Is Melinda May Working with the Clairvoyant?

So, Tuesday's episode gave us some pretty good insight into the normally stoic Melinda May. As shown in last episode's teaser, the two Asgardian warriors did shake things up, in more ways than one.

First, the destructive Lorelei came down to Earth, took control of all men as per her largely unexplained powers of "sorcery," and attempted to rule the world — and took Ward down with her on the way. Then, the stone cold badass Sif (an actually recognizable character from the Thor movies!) came to stop her. These ladies may be supernaturally powerful fighters, but the way they serve as foils to one another creates some pretty problematic messages about women. It's clear that we're supposed to be Lorelei as the bad guy. But her existence as a powerful femme fatale lends to the already numerous stereotypes about bad women: She's sexual and often uses her sexuality as a weapon and enjoys "stealing" men from other women. Sif, the "good" Asgardian, is everything Lorelei is not: obedient without question, dedicated to her job, not overtly sexual. Oh, and the contraption that Lorelei is eventually imprisoned with? Yeah, it's a device that silences her voice. Sure, it makes sense because her voice is how she hypnotizes men into doing her bidding, but that's some pretty heavy symbolism to be just throwing out there.

Although Lorelei entraps Fitz and Ward (and has sex with Ward because she's a sexy evil lady), Coulson, the S.H.I.E.L.D. women and Sif evade her and eventually send Lorelei packing back to Asgard. Unfortunately, not before Ward tries to kill Melinda May while he's brainwashed... so, you know, that makes things a little weird. Ward tells Lorelei he has feelings for someone on the team while he's under hypnosis. Lorelei tells Melinda May it's a "warrior ice queen" but it's not her, and it's unclear whether this was true or just something to hurt Melinda May. Either way, she ices out Ward completely and breaks things off when he recovers from his brainwashing, just like she told Coulson she would.

Melinda May also tells Coulson to be honest about what he saw in T.A.H.I.T.I., even if it's just with Skye. So he tells Skye that the super juice that saved her came from a freaky blue alien torso, and Skye proceeds to react like any normal person would, which is just glad to be alive (especially since she's already an 0-8-4 anyways). They then agree to find out the truth behind it all and not tell the rest of the team about it. But in the last five minutes (giant spoiler alert) it's revealed that Melinda May had bugged the room they were in, listened in, and called someone on a super secret phone to let them know that "Coulson knows". So now, the question is: is Melinda May the Clairvoyant, is she working for the Clairvoyant, or are we being intentionally misled?

Image: ABC