When I made my predictions of what would happen here, I was both half wrong and half right. Thank God for that, or should I thank the other guy? I knew Lash would be involved as well as the rest of the Inhumans, and I knew we'd see "Will Daniels"(Dillon Casey) again. We get to see more of the Sand-Planet, even got some more history of it, and I was right about Ward's conversion to Hydra True Believer. This episode marks a drastic change for the character, he started out in this series as Mr Clean Cut James Bondian, even Pierce Brosnian Secret Agent; maybe even a little Timothy Daltonion as he was in License to Kill, even when he was acting as a "Good Guy" he had that dark streak. It's gone far beyond that now, the Lid has been blown off.
This is an all-out battle between SHIELD and Hydra, It's also Fitz and Coulsen's revenge against Ward.
But Coulsen and Fitz will find out about that Chinese proverb about revenge and digging two graves.
This chapter changes focus between the Portal Castle in Scotland and the Sand-Planet. Tattoine, as Coulsen calls it. And we now see good reason for Daisy's mother Jiaying's fear of the Portal Rock.
The Portal has been a big problem, has that been solved finally, or has it led to something even worse? We are getting into Gods and Men territory, Inhumans with powers and even more powers.
But now we see exactly why the Motto of Hydra has been "Cut off a Head, it grows back" - This is not just a thing Red Skull would chant, it's what is physically happening.
I've given enough clues, can you piece it together? Seeds for this storyline were planted from even the first episode of Season 2, maybe before. This is the beauty of it, even if something is mentioned in passing in a previous episode, it eventually gets dealt with. We are in the middle of the story now. Beginning, Middle, End. Unfortunately, we have to wait until March of next year to see how it develops.
As far as "things not being explained", AOS has a vested history of revealing how something really happened in a later episode, such as Dr Garner's true escape from Ward's assassination attempt.