The fourth season of the American television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (promoted as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Ghost Rider), which is based on the Marvel Comics organization S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division), revolves around the character of Phil Coulson and his team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and allies as they deal with various enhanced individuals following the signing of the Sokovia Accords. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films of the franchise. The season is produced by ABC Studios, Marvel Television, and Mutant Enemy Productions, with Jed Whedon,Maurissa Tancharoen, and Jeffrey Bell serving as showrunners.
The season was ordered in March 2016, and production began that July. Alongside Clark Gregg, who reprises his role as Coulson from the film series, principal cast members Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge and Henry Simmons return from previous seasons while John Hannah was promoted to the principal cast after appearing in a recurring role inseason three. This season deals with how the film Captain America: Civil War affects the series, and introduces recurring guest star Gabriel Luna as the mystical Robbie Reyes / Ghost Rider to coincide with the film Doctor Strange, which explores mysticism in the MCU.
The Plot: (FULL Spoilers)
"Ghost"
Former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Daisy Johnson, now the vigilante "Quake", is hunting gang affiliates of the anti-Inhuman terrorist group Watchdogs in Los Angeles when members of the Aryan Brotherhood are murdered by the fiery "Ghost Rider" in front of her. Agents Phil Coulson and Mack, who were forbidden from searching for Johnson by the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, are tipped off to her location by Agent Melinda May. They fly to Los Angeles under the guise of checking in on Inhuman asset Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez, who has signed the controversial Sokovia Accords and is now under the jurisdiction of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the United Nations.
Agent Leo Fitz visits friend and S.H.I.E.L.D. ally Holden Radcliffe, a transhumanist doctor who is on probation after previous illegal experimentation. Fitz discovers that Radcliffe has secretly transferred his artificial intelligence AIDA into a human-like body, which he intends to be the first in a line of decoys for field agents in danger. Believing Radcliffe's altruistic intentions, Fitz agrees to help him perfect AIDA, and to keep her a secret from his girlfriend Agent Jemma Simmons, who is in the paranoid Director's inner circle, and takes daily lie-detector tests. Simmons realizes that Coulson and Mack are investigating Johnson, and orders May to stop them; May and her new strike force arrive to find Coulson and Mack surveilling Chinese gangsters, who they believe are potential targets of Quake.
The gangsters have bought a weapon off the Brotherhood which can help them fight against Inhumans. The open the box containing the weapon, and unleash a mystical being who turns the gangsters berserk. She secretly infects May as well, as the strike force takes out the gangsters. Johnson meets with Rodriguez, who stole medication from S.H.I.E.L.D. during their brief check with her which can help Johnson heal—her recent over use of her Inhuman abilities as Quake has been fracturing her bones. Johnson then tracks down the Ghost Rider and confronts him, but he defeats her, explaining that he only murders people that deserve it. She later sees his human form, Robbie Reyes, looking after his disabled brother Gabe.
"Meet the New Boss"
S.H.I.E.L.D. and Johnson independently investigate the figure, an apparent ghost of a woman named Lucy Bauer, both concluding that she worked at an abandoned facility, Momentum Energy. Johnson confronts Reyes again, and he once more overpowers her. Restraining her, Reyes searches Johnson's belongings and discovers her research on Momentum. He leaves, and Johnson escapes her restraints. As Mace plans to officially announce S.H.I.E.L.D. as a legitimate organization again, the infected May grows increasingly paranoid, seeing all people as monsters, and eventually attacking other agents. Mace restrains May with his Inhuman strength, and promises to take care of her. Mack and Fitz arrive at Momentum to find more ghosts, who attempt to blow it up with them inside. Ghost Rider intervenes, destroying one of the ghosts, and Johnson arrives to stop S.H.I.E.L.D. from taking him in. Rather than rejoin S.H.I.E.L.D., Johnson agrees to work with Reyes, who believes that the actions of the ghosts and Watchdogs may be tied to him.
"Uprising"
Inhuman S.H.I.E.L.D. asset Elena Rodriguez is caught in a blackout in Miami. Reyes and Johnson are caught in another in Los Angeles. A group claiming to be the Inhuman resistance, fighting registration with the Sokovia Accords, take responsibility. Reyes explains that his uncle, Eli Morrow, was imprisoned for causing an explosion at Momentum that apparently created the ghosts; he believes that atoning for Morrow's sins will pay his debt to the Devil, and rid Reyes of the Ghost Rider. At the Reyes' house, Gabe realizes that Johnson is Quake and asks her to leave Robbie alone. Radcliffe and Simmons 'cure' May by killing and reviving her. Coulson, Mack, and Fitz save Rodriguez from a group of Watchdogs, and find the EMP that caused the blackout—it was set off by the Watchdogs, who had access to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s list of registered Inhumans, and have backing from Senator Rota Nadeer, whose brother is encased in an Inhuman terrigen cocoon. Hoping to assuage public fears of the Inhumans, Mace announces the return of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire"
Johnson forces Simmons to help track the Watchdogs' actions. They discover that the group hacked an Inhuman's monitoring device, and race to save the next Inhuman on the list. Coulson visits Morrow in prison, but gets no answers. Reyes arrives to talk to Morrow, and Mack recognizes him as the Ghost Rider. They capture Reyes, and earn his trust. AIDA supervises May's recovery, as a Turing test by Radcliffe. Johnson and Simmons find the Inhuman JT James and destroy his monitor. Reyes visits Morrow, and learns that the Momentum explosion was caused by a group of scientists studying the Darkhold, a mysterious book. Only Lucy's husband Joseph, whom Morrow had put in a coma trying to stop the experiments, survived. James betrays Johnson—he hates being an Inhuman, and gave the Watchdogs access to his monitor. Coulson, Mack, and Reyes save Johnson and Simmons, alerted by the monitor's destruction. They then get May to help find the Darkhold, and when Simmons sees AIDA she deduces her true nature.
The Verdict:
"Ghost"
Let's start this review off right...
I TOLD you guys on social media that I had the utmost confidence in what Marvel Studios was going to do with Robbie Reyes in this continuity. They wouldn't go out of their way to introduce this new character after getting the Ghost Rider license back from FOX. Just because Agents of SHIELD isn't on Netflix doesn't rule them out from being another solid contribution to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Whether you have followed the show or not up to this point, but Agents of SHIELD have been the glue that holds this universe together between the blockbuster film releases and the narratives told in Hell's Kitchen with Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and shortly Luke Cage on Netflix. This show shouldered the aftermath of the original Avengers, demonstrated how vast HYDRA's infliction was like a disease to the SHIELD organization following Captain America: The Winter Soldier, introduced the Inhumans to this continuity - along with the Kree Empire via T.A.H.I.T.I., long before Guardians of the Galaxy and the conversation of the Inhumans ever getting a feature film came to fruition, and most importantly, this series serves as the origin story for one of the titular SHIELD agents in the comics continuity, Quake/Daisy "Skye" Johnson.
I'm glad that we can put the memory of Nicholas Cage's Ghost Rider behind us - even though I didn't "hate" those two movies but I wasn't really crazy about them. Agents of SHIELD used this single episode and portrayed the best iteration of Ghost Rider to date. I'm sure the hardcore Robbie Reyes fans will be mad that it seems like they made Robbie into a "traditional" Ghost Rider instead of being possessed by a demonic serial murder, but I thought they settled for a happy medium, giving fans and casuals the best of both worlds for this character. That being said, I love this new "darker" approach to this season. Outside of a few rare instances in the previous seasons, this show was a bit too light-hearted for my taste at times, especially for the subject manner that was touched upon. I was glad that Agents of SHIELD is moving away from being all smiles and giggles and into a much more serious tone that was needed since the HYDRA reveal. We were given a lot of insight on the surviving members of Coulson's team have been hardened by the friends and loved ones that they have lost over the last three seasons. I think the darker approach and tone for this season is going to pave the way to some rather dark storytelling portraying how far away from the traditional "heroic" path some of these characters are going to walk to insure that they won't lose anyone else dear to them again. It's painfully evidence in Quake's character now, who is still suffering from the events of the Season 3 finale along with the loss of her parents in Season 2. I'm anxious to see how Robbie Reyes and the Ghost Rider's principles and personal outlooks on life will clash with Quake's own.
I'm glad that AoS didn't just completely write off or "forgot" about remaining Inhumans or rather Secret Warriors that were recruited during the ordeal with Hive and HYDRA last season. This premiere saw the return of YoYo Rodriguez, who is continuing her on/off romance with Mack who is ironically not trying to get his "mack" on.
I honestly don't know where they are going with Fitz and Radcliffe's subplot of working on LMD (Life Model Decoys) but I hope and pray that's not an excuse/copout to bring back everyone they have killed off up to this point as LMDs. I said it on social media last season and I'll say it again now. Keep Grant Ward away from this show. We've all had our fill of him. Let him stay dead and gone. Another thing I hope they don't do is have Fitz with a Weird Science-style imitation of Jemma Simmons that does "anything" he wants. To be honest, I thought LMDs would have been introduced in Captain America; The Winter Soldier when Nick Fury "faked" his own demise.
"Meet the New Boss"
The biggest takeaway from this episode is the revelation that the new director is an Inhuman credited as Jeffrey Mace. This is the first time I've actually seen how Jason O'Mara looks like despite being a fan of his voice acting work. I'm surprised that he hasn't tried his hand at getting a role in more live-action superhero roles until now.
On top of that, we're treated to the fact that the Ghost Rider is the only one who can "kill" these new ghost adversaries that have popped up this season that are aligned with Lucy Bauer. We also learn that Bauer is after a spell book referred to as the Darkhold. In the comics continuity, the Darkhold directly ties to Dr. Strange as it is considered to be the ultimate dark grimoire, a collection of all evil spells in the existence collected by the Elder God Chthon. It serves as the anti-thesis of the Book of the Vishanti. Trust me, if a lot of this magical stuff is over your head then fear not as it's just to warm people up to this side of the MCU before Dr. Strange's formal introduction next month in theaters.
I had to feel bad for May this season as she's been sidelined as the show's resident badass, only to be one-upped by the Ghost Rider. I'm sure May will take her place back in due time but there's no denying Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider's presence in this show. Two episodes in and he's like the best thing that's happened to this show to say that he's just a guest star/recurring cast member for this season.
"Uprising"
About time we got a Yo-Yo centric episode. I was starting to miss her as a regular from last season's focus on the Inhumans. Out of all of the "New Warriors" Daisy recruited last season, she was definitely my favorite and I was glad to see that she was sicking around. Much like the treat we got of May in a dress a few seasons back, it was nice to see Yo-Yo in one for this episode, even though it was brief.
I found it rather odd that it took them like what, two seasons now to show the public populace are reacting to the Inhumans living among them. Agents of SHIELD are sprinkling these "X-Men-like" issues of dealing with indifference and racism to potentially prepare audiences for whenever Marvel Studios finally actually gets the X-Men license (along with the use of mutants period) back and are able to integrate them into the MCU.
I wasn't surprised to see that Radcliffe had to risk exposing AIDA to Simmons to save May's life, but I'm left wondering how are they going to prevent future "infections" from contact from the ghosts in future conflicts. It's not like they have protection against that or anything. I have to be honest that I have felt that Simmons has been sketchy since her time away from the Coulson's team to do her undercover op as an agent for HYDRA a few seasons ago and her new role as a high ranking SHIELD agent is rubbing me the wrong way. Remember that she was the main one who didn't want to give Inhumans a chance at all about two seasons ago so what makes you think that her intentions have changed since then after all that has transpired despite the fact that the new director is one himself? I have a feeling that she's going to let the sheep out of the bag and expose her real intentions sooner more than later and it will ultimately drive her and Fitz apart.
I thought it was interesting to see that Robbie's brother was the one who got Daisy to leave after seeing her powers firsthand, yet he's blind to see that his own brother isn't normal himself. I'm familiar with Robbie Reyes' comic book counterpart and I'm anxious to see if this show draws from the demonic possession by a serial killer (his uncle Eli) or not. So far, it's looking like they aren't dwelling into the comics too much but I want to see where this goes.
At the end of the day, this was a fun episode that we needed to remind viewers that Coulson's team still has it and can hold their own. I'm glad that they are actually picking up this storyline of the Watchdogs after leaving it floating in the air for a while in favor of the plot with Hive last season. They make for a nice diversion among all of this mystical and magical stuff being introduced this season.
One of my favorite things this season is that I can sit back and enjoy the ride with most fans who aren't savvy to the bulk of this stuff. The mystical/magical realm of Marvel Comics is something I have no problem admitting that I'm not very knowledgeable on so I'm enjoying learning about this stuff as this season peters out, along with Dr. Strange around the corner.
That being said, I have NO idea what they got planned for Senator Nadeer's brother locked up in that carbonite... err terrigen cocoon. Whatever it is, I'm positive he'll end up being something that Daisy, Yo-Yo, and Robbie will end up having to deal with.
"Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire"
Ha, Daisy keeps using her powers recklessly and she's going to quake her arm off. I'm finding it rather hard to believe that she was too stupid to take the special gear and gloves that Simmons made about a season ago for her NOT to hurt herself with her own powers with her when she left SHIELD. Even Simmons reminds her about them but Daisy blows her off about them not being incognito. Fuck being incognito if it they are going to help her in the long run.I couldn't help but find it to be hilarious that Radcliffe addressed my question from the last episode on how were they were going to prevent future "ghost" infections by telling May that they are developing a countermeasure to that. I don't see Radcliffe's "experiment" going bad unless Simmons spills the beans and I know she will... I just can't shake this feeling that she's sketchy this season. I will admit that AIDA seems confused about the conception of "lies" and that might come to bite Radcliffe's ass later in the season.
About time we get a car chase with Coulson's Lola in this show. Even better that it was against Reyes' Charger.
Here's where the comics' Reyes is different than the MCU Reyes. Uncle Eli was a serial killer and is already dead. Eli made a pact to become a demon in death and that's what possessed Robbie Reyes to give him his powers. He wasn't in prison nor a noble man like the one depicted here. I guess since Reyes is the "first" Ghost Rider introduced into the MCU properly into this continuity so I'm guessing they are going to keep with the traditional Ghost Rider story and axe the whole twist about being possessed by a serial killer. A guy gives up his soul to become an avatar to fight in the presence of evil. Hmmm... I wonder if they are going to introduce Mephisto in this show or not then? All of this talk about God and Devil has me wondering...
Was anyone really surprised that JT James ended up throwing Daisy and Simmons to the "wolves" or rather to the Watchdogs? That dude was shady before Hive infected him and recruited him to his group of Inhuman "superfriends" so I wasn't surprised in the least at that double cross. It's times like this that I'm a little sad that Raina's not around to serve as a better villain when it comes to these clever double crosses.
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| Everytime Robbie's eyes flare up, I think of this from Ronin Warriors... |
I have to share Coulson's feelings about being stern with Daisy though. She didn't have to run but I guess she's unofficially back on the team for now along with Reyes.
This was another fun episode that built off the previous one of Coulson rebuilding his team with members old and new to prepare to deal with this upcoming threat of whoever is going to get their hands on the Darkhold first. This Marvel team-up might not go as well as they all envision if Simmons ends up spilling the beans to the new director. I swear... that girl has turned into a wet blanket to be the buzzkill on everyone's parties lately.
Watch It or Don't Bother?
If you haven't given Agents of SHIELD a chance until now, this is a great place to start, especially if you want to see what Marvel has done with Ghost Rider back under their roof of cinematic properties. I think this episode will turn even the hardest of skeptics into fans of what they have done with that character being introduced into this continuity. Each episode thus far has been better than the last and I can't help to see how this season plays out. Marvel's definitely raising the bar on the superhero dramas right now.
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