AOS is a joke compared to this show. Does anyone really care if SHIELD falls apart? No. We are all like YES LET THAT HAPPEN because anything interesting that actually seems like a thing called plot is an improvement.

I don't know why, but I find it sort of endearing at this point that Oliver seems incapable of making good choices for himself, while meting out sage advice for others. Maybe this is putting him on the road to seeing that?

I think his strings are being pulled.

I had heard that they took place around the same time in order to explain why they couldn't help one another out.

Yeah, Fury is a jerk.

Or Madame Hydra!

Love Batroc! Too bad they didn't give him that awesome mustache.

Yes, it is merely passing grade. But I love a mystery and so I get sucked in.

The directing and sets on this show are SO BAD!

I feel like this bit always comes up with a Whedon show, because they put a young attractive girl in need of a father figure with an attractive older man and have them form a mentor relationship which is kind of ambiguous.

Additional observations:

Yeah, seems to take place before and during over the next few eppys.

Maybe, but there's a reason they're dragging out the reveal of what exactly Tahiti did to him, and the connection seems to be to Skye. The Clairvoyant taunting him about her, the same process he experienced not affecting her, now he's conspiring with Skye against the others.

They're called breadcrumbs. You actually have to drop them close enough and in coherent enough a manner to be able to follow the trail with any interest.

If Skye is Mantis, then her empathic powers could give her a workaround to the Clairvoyant.

Based on the Marvel wiki, Mantis' pappy has psychic powers. Just sayin'.

They kind of have a habit of just shooting sideliners.

They could call her Madame Hydra :) I don't think anyone on these shows are evil, Marvel goes to great pains to make them all seem morally justified in their decisions, at least in their own minds.

I think it would be great if she's Viper/Madame Hydra? Why waste a perfectly good actress? The version in Wolverine was weak and she's a classic SHIELD villain.

This seems like more misdirection, but at this point, it feels like the writers are still struggling for footing. There STILL needs to be a major payoff for Coulson getting the Kree juice and why Fury put him through that (he made a deal with the dying Mar-Vell?).