In September 2016, the ABC Television show Marvel's Agents of SHIELD debuted its fourth season with an episode titled "The Ghost" that brought the newest Ghost Rider, Robbie Reyes, to life on the small screen. Here are the collected reviews of the first half of that season and I've got plans to do a retrospective of the last half in the near future.
EPISODE 4.01: "THE GHOST"
While hunting down a group of gun runners, Daisy "Quake" Johnson runs afoul of a mysterious flaming Dodge Charger, whose driver murders most of the mercenaries, leaving one critically injured and the other in the back of his car as he speeds away on flaming tires. Daisy tracks down the survivor to a local hospital, and before he dies he tells her that "when the Rider burns you, he burns your soul...and it will never heal".
Agents of SHIELD Coulson and Mack are given information on Daisy's whereabouts by their former teammate Melinda May, who gives them a head start in front of the task force that will looking to kill Quake, assuming she is responsible for the rash of murders in Los Angeles. Quake begins her search for the car, while the driver tortures the kidnapped mercenary for information on their cargo, a mysterious box in the back of a semi-truck. Coulson and Mack find the truck with two dead men inside, the men having killed one another, unware that the young man working for the salvage yard helping take care of the truck is the one with the flaming car. He returns to the mercenary, tells him the box wasn't there, and runs him down with his car.
While Mack and Coulson follow clues to the box's whereabouts, a warehouse where criminals are meeting to take possession of the box, Daisy follows her own investigation of the "Ghost Rider" to a salvage yard, where she meets Robbie Reyes. Mack and Coulson watch as the criminals open the box, unleashing a ghostly woman that causes the men to attack one another. May and her team arrive to take out the criminals, take possession of the box, and return Coulson and Mack to SHIELD HQ. At the scrap yard, Daisy realizes that Robbie is the murderer she's searching for and the two begin to fight. Robbie transforms into the Ghost Rider and traps Daisy under wreckage, when she asks him to kill her, saying "I deserve it". Instead, the Ghost Rider gets into his car and leaves her alive. Meanwhile, en route to SHIELD, May realizes that she has become possessed by the ghostly woman from the box.
Oh, also, lots of other SHIELD stuff I couldn't care less about happened. TO BE CONTINUED...!
CHAIN REACTION
Ah, Agents of SHIELD, here I was hoping I would never have to watch you again. But here I am, not only watching but actually writing a review for you! I remember the by-gone days of 2013 when I attempted to watch your first season and gave up due to your lackluster plots, unengaging characters, and strict refusal to show anything actually related to the Marvel Universe.
Things sure have changed, haven't they? I certainly wouldn't have thought that Ghost Rider would be making his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut on an ABC television show, and I definitely wouldn't have pegged Robbie Reyes to be the Rider they decided to go with. Neither of those are complaints, other than the fact that I had to sit through Agents of SHIELD again when I really didn't want to, because the character of Ghost Rider was adapted pretty darn well in this first episode. Granted, a lot of fans are potentially going to write this off as "Not My Ghost Rider" since it's not Johnny Blaze (or even Danny Ketch, for that matter), and that's a shame.
Robbie Reyes is a character that's perfect for television adaptation, mainly because his story is so simple and streamlined while still connected to the larger mythos of Ghost Rider. SHIELD has done right by the character, and in fact may have made him more interesting than he was when he debuted in the comic because he's shrouded in so much fucking MYSTERY that he's immediately engaging. Gabriel Luna, who I had never heard of prior to this but will damn well remember now, plays an excellent Reyes, though one who seems to skew a bit older than the teenager from the comics. His delivery of his lines during the fight with Quake were perfect to show the self-loathing mixed with perceived righteousness that the character's personality forms throughout the episode. Really great stuff, and as an adaptation of the Reyes Ghost Rider, I'm sold. The character even LOOKS great, which I thought would be impossible on a network television budget, but there it is: a fantastic flaming skull sitting atop a comic-accurate outfit. I couldn't ask for more.
Or, well, yeah...I could definitely ask for more, because the rest of the episode stars the Agents of SHIELD, who are about as interesting as burnt toast. I certainly can blame myself for this, since I haven't kept up with the series after bailing 12 episodes into Season One, but they could have at least made the plots surrounding these characters something that would keep your attention. Instead, I found myself drifting off into daydreams and near-sleep whenever a character other than Daisy or Robbie were on screen. I did like Melinda May during the first season, so I have hopes that her Ghost Box storyline will go somewhere interesting.
Overall, I'm still not impressed with Agents of SHIELD as a whole, it's dreadfully stiff and difficult to stay interested in. I AM impressed with the introduction of Ghost Rider, however, and that's what will keep me coming back for new episodes. Here's hoping the rest of the show around Robbie improves.
EPISODE 4.02: "MEET THE NEW BOSS"
A home in Pasadena, CA is visited by the ghost of a woman, the same ghost who escaped from the stolen box recovered by SHIELD. At SHIELD HQ, Fitz and Simmons determine that the technology from the box is something they've never seen before. Mack tells them that a man suffering from the same symptoms as the Chinese criminals was hospitalized in Pasadena, claiming to have seen a ghost in his house. Reviewing the footage of the box's retrieval, they see the image of the ghostly woman. Mack and Fitz leave to investigate the lab at Pasadena that could have been responsible for the technology of the box.
Meanwhile, in California, Daisy has tracked Robbie Reyes down to his workplace at Canelo's Auto, where he works as mechanic. Claiming to be an old friend of Robbie's, she has a very tense conversation with him, ignoring his threats for her to leave. When they are alone in the auto shop, Daisy threatens Robbie's brother, Gabe, which causes Robbie to attack her with a flaming wrench. Due to her powers causing damage to her bones, Robbie easily breaks Daisy's arm and knocks her unconscious. After tying her up and looking through her things for evidence that she deserves to die, the conversation stops when Daisy mentions the lab in Pasadena that the skinheads murdered by Robbie had stolen something from. Recognizing the lab, Robbie races off in his car, shaking off the pursuing Daisy.
At SHIELD HQ, Coulson and May meet the new Director of SHIELD, Jeffrey Mace. May continues to see visions brought on by her exposure to the ghostly woman, which slowly drives her insane. Coulson attempts to talk her down, but she attacks him, believing that everyone she sees is infected or against her. Before she can escape, Director Mace reveals himself to be an invulnerable and super-strong Inhuman and easily knocks May unconscious.
At the Pasadena lab, the ghostly woman goes into a room with a large reactor and other boxes like the one that had trapped her. She frees three more ghostly men, who all blame her for an experiment that involved a man named Hugo and a book called the Darkhold. Lucy, the female ghost, leads two of the ghostly men out of the lab to search for the book, leaving one behind to destroy the building. Mack and Fitz arrive and are attacked by the ghost, who has turned the reactor on. The ghost locks Mack inside the reactor and advances on Fitz, but is stopped by Robbie, who transforms into the Ghost Rider and destroys the ghost with hellfire. Daisy arrives and frees Mack while Fitz turns off the reactor. The Ghost Rider retrieves a photo of the lab scientists and leaves. Mack and Fitz attempt to talk Daisy into coming with them, but she refuses and leaves as well.
Later, Coulson learns that Mace has "taken care" of May, but the Director refuses to tell him where she is. Strapped into a straight jacket, a psychotic May is being transported somewhere by jet. Daisy is picked up by Robbie, who tells her that he thinks the thing connecting all of these events is him. She gets in the car and the two ride away to find answers.
CHAIN REACTION
Robbie Reyes gets a spotlight and the Ghost Rider takes out an actual ghost in a really, really great episode.
After the conclusion of last week's season premiere, I was left ambivalent at best. I really wanted to follow the Ghost Rider storyline, but the actual SHIELD stuff left me cold and bored. Thankfully, the show does a much better job of combining those two elements in this episode, because even the SHIELD plots are pretty interesting. Just to bull on through that section of the episode, we meet the new director of SHIELD (Jeffrey Mace, who in the comics was a character called the Patriot that operated in WWII, definitely not an Inhuman), and he's so bureaucratic you can see slime coming from his pores. He's also a super-strong Inhuman, so there's that, I guess. Jason O'Mara, who I predominately know as the voice of Batman in the latter day DC animated films, does a pretty good job of getting Mace's potential duplicitousness across. Poor Coulson, though, a few compliments and he's ready to hike his skirt for the guy. Agent May has a great episode, too, though that's not surprising since she's the best character in the show's regular cast. Seeing her freak out and take out a whole room full of SHIELD agents was a fantastic scene, and it led into an unexpected reveal of Mace's powers and identity.
The A-plot of the episode, though, revolves around Daisy Johnson and Robbie Reyes throwing veiled (and not-so veiled in Robbie's case) threats at one another in an auto repair shop. I'm not a big fan of Daisy's character, even if she's radically different than the one I remember from season one, but her stand off with Reyes is really tense and intriguing. The true star of the episode, though, is Gabriel Luna as Robbie, that guy does an amazing job with the character. He's not totally the Robbie from the comics outside of the core trappings, but he has this quiet, stoic take on the character that really makes you believe he's holding back something terrible. Both his personality and the take on the Ghost Rider itself is almost like a clever amalgamation of the Blaze, Ketch, and Reyes versions; you get the mention of the deal with the devil and the Spirit of Vengeance. It makes Robbie feel more like the traditional take on the Ghost Rider, which was nice to see.
The Ghost Rider himself is only on-screen for a few minutes, but god damn if he doesn't look amazing. He has hellfire in place of the penance stare (presumably, anyway), and the special effects on the show look really great. I was afraid that they'd blown most of the FX budget on the premiere, so I was glad to see that wasn't the case. Ghost Rider and Robbie tie into what I assume will be the season's long arc, involving the "ghosts" of the scientists who played around with the Darkhold. The Darkhold, of all things, is in this show! That's awesome!
If every episode this season holds up the quality of this one, SHIELD will be on my must-watch list every week. Ghost Rider fans, you really need to check this out whether you watch the show regularly or not.
EPISODE 4.03: "UPRISING"
A group of domestic terrorists claiming to be Inhumans start knocking out all electrical power in major cities across the United States, starting in Miami. A party attended by SHIELD agent and Inhuman Yo-Yo Rodriguez is taken hostage by a group of armed militia men looking for the "Inhuman terrorist" that they know is in attendance. Coulson, Mack, and Fitz travel to Miami and rescue Yo-Yo, and in the process learn that the militia men are part of the Watchdogs group that have caused the blackouts using an EMP device in an attempt to frame the Inhumans. They manage to locate the EMP device in Miami and disable it, restoring power to the city.
Another EMP attack happens in Los Angeles while Robbie Reyes and Daisy Johnson are on their way to see his uncle Eli Morrow, who worked at the lab that produced the ghost scientists and is in prison for beating one of the scientists into a coma. When the power goes out, Robbie and Daisy race to find his disabled younger brother, Gabe, and are able to rescue him from a gang of looters. When they get back to the Reyes' home, Robbie notices that Daisy's broken bones are in need of treatment and leaves to get her some medication. Gabe has a talk with Daisy, letting her know that he's aware of who she is and that his brother doesn't need to be around "bad people" like her, telling her to leave. When Robbie gets back, after the power has returned, Daisy is gone. Gabe tells him that she left after he fell asleep.
Finally, Agent May has been taken to the home of Dr. Radcliffe by Simmons, who is trying to cure her of the madness that the ghost scientist infected her with. They realize that in order to cure her they have to "kill her", they have to stop her heart and then resuscitate her before the disorder in her brain kills her. They stop her heart, but before they can revive her the EMP attack hits, knocking out all of their equipment. In order to save May, Radcliffe uses the power source from his LMD Aida to restart May's heart.
REVIEW
The Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider plot is placed in the back seat in favor of, ugh, an Inhumans plot.
I get that the Inhumans were and still are a huge part of this show's make-up, it was a central plot element of the last two seasons. This, however, is a Ghost Rider blog and I haven't even watched the previous two seasons, so everyone knows what I'm here for when it comes to Agents of SHIELD. That said, as much as I really don't care about anything related to the Inhumans, there are I'm sure stories that can be told about them that are interesting. This one, unfortunately, wasn't one of those stories and it produced an episode that I nearly fell asleep through. So I'm not going to talk much about the "A" plot of this episode and instead focus on the subplot involving Robbie and Daisy.
I'm not exactly sure what transpired last season to make Daisy a fugitive, one whose face is known by just about everybody she meets apparently, but its used to good effect here. I think the way its being used to keep her separate from the rest of SHIELD is strained at best and idiotic at worst, but since it's allowed them to pair her up with Robbie I'm willing to forgive it. Gabriel Luna and Chloe Bennet have a very tense, interesting chemistry when they're on screen together, and the times that this episode spends focusing on them are definitely the parts worth watching. Bennet does "wounded martyr figure" well, and her conversation with Gabe was really well done. Daisy/Skye was one of the worst characters in season 1, which is when I initially bailed on this show, and its good to see she's become one of the more interesting.
The changes to Robbie's backstory that he gives in this episode are ones that I'm trying to figure out, because if he's not possessed by his uncle Eli Morrow's evil spirit does that mean we're looking at a more traditional "Spirit of Vengeance" than in the comics? It looks like we're in for an interesting mash-up of traditional Ghost Rider tropes with Robbie, which makes things more unpredictable for me while watching. The important, surface elements of Robbie's character are all intact, so if the backstory changes to the more well-known "deal with the devil" origin for the Ghost Rider, I'm fine with that.
So this episode was a slow-down after the thrills from episode two, and I couldn't be bothered with the Inhumans stuff. I'd happily watch this show if it was just Daisy and Robbie chasing down the Darkhold.
EPISODE 4.04: "LET ME STAND NEXT TO YOUR FIRE"
While looking at an apartment to rent, Jemma Simmons is confronted by an injured Daisy Johnson, who needs help hacking into SHIELD's database to find out how the Watchdogs are locating Inhumans. When Jemma refuses, Daisy pulls out a gun and demands her help. Meanwhile, at a prison in Los Angeles, Coulson visits Eli Morrow, an engineer who worked at Momentum Lab with Lucy and Joseph Bauer. Eli is in prison for beating Joseph into a coma following the "accident" that took the lives of their other Momentum coworkers. Not wanting to involve himself any deeper, Eli refuses to talk to Coulson and tells him to leave. Outside the prison, Coulson and Mack see Robbie Reyes drive by, and Mack immediately recognizes him as the Ghost Rider that saved him at Momentum Labs. Coulson and Mack chase Robbie through Los Angeles, but in a drainage gulley Robbie drives straight into the cloaked SHIELD Quinjet, knocking him unconscious and wrecking the car.
After getting the information from SHIELD's database, Jemma says that every registered Inhuman has a wristband that acts as a locating device. When they look at SHIELD's database, they see that a third party is indeed searching through the wristband information and has stopped on J.T. James, who Daisy thinks will be the Watchdogs' next victim. Inside the Quinjet, Coulson notices that Reyes' car has "healed itself" from the wreck. He talks to Robbie, who is locked in a containment cell, and calls him a murderer. Robbie states that he only kills those who deserve it, and that he got his power by making a deal with the Devil. Realizing that Daisy trusted Robbie, Coulson unlocks the cell and lets him out. Robbie has a brief stand-off with Coulson, but soon come to an agreement that Robbie will talk to his uncle Eli to get answers about the "ghosts", who are also vulnerable to the Ghost Rider and will be a valuable ally.
Daisy and Jemma find James working in a fireworks store and learn that he's bitter about his life following his experience with Hive. He tells them that if they meet him later at a storage unit he'll give them something that could help them. At the prison, Robbie talks to Eli about what happened at Momentum Labs, with a regretful Eli apologizing for letting his nephews down. When Robbie reveals that Lucy Bauer is still alive and killing people, Eli says that she'll be going after "the book" that gave them the knowledge to build a Quantum Power Generator that would allow them to create matter from nothing. In the Quinjet, Mack gets a signal telling them that "an asset" needs their help. Meanwhile, the comatose Joseph Bauer is visited by Lucy, who wakes him up and demands to know where the book is.
At the storage units, Daisy and Jemma are surrounded by the Watchdogs. James has been working with them because of his own feelings of loathing about being an Inhuman and wants to help exterminate his kind. The women briefly escape into the storage facility, but James finds them using fireworks charged with his flame power. He uses a chain that he sets on fire and whips behind him, only for it to be caught by Robbie, who has arrived with Coulson and Mack to save them. James attempts to blow Robbie up, but Reyes transforms into the Ghost Rider and slams James into a wall. The wall explodes and the two men fall into a bunch of stored fireworks, which quickly light on fire and explode. The others have all escaped outside and after the explosion they see Robbie dragging an unconscious James, having decided not to kill him. Later, on the Quinjet, Coulson tells Robbie and Daisy that SHIELD needs them to stop Lucy and retrieve the book, which is called the Darkhold.
CHAIN REACTION
After last week's detour into heavy Inhumans territory, Agents of SHIELD turns the focus back on Robbie Reyes and the Momentum Labs plot line, which makes for a much more interesting and entertaining episode.
Even though I saw all of the promotion for this season and its focus on Ghost Rider's addition to the cast, I don't think I was prepared for just how much the character was going to be incorporated into the show. I'm certainly not complaining, because whenever the focus IS on Robbie Reyes the show grabs my attention and holds it firmly in its grasp. I'm still not much interested in the SHIELD-centric subplots (there's a whole subplot about the Life Model Decoy Aida and Agent May that I didn't even bother to include in the synopsis), but the Ghost Rider stuff is absolutely engaging on just about every level.
Well, just about every level, yeah, because the Momentum Labs stuff is feeling a bit disconnected at this point, and that's probably because the pseudo-science behind it has yet to be adequately explained. The focus on Momentum's mystery is being fed to us in drips, and this week's introduction of Eli Morrow doesn't do a whole lot to shine any light on what's going on. One major event, though, is the revelation of the Darkhold being behind Momentum's experiments. That was one of the two moments in this episode that made me squeal like a 12-year old girl, the Book of Sins being prominently featured as the show seems to fully embrace Marvel's horror-oriented ephemera. With all of the scientific and Inhumans related stuff, SHIELD seems to be fully in its comfort zone; not so much with the Darkhold and Ghost Rider, and it makes the show unpredictable for both the characters and the viewers.
The other squeal-worthy moment was the face of between Robbie Reyes and JT James, who goes by the codename "Hellfire". I understand that in the show James is an Inhuman with flame-power, fair enough, but the comics rooted the character with tertiary connections to Ghost Rider (hence "Hellfire"). That connection may not be in this episode, but seeing the two characters together made for a fantastic moment, especially when that hellfire chain starts getting whipped around. Speaking of Ghost Rider, I again have to say that Gabriel Luna is the absolute MVP of not just this episode, but the season as a whole so far. His portrayal of Robbie Reyes, despite being significantly different from the comics, is captivating and I just keep wanting to see more of him as this character.
So, while last week was a bit of a disappointment, "Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire" (great episode title, by the way) returns the show's forward movement for the Ghost Rider plot and has once again made me desperate to see the next episode.
EPISODE 4.05: "LOCKUP"
Over five years ago, scientists Jacob and Lucy Bauer break into the basement of an abandoned home, which features posters from the Quentin Carnival and other miscellaneous items. Jacob comments that this is the home of the person who killed the previous owner of the Darkhold, so the book must be there. They locate the book and discover that the pages are blank...until words magically appear in the first language of the reader.
In the present day, Coulson and Mack visit the formerly comatose Jacob, who tells them that Lucy has the book before he dies. However, when Lucy attempts to read the book, she finds that her ghostly state keeps her from being able to read it. Coulson decides that they need to extract Eli Marrow from prison, believing that he may be Lucy's next target, but orders Robbie Reyes to stay aboard the Zephyr. When Coulson and May enter the warden's office, they discover that he and all of his staff have been infected by Lucy; seeing the SHIELD agents as demons, the security guards attempt to kill them. Mack leads a strike team that includes Daisy Johnson and Robbie into the prison to rescue the other agents; while Daisy convenes with Coulson and May, Robbie and Mack go to find Eli. Lucy opens the prison cell doors, allowing a large number of prisoners to chase the agents, forcing Daisy to have a suicidal showdown that nearly costs her her life. May and Coulson are able to locate and save her.
Meanwhile, as they make their way through the prison, Robbie finds the last remaining member of the Fifth Street Locos gang, Santino Noguera, in his cell. Mack is able to keep him on mission, and they quickly encounter the other two members of Lucy's ghostly scientist team. Robbie kills the two ghosts with a fiery chain, but not before Mack is infected and forced to inject himself with the antidote. They locate Eli and break him out, but Mack has to stop and assist with rescuing some guards, telling Robbie to escort his uncle out of the prison. On the way, however, Robbie again passes Noguera's cell and is unable to resist the need for vengeance. He tells Eli to keep going through the prison to meet up with SHIELD outside, then enters the prisoner's cell. Robbie asks about the drive-by shooting that left his brother Gabe in a wheelchair, and Noguera tells him that he was hired by someone else to do that job, but he doesn't know their name. Robbie transforms into the Ghost Rider and burns the man alive, then walks out of the cell block. Outside, he meets up with the assembled SHIELD agents, but his uncle is nowhere to be seen...he has, in fact, been caught by Lucy and is forced to drive them out via an ambulance as her prisoner.
Later, SHIELD Director Jeffrey Mace meets with Senator Nadeer, who he had just had a television debate against regarding the Inhuman population. She shows him security camera footage of the Ghost Rider, asking why SHIELD is working with a murderer, and blackmails Mace into doing her an unrevealed favor.
CHAIN REACTION
Thank Hell for Netflix, because it's been over a year since I stopped work on the Agents of SHIELD episode reviews!
It's actually a boon, though, to be able to go back and rewatch the Ghost Rider arc on the show, at least for review purposes. It was thrilling to watch each episode as it first aired, but that also made some of the story elements harder to follow and made the ongoing Darkhold/Momentum Labs plot kind of convoluted (okay, ridiculously nonsensical) on a week to week basis. Being able to binge, or even just watch an episode a night like I've been doing recently, has made things click together a lot better than I thought they did after those initial first viewings.
While the last couple of episodes took some side tangents into Inhumans related plots involving the Watchdogs, they did at least serve to bring Quake and Ghost Rider onto SHIELD's team in an official capacity, instead of being outliers doing their own thing in the periphery. This episode brings the Momentum Labs mystery to the forefront by finally revealing the Darkhold, which also had that wonderful flashback scene full of Ghost Rider Easter Eggs. There was the Quentin Carnival posters modeled after the cover of Ghost Rider (1973) # 67, the leather jacket, and the chains...that was Johnny Blaze's house, right? I mean, it HAD to be his house, especially given Bauer's comments about the home being owned by the killer of the Darkhold's last owner.
The Momentum Labs stuff continues to be a bit murky, but again the rewatch helps to clarify a lot of things I had lingering questions about, such as what exactly happened to the scientists and why Morrow was in jail instead of being a ghost himself. The real star and rightful focus of the episode is Gabriel Luna, who continues to turn in a fascinating performance as Robbie Reyes. He's what really holds this whole storyline together, and he's enough to make the convoluted Darkhold plot tolerable. The other actors get some moments as well, with the Daisy vs. prisoners action sequence particularly notable as being high-quality entertainment.
The Ghost Rider, naturally, only gets a few minutes of screen time, starting with that always impressive transformation sequence. The special effects required to bring the character to the screen are obviously expensive, so I can forgive the show for not showcasing him as much as I'd like. This time, though, it seems like it's TOO brief even with that caveat. The next episode makes up for it with some great Ghost Rider moments, but this one still leaves me feeling unsatisfied.
The show's Ghost Rider/Darkhold storyline still has a few episodes to go, and even on the rewatch is holding my interest and making me want to continue watching. I think that's a pretty good sign of quality.
No comments:
Post a Comment