And I just didn't see Peter MacNicol as being an Asgardian. I know that was meant to have been on earth for a milenium but there was nothing otherworldly or extraordinary about him at all or the way he was played. I mean this guy was meant to have lived through the so many incredible events in history, from the middle ages and viking rule through to the Renaissance and the enlightenment, he would have been a contemporary of Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Galileo, Columbus....so many things but what could have been a fascinating story (and the basis for a whole episode) was just brushed over in a couple of lines, and he could just have been any old middle aged guy. One of the things I've loved about the MCU is that when we'e met the Asgardians before they have always seemed a little otherworldly, be it in their more grand way of speaking or their mannerisms. So I felt they could have made more of the 'Asgardian stranded on earth for a thousand years' side of it rather than it just being more about the chase to stop the Norwegian hate group getting the other parts of the staff.
Like Captain Canuck said, though, he was just a regular guy (or doing his best to appear so). He wasn't Asgardian nobility like all the main characters in the Thor movie. And while he was alive at the same time as Shakespeare, Da Vinci, etc, and a number of other historical persons, it doesn't mean he met them or even knew of them during their lifetime. In fact it's far more likely he didn't, even with as much as he traveled.
And even if he had Asgardian mannerisms and speech patterns originally, he's been hiding out on Earth for over a thousand years. It'd make sense for him to consciously change and adapt his speech to that of the style around him, hence having a modern approach to his language. After all, he's been around for awhile, so I'm sure he's had accents and spoke in languages of a variety of different regions depending on where he was at the time.
Oh, and remember that after the last episode I said that I suspected that May was Skye's mother? Did you catch that line when Ward asked her about what she's seen when she held the staff? And she replied something like 'I see it every day'. I take that to be a reference to Skye and how May has to see her everyday but keep a secret.
I thought of that too after your post regarding that possibility. Could be... Though that'll make things eternally awkward for Skye and Ward going forward once that's revealed. It's also kind of a dick move on May's part if she's aware of Skye being her daughter (which if that's the case, her line in this episode reveals she knows), and since she's been living on the plane with them for months she obviously knows there's an attraction between the two. We'll see how it plays out.
I wonder also if the actress playing Skye is deliberately known here as Chloe Bennett (rather than Chloe Wang as she was previously known) so that we don't guess about her Chinese heritage to help hide that plot twist of her being May's daughter? I wouldn't be surprised if we haven't seen the last of Amadour from the Eye Spy episode. That was too good a character to just throw away and I think they left it kind of open with Coulson saying he'd try and make sure she got a fair trial. I could definitely see her joining up with the team for a mission.
As for Chloe Bennett changing her last name from Wang, I doubt it has anything to do with keeping a secret from the audience. Anyone interested can just look up her background/parentage on a number of websites, Wikipedia amongst them. I think it's more to do with using the Bennett name to be more "accepted" by audiences in America, Canada, UK, etc. While the show is airing worldwide, it's fair to see the focus audiences are there, and the actress and her agents probably decided to use the Bennett last name to give her a more American, white Anglo-Saxon sound, as well as to distance herself from the Wang Asian pop star background. Just a theory, but I doubt it had anything to do with the storyline of the show.
