MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW. If you haven’t seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier yet, see it first and come back. And if you’re an Agents of SHIELD fan, make sure you watch Winter Soldier BEFORE you watch the tonight’s  episode! But if you don’t plan on watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier before tonight’s episode, this post should catch you up with everything you need to know.

I feel more than it affects any of the other Marvel movies, Captain America: The Winter Soldier dramatically affects the Agents of SHIELD TV show. In the most recent episode of Agents of SHIELD, Coulson figures out that the villain The Clairvoyant is a SHIELD agent or has SHIELD agents in his employ. In Winter Soldier, it’s revealed that SHIELD is even more deeply compromised than Coulson suspected. Hydra has secretly taken over huge parts of SHIELD (and the government) from the top down, including the senator played by Garry Shandling in Iron Man 2 and long time SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell!

The Doctor and Rose reenact the pivotal scene between Senator Stern and Jasper Sitwell from Captain America: Winter Soldier.

Sitwell appeared briefly onscreen in Thor and Avengers, but has seen the majority of his screen time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the Agents of SHIELD TV series, including in last week’s episode, where he was still thought to be a loyal SHIELD agent. The revelation that Sitwell is in fact an agent of Hydra is a huge bombshell. Before Winter Soldier, there was no reason to think Sitwell was a traitor. Now, unless he’s revealed to be a triple-agent, Sitwell will be remembered as a traitor. I doubt he survived being thrown into oncoming traffic by the Winter Soldier on a busy DC highway. That said, he may be in part of tonight’s episode, as he was still alive in last week’s episode, and we don’t know yet how much of tonight’s episode takes before or during the events of Captain America: Winter Soldier. 

We also don’t know how much of last week’s episode took place during or after Winter Soldier. Remember how hard a time Coulson was having trying to get in touch with Nick Fury last week? Could the reason for Coulson’s difficulty be the assassination attempt on Fury’s life in Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Coulson’s crew has been isolated and on their own recently. Unless they hear something from Victoria Hand or Agent Garrett (Bill Paxton), there’s a good chance they won’t hear it. And it was revealed last week that Hand has her own agenda counter to Coulson.

Could The Clarivoyant from Agents of SHIELD be part of Hydra? The tagline “Everything is Connected” that ABC has been running in their advertising for Agents of SHIELD certainly makes it seem so. In the most recent episode of SHIELD, Coulson deduces that the Clairvoyant isn’t actually a psychic, but it rather someone with deep access to information, who uses that information to predict the future.

Could the Clarvoyant be the now computerized Arnim Zola? It fits, as Zola was using everything from Facebook and Gmail to predict how people would act and who needed to be taken out. The main thorn in this theory is that I feel we’ve seen the Clairvoyant in silhouette already, unless that was just the man in the wheelchair who Ward killed in last week’s episode.

I’m guessing that one of Coulson’s team will be revealed as a Hydra agent. But I can’t think who I would want that traitor to be. I’ve grown to like every member of Coulson’s crew this season and will be devastated if any of them are traitors. Right now, I’m hoping it ends up being Garrett or Triplett if it has to be anyone. I do not think Agent May is a Hydra agent. I think her suspicious behavior is a red herring and that her secret phone line is a direct connection to Fury. And I don’t know what to make of Hand. Is she a Hydra agent? Or is she operating her own agenda?

Tonight’s episode of Agents of SHIELD is going to be huge! Do not miss this episode!