Purpose in the Machine - S3-E2
Continuity mistake: When May is sitting on the couch talking to her father, the candles behind them are not lit for a couple of shots. They are lit when they start talking and when they finish.
Continuity mistake: When the Watchdogs destroy the government facility near the start of the episode, 6 shots of Nitramene are fired onto the building's exterior before it implodes. But moments later when Coulson calls Mack, he (Coulson) is watching the news report of the event, and the 6 shots of Nitramene are nowhere to be seen.
Continuity mistake: In the opening of episode 20, Coulson meets General Talbot in a saloon that is a secret entrance to their hidden base, a base that is many stories underground. Yet in episode 22 Coulson uses his robot arm to call another jet; it appears outside a window! He can't have a window in his office, if the base is several stories underground. And to verify it isn't a "video window" or "projection screen", Mac throws a chair through it, essentially saying "We are above ground, let's go get in that jet in front of us." (00:19:40)
Chosen answer: Coulson believes he was resuscitated then sent to Tahiti to recuperate. "A magical place," he calls it. But in the "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." episode "The Magical Place", Coulson, through a mind-reading machine, learns that he was treated by S.H.I.E.L.D. and a fake memory of Tahiti was placed as a "mask" of sorts over the painful memory of the operation, which involved a drug seemingly of alien origin to repair the damage, coupled with a lot of morally dubious surgery.