SYNOPSIS
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.
REVIEW
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.
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