“The Patriot” is episode ten of season four of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
In the previous episode, “Broken Promises”, Aida was stopped before she could escape the base with the Darkhold. However, at the end of the episode it was revealed she hadn’t tried to steal the Darkhold because reading it in “The Laws of Inferno Dynamics” had corrupted her programming but because Dr Radcliffe had ordered her to do it. Radcliffe really wants to get hold of the information in the book. He still has Agent May kept captive, and drugged, and the fake May is still with S.H.I.E.L.D. No-one has twigged she’s a fake, and she still doesn’t seem to realise this herself. Aida had also implanted something in Fake May before being stopped, which allows Radcliffe to see whatever Fake May sees. Radcliffe also has a new model of Aida. Senator Nadeer had murdered her brother, Vijay, and had his body dumped in the sea, as part of the promise they made to each other to stop them from becoming monsters. Said body formed a terrigenesis cocoon, suggested that something else may be happening to Vijay.
In Sunbury, Pennsylvania Director Mace is holding an event honouring Daisy, now that she’s officially a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent again. General Talbot is there and he’s giving a mysterious briefcase to Mace’s aide, Burrows. Then Coulson notices that an agent is missing from a rooftop. Instead, there’s a sniper there who takes a shot at Mace with an explosive bullet, although the assassination attempt fails. Mace is evacuated in a Quinjet to be taken to a safe house.
At HQ, Fitz still has Aida’s head out, as he wants to find out what went wrong with her. Simmons is not happy about this, and wants it putting away safely. Fitz himself is telling Radcliffe that the latter should steer clear of headquarters for a while, due to the incident, and then he returns to base. Radcliffe himself is concerned about this, because he feels he needs to keep an eye on Fake May, because she doesn’t know she’s a duplicate. He is also not happy about Aida killing Nathanson; she says she did it to prevent his secret from coming out. Radcliffe doesn’t actually want people killed – this all seems to be part of a somewhat misguided attempt to save them. Real May, despite being kept in a dream state, is less than cooperative as well.
The sniper who took a shot at Mace is an ex-HYDRA agent – and the assassination was never expected to succeed. It was only the first part of the plot. The Quinjet Mace is on has been sabotaged, and a door is blown off and Burrows is sucked out, still holding the mysterious briefcase. The jet crashes, leaving only Coulson, Mack and Mace alive, cut off by ex-HYDRA mercenaries who still have HYDRA equipment.
Fake May and Daisy go looking for them in the Zephyr, but it would help if they actually knew where to look. Talbot is taking command in the interim, which isn’t making Simmons happy. She discovers that Mace is part of something called Project Patriot. In the comic books, Jeffrey Mace is the Patriot, and he’s a rather different person to the one in the series. The briefcase, Mace, and what happened in Vienna – Simmons realised he was lying about something in “Lockup” – are all connected and come out in the episode.