“Shadows” is episode one of season two of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
By the end of the final episode of season one, “Beginning of the End”, S.H.I.E.L.D. was in pieces, Grant Ward had betrayed the team, and Coulson was now the director of what was left of S.H.I.E.L.D. after HYDRA had revealed that they had thoroughly infiltrated the organisation.
This episode actually starts back in the last days of World War II, in Austria in 1945, when the remnants of HYRDA were trying to transport some artefacts away, only to be stopped by the S.S.R. as a consequence, there are guest stars originally from Captain America: The First Avenger, such as Peggy Carter (who also gets her own series, Marvel’s Agent Carter).
Some former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are selling information in Alexandria, Virginia, that includes details of the artefacts seised by carter and the S.S.R. Coulson is trying to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D. but HYDRA still seems to be active. Ward is being kept prisoner in the Playground, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s secret base that Director Fury set up for them before things fell apart.
Some new faces in this episode, and a dead one returned, that makes me wonder if someone has got access to cloning technology.