the Labyrinth, a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility known only to the Koenig family. Coulson secures the rest of the Koenig family, who take him, the May LMD, and Daisy to get the book. The Radcliffe LMD reveals that Radcliffe knows Fitz's estranged father and has
Coulson and Mack locate Agnes Kitsworth, Radcliffe's former lover and partner. Radcliffe left Kitsworth after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and modeled Aida after her. Coulson convinces Kitsworth to meet with Radcliffe. In case Nadeer is an Inhuman like her brother, Ivanov sends Watchdog Tucker Shockley to expose her to terrigen (provided by Radcliffe), but the substance transforms him instead. Shockley explodes, killing Nadeer, but then his molecules reassemble. Ivanov agrees to use Sh
Years ago, Coulson and May recovered an unknown object from a Russian outpost, besting an SVR team that included Ivanov. For the failure, the SVR agents other than Ivanov were tortured and killed. Now, Ivanov sends S.H.I.E.L.D. on a treasure hunt around the world, including to that outpost, in their search for Mace. Ivanov has been torturing Mace, disgusted at his attempts to emulate the Inhumans. The team eventually finds Ivanov and Daisy overpowers him. Coulson and Mack save a near-death Mace
The new LMDs are aware of their nature and plan to carry out Ivanov's goal of destroying all Inhumans. Simmons discovers that Mace, Mack, and Fitz are the other new LMDs and overpowers Fitz. Daisy also discovers them and plans, with Simmons, to hack into the Framework remotely to find the others from the inside. Aida kills Radcliffe's body, but lets his consciousness live in the Framework. Daisy overpowers the Mace, Mack, and Coulson LMDs, but they find the May LMD waiting for them at the base e
In the Framework, Daisy discovers that she and Ward are agents of Hydra, working under May and Fitz. The tragic event from May's past has no longer happened; in the real world, she killed Katya Belyakov, a young Inhuman girl but, in the Framework, she brought the girl back to the United States as a refugee who then became a mass murderer and the catalyst for Hydra to take power. Simmons awakens in a mass grave of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and eventually comes across Coulson, who is teaching a Hydra-ap
Hoping Radcliffe can help them escape, Daisy returns to Hydra and locates him, but May gives her a new mission on the orders of Fitz and Aida, the latter choosing to go by Ophelia, or Madame Hydra. Ward directs Coulson (who can remember some things, thanks to previous tampering with his mind) and Simmons to the Resistance, the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. under the command of an Inhuman Mace. Ward, Simmons, and Coulson take a stolen Hydra quinjet to extract Radcliffe. May and Daisy arrest Mack, and
Mace and Coulson infiltrate a Hydra "Enlightenment Camp" to free an undercover agent—Antoine Triplett, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who died in the real world. They are tracked there by May, who uses a super serum to fight Mace. Through the vents in their holding cells, Daisy learns from Radcliffe of a backdoor he installed to escape the Framework that Aida is unable to disable. Coulson attempts to save one of his former students who he sees being held in the camp, and Mace follows him into a building t
May and Daisy escape Hydra, with Daisy using her abilities to break Ophelia's back. Ophelia insists that Fitz complete work on their secret Project: Looking Glass, after which her Framework body will no longer matter. May and Daisy join up with S.H.I.E.L.D., who are struggling to regroup after Mace's death. May provides them with body cam footage from the attack on the Enlightenment Center, which Coulson broadcasts to the world to counteract Hydra's propaganda. Meanwhile, Simmons and Triplett in
After Daisy and Simmons entered the Framework, their bodies were protected by Rodriguez and Agents Piper, Davis and Prince aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft Zephyr One. With their connection to the Framework draining the plane's power, Piper chose to shut off its cloaking ability, revealing their location to Ivanov and his men. In the Framework, Simmons visits and accidentally kills Fitz's father Alistair, and Fitz begins hunting her with help from Radcliffe, Fitz having offered to send Radcliffe
The agents on Zephyr One fight off Ivanov's men and race to the platform to save Coulson and May from Ivanov's android bodies. Ivanov launches torpedoes at the platform that threaten Mack's body, but the latter is saved by Ophelia, convinced by Fitz to put to good use the Inhuman abilities his machine had given her new body. In isolation at S.H.I.E.L.D., Fitz and Ophelia discuss her newly discovered human emotions and the fact that he remembers all the terrible things he did inside the Framework
Ivanov takes the Darkhold to an international meeting on S.H.I.E.L.D. and the recent events. He proposes to use the book against the Inhumans, which is timed with an attack on the group by an LMD of Daisy, who shoots Talbot in the head leaving him comatose. In the ensuing fight, S.H.I.E.L.D. is able to retrieve the Darkhold with Reyes' help. In the Framework, Rodriguez is unable to convince Mack to leave, but he returns with her after Hope's code is deleted as a result of Ophelia shutting down t