In flashbacks to the previous year, it is revealed that Sam Koenig has been overseeing the secret Theta Protocol project, which involves refurbishing Fury's disused helicarrier. This helicarrier is later used by the Avengers and Fury to thousands of civilians from Sokovia during Ultron's attempt to destroy the world. In the present, Coulson is allowed to be the director of SHIELD again due to his role in saving the Sokovians. The council become his advisors. Still unable to trust Coulson, Mack resigns from SHIELD. Skye tells Coulson and May that Jiaying is her mother and that Eva and Katya Belyakov were Inhumans, and May admits the truth about the Bahrain incident to Coulson. Raina is revered by the other Inhumans for her precognitive powers, and becomes content with her new form and abilities. When she mentions to Gordon that she had a vision of a stone with the ability to become a liquid, he and Jiaying explain that this is the Monolith, a Kree weapon intended to eradicate the Inhumans. Gordon's attunement to Kree technology leads him and Raina to the Monolith, which is in the Iliad's cargo hold. Hunter sees them, and they are forced to flee to evade capture, after which the council plan to find the Inhumans, considering them a threat. Using salvaged Hydra technology, Weaver is able to trace Gordon's teleportation and determine Afterlife's location. Gonzales suggests they attack, but Coulson instead sends Skye and Lincoln to liaise with the Inhumans and arrange a meeting between him and Jiaying. Raina has a vision of SHIELD attacking Afterlife after the meeting, and begs Gordon to let her represent the Inhumans instead of Jiaying. Convinced that Raina is manipulating the other Inhumans and planning to seize power, Jiaying has her placed under house arrest. The council insist that Coulson should not meet with Jiaying due to his lack of objectivity concerning Skye, and Gonzales is nominated to stand in. SHIELD personnel travel to Afterlife in quinjets, but Morse's plane is hijacked by Palamas posing as May. She takes Morse to a remote location, and when Morse tries to escape, Ward appears and shoots her with an Icer. At Afterlife, Cal surrenders to SHIELD as a gesture of goodwill from the Inhumans. Meeting in private, Jiaying shows Gonzales a Terrigen crystal, explaining that the Inhumans have never been able to remove the Diviner metal properties, making the Terrigen they produce lethal to humans. She shatters the crystal, and the Terrigen mist petrifies Gonzales, after which she shoots herself with his gun, and tells Skye and the other Inhumans that he tried to kill her. In an end tag Ward and Palamas plan to torture Morse, in revenge for giving Palamas' location to Whitehall, which Morse did to ingratiate herself with Hydra.
Production
Development
In March 2015, Marvel announced that the twentieth episode of the season would be titled "Scars", to be written by Rafe Judkins and Lauren LeFranc, with Bobby Roth directing.
Following the events of "The Dirty Half Dozen" leading up to the opening scene of the film ', this episode deals with the aftermath of the film, containing "plot threads and other connective tissue" with it. Comparing this tie-in to first season tie-in to ', executive producerJeffrey Bell said, "Our stories have to stand on their own. We’re not getting blown up like we were last year with Hydra and Captain America, but some elements or some things from the movie do affect some of the relationships in our episodes moving forward, in an interesting and constructive manner."
Release
Broadcast
"Scars" was first aired in the United States on ABC on May 5, 2015.
Marketing
For the final twelve episodes of the season Marvel once again ran the "Art of..." initiative, in which an image was released the Thursday before the episode aired, depicting a first look at a key event from the upcoming episode, with the season's title being "The Art of Evolution". The different artists were once again chosen to create the teaser posters, based on their previous work and how it connected to the themes and emotion of the intended episode. Marguerite Sauvage provided the poster for "Scars", which prominently features Jiaying and her scars in a way that the series cannot do with special effects, while also depicting Skye near the former's stomach to cement the maternal connection between them.
Home media
The episode began streaming on Netflix on June 11, 2015, and was released along with the rest of the second season on September 18, 2015, on Blu-ray and DVD.
Reception
Ratings
In the United States the episode received a 1.5/5 percent share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49, meaning that it was seen by 1.5 percent of all households, and 5 percent of all of those watching television at the time of the broadcast. It was watched by 4.45 million viewers.
