Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – The Ghost Review

After its summer hiatus, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is back with a bang a ready to set up another action-packed season. This first episode of season four, appropriately titled “The Ghost," gave audiences a first look at Ghost Rider and a few other potential threats for the upcoming season. Season three of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ended tragically with the death of Lincoln and it seems like that was the beginning of the team’s break up. With a new director in charge, all the agents are spread out. Coulson and Mack have been traveling and taking on missions together, May has been training agents on combat, Fitz and Simmons have been in the lab, and Daisy is AWOL. Of course, something dramatic happened right at the top of the episode to bring them all together. There’s a new bad guy in town and he’s sold his soul to the devil. This flame wielding ghost means business. He attacked a gang who was attempting to transport some type of weapon. Daisy intervened when a bystander got in the way, but the gang was pretty much toast, literally. Daisy spent the rest of the episode learning more about the Ghost Rider, who goes by the name of Robbie Reyes when he isn’t rocking the flaming skull face, which, by the way, was some pretty great special effect work. The whole time Daisy tried to write him off as a bad guy, but he claimed to only kill bad guys. He may have been telling the truth, since at the end of the episode he let Daisy go, even though he could have easily ended her. Daisy also discovered that he has a brother who he cares about. These bad guys have layers! The rest of the team got involved in Daisy’s adventures after earthquakes and shakes were reported in LA. Turns out that Daisy earned herself yet another name: Quake. As far as her name changes go, this is definitely better than Daisy. Coulson and Mack weren’t able to track Daisy, who is still a ghost in her own right,down. Although, I feel like it shouldn’t be this hard for a bunch of spies to track her down. S.H.I.E.L.D. decided to find the box/weapon that the gang was trying to move. It might have looked like a regular box, but something in it drives people insane and makes them see visions- you might even call them ghosts. The special effects surrounding it made the effect of the box look a lot like the Hive dust from last season, albeit with a very different impact on those around. May arrived with her new team of agents to neutralize the possessed people (a.k.a. knock them out). It seemed like May saw one of the ghost visions, so it’s possible that whatever was in the box was still in the air or it’s contagious. As for Fitz and Simmons, they were still working in the lab and created some new toys including a virtual lab, an exploding pen, and a new hand for Coulson. It was also revealed that now Simmons is the new director’s right hand woman, which caused some tension with May. Simmons cleared the air by explaining that she wants the new director to trust her because she doesn’t trust him. Smart move on her part. Fitz had his own mini adventure this week. He visited Holden Radcliffe, a scientist the team met last season, who has made his very own robot, named Aida. Fitz said it all when he blurted out, “What the hell?” Haven’t these people seen Ex-Machina? This never ends well. Ftiz concluded that he will keep Radcliffe’s robot a secret until it is perfect. Then and only then will they present it to S.H.I.E.L.D. Radcliffe claimed these robots would be good for acting as decoys/human shields during missions, but I just don’t see this ending well, especially when Fitz decided to keep the whole thing a secret from Simmons.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, this episode was a strong start to season four. I almost wish they had taken a step back. It was was little exposition heavy and asked a lot of questions all at once without providing any real answers. Who is Ghost Rider? What’s in the box? Is this robot thing as bad as it sounds? Who’s the new director? I guess it’s good to get audiences excited about the season, but I was hoping for more answers than we got. That being said, I’m exciting to see where this season is headed. I already predict someone is going to fall in love with a robot (hopefully not Fitz) and Daisy is going to team up with Ghost Rider in one way or another. I guess we’ll see if I’m right when Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continues next week at 10/9c on ABC.