“Many Heads, One Tale” is episode eight of season three of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
This episode opens with Ward talking to Gideon Malick, one of the last of HYDRA’s heads. Ward is looking for von Strucker’s vault, but Malick says that Ward is endangering his plans. So he tries to have him killed. Ward escapes, of course, and Malick had already left the area.
In the previous episode, “Chaos Theory”, the Inhuman Lash, May’s ex, Dr. Andrew Gardner, had been captured and handed over to the ATCU for storage until he could be cured. At the end of the episode, Rosalind Price and Coulson had gotten together (they had seemed to have a certain chemistry), but Price was also talking to Malick, apologising for failing to deliver Coulson as agreed.
This gives the impression that Price and the ATCU are working for, or with, HYDRA, but is this actually the case? If Malick hadn’t been known to be a head of HYDRA, the impression given would probably have been different.
Coulson invites Rosalind to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s base, and Mack is worried that Coulson’s personal feelings are interfering with his judgement. However, Coulson is doing this for a reason. Although he wants to trust Price, he needs to check her out thoroughly, so whilst she is at S.H.I.E.L.D. he sends the rest of the team to infiltrate the ATCU to find out what is really going on there – with surprising results.
Fitz has linked the symbol of the NASA mission that Will, the astronaut that was on the same planet as Simmons in “4,722 Hours”, with that of the mysterious organisation that was in Gloucestershire in “Purpose in the Machine”. Now, he and Simmons are going through symbology books to track down the symbol – with disturbing results.
Gideon Malick also reveals HYDRA’s history – the tale of the episode’s title.