Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 4 Episode 1: The Ghost Review and *SPOILERS* - Marvel Monday

The Fast and the Furious

Directed By: Billy Gierhart
Written By: Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon
Starring: Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons, Gabriel Luna, and many more.
Channel: ABC

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been a show that I’ve stuck with since the beginning. I know several people who had absolutely no interest in it when it started and I don’t blame them. But I was in from the very beginning and well, I was disappointed. The first season was rather bland until the end. However, seemingly against all odds, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has stuck around and even more surprisingly, it has become quite amazing. Season two had some ups and downs but season three provided us with some of the best superhero television on network television. I was just as surprised as all of you. However, I found the Hive conflict on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to be far more entertaining than Vandal Savage on Legends of Tomorrow, Zoom on The Flash, and especially more than Damien Darhk on Arrow. So, with all of the momentum that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has, will they continue to grow in season four? Will Ghost Rider be amazing or Nick Cage-ish? Let’s find out.

Our episode begins with a group of men fleeing in a truck. The men are clearly armed and we can safely assume they are up to no good. Their truck dies due to assumingly supernatural causes and the four men set up a defensive position. Daisy shows up and starts attacking the dude but the first one she fights ends up asking her for help and she finds blood on her hands. She saves an older woman who wanders onto the scene when a car suddenly appears at the end of the road. It’s an old Charger and it starts revving its engine.  The car takes off toward the truck and one man fires an RPG at the car sending it into the air. The car flips and the flames engulf it but it lands on its wheels and the burning car strikes the truck, sending flames everywhere. The driver gets out and we don’t get a good look at him but he removes the one of the men from the car and kills him. Then, he pulls the other man out and shoves him into the trunk of his car before driving off. Sirens are heard in the distance so Daisy is forced to flee the scene.

The show then cuts to Coulson and Mack who are playing a board game. They are discussing S.H.I.E.L.D. and their missions and such before they get a call to return back to base early. We then see Agent May training her team in hand to hand combat before the plane lands in the hanger. May tells Coulson and Mack about a terrible attack which left one man with his spine torn out. Assumingly they are talking about the attack by this man who we know to be Ghost Rider. However, Coulson is interested as to why they weren’t just told to go straight to the scene. May got a lead that Daisy was in the area and she wanted to give Coulson and Mack the chance to go to the scene before they are ordered to stand down due to their involvement with Daisy. Back in the hospital, we see one of the men from the attack in a bed and Daisy breaks in to talk with him. He tells her what rumors he has heard about “The Ghost” and his injuries become worse. He tells her that when the Ghost burns you, he burns your soul and thus your injuries will never heal. He then drops and begins losing a lot of blood which causes Daisy to flee the scene.

Mack and Coulson then visit Fitz and Simmons. They exchange some small talk before revealing that they have to be off on a mission immediately and thus, Fitz gives them both their new gadgets which will help them in the future. Back with Daisy, she is investigating more deaths that fit this new perps M.O. She finds that he has killed a local teacher and decides to look into it. We then get a look at the man who attacked the four men. He has the one he captured chained up to a wall and begins asking him questions, looking for information about a package they picked up. He threatens that if the man won’t talk to him, he’ll talk to the other guy. Meanwhile, Coulson and Mack complete their official mission so that they can justify their presence in the area. It’s a simply check-in with the Inhuman named Yo-Yo. She and Mack talk and it’s revealed that their relationship has deepened and grown since we last saw them.

Meanwhile, Fitz joins the scientist named Radcliffe who was used by Hive in the previous season for a football (or soccer for us Americans) match. Radcliffe has been able to work with S.H.I.E.L.D. in a limited capacity. While Fitz is watching the game, a woman steps out from another room completely naked. Fitz is surprised and Radcliffe is quick to clothe her and deactivate her as she seems to be experiencing some kind of glitch. It turns out that this is a robot that Radcliffe has been working on and he wanted to present it to Fitz and Simmons. Unfortunately, Simmons couldn’t make it but now Fitz has seen it and Radcliffe wants to explain it more. Back with Daisy, she gets on the bus and takes a seat. Behind her is sitting Yo-Yo, who relays the information she can to Daisy about the killer and S.H.I.E.L.D. She also gives Daisy some pills. Daisy seems to be experiencing some major pain after she uses her abilities.

We then get a scene of Simmons delivering some equipment to May and her team. It seems very apparent that Simmons now outranks May and May is clearly not too happy about that. Simmons works directly for the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. now and it’s clear many are not big fans of him. Back with Daisy, she comes across a bit of street art that interests her. The art depicts a flaming skull and the man painting it is adding crossbones to the picture. He apparently adds another crossbones for every kill that “The Ghost” commits. Meanwhile, Coulson and Mack are investigating a stolen semi-truck that seems to be connected to the men who were killed by The Ghost. Inside, they find two bodies that have been torn to shreds. Back with The Ghost, he is back with the man he captured and claims that the information he gave him was no good. He climbs into his car and drives it into the man chained to the wall, killing him.

Daisy investigates the car, believing it to be her best lead to The Ghost. Back at S.H.I.E.L.D. May and Simmons get into it as Jemma confronts May about her dislike for her. Simmons explains that she took the position she did in order to hold some kind of control over S.H.I.E.L.D. and make sure the team didn’t get completely separated from each other, which is what the director would have ended up doing. Back with Fitz, Radcliffe explains what he wants to do with his creation. She’s apparently not a full AI, after all, they don’t want another Ultron. However, with recent events, some members of the team have been forced to sacrifice themselves in order to stop threats. This way, a robot could take their place instead. Fitz chooses not to tell S.H.I.E.L.D. or Simmons about what Radcliffe has made until the both of them can work together to make it perfect.

Back with Coulson and Mack, the two have located what was shipped in the semi-truck. It’s at a warehouse that is being held by several Asian gangsters. They monitor them before sending in May’s team. The gangsters open up the box and a strange aura is released. Suddenly the men start seeing things. They see each other as monsters and lash out at each other. May’s team goes in and arrests the men but not before May is exposed to the aura that the men were. Back with Daisy, she goes to a car yard and talks to a man named Robbie. The audience will recognize him as the man who is The Ghost. He seems like just a regular guy but eventually both he and Daisy catch on to each other and a fight breaks out. She confronts him about killing people and he states that he only kills people who deserve it. She names a police officer and a teacher and he responds that the cop had plenty of blood on his hands and the teacher was a pedophile. Daisy tells him that he doesn’t get to decide who lives and who dies. He simply responds that he doesn’t decide before the transformation takes place and we finally see Ghost Rider. He is easily able to best Daisy in a fight and has her trapped. It looks like he is going to end her life and she tells him to do it and that she deserves it. Ghost Rider simply turns away and leaves, driving off. Daisy sees Robbie again as he helps his younger brother out with his wheelchair and she decides to leave him for the moment. Meanwhile Coulson and May talk over a board game and May begins to see Coulson as one of the monsters that the gangsters were seeing but she shakes it off, for now. This is where the episode leaves us.

Honestly, this episode is so fucking awesome! I was blown away by it. There are so many moving parts but they all seem to work together so well (with exception to the Fitz storyline). Ghost Rider looks amazing and he’s legitimately scary. Seeing his transformation was so cool and I’m really looking forward to seeing more of him. I was a little worried about this show because Grant Ward is no longer a part of it. Ward provided us with such an incredibly intimidating villain and one that we couldn’t get enough of, even when he was turned into Hive. I was also worried that a show that had mostly dealt with pseudo-alien storylines would now be dealing with supernatural storylines with Ghost Rider. However, Ghost Rider fills the void that Grant Ward left and the storyline he has given us so far catches my attention really easily. I can honestly say that this episode is one of the best episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I am a little worried that they aren’t going to focus on Ghost Rider for a while and I think that would be such a waste of potential. However, as of right now, this show fucking rocks!

Bits and Pieces:

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns with a bang and doesn’t miss a step when introducing us to a new season. The hole left by Grant Ward is superbly filled by Ghost Rider and while I am a little worried about his role for the next couple episodes, I am incredibly excited to get more of him in the future. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. played it safe in the first season of the show but has turned into something phenomenal and with Ghost Rider being a part of the show now, it is clear that they are willing to take massive risks with this season and I’m betting that it will pay off big time.

9.5/10