We’re roughly six months after the end of Season 3 and things aren’t exactly going well for our merry band of agents. They’ve been split up into various divisions, mostly it seems, because the new director doesn’t trust them very much. Who could blame him though? Though with all this talk about the new director, we never got to see him. He has something of an ominous presence. My assumption is that we’ll see him next week.
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In terms of where the team has ended up, it all makes a ton of sense. May is training new soldiers (including one who is a returnee from the end of Season 3), Fitz and Simmons are heading up the science division, and Mac and Coulson are the field team. It might feel like the herd has been thinned a bit since last season, and in a way it has. Daisy is now off-the-grid, on her own vigilante journey, Hunter and Bobbi are gone (and not returning, is my guess[?]) and Lincoln is dead. Joey is done on the show, I’m assuming, as he wasn’t mentioned at all. The only other Inhuman that we saw was Yo-yo, who had some fun scenes as she flirted with Mac.
Why she’s helping Daisy though, I couldn’t say. Is it because they’re both Inhumans? Or just because they happened to be in the same place at the same time? It also appears that Simmons is in the director’s inner circle, so it’ll be interesting to see how that comes into play. Despite May mistrusting her, it seems that Simmons is actually pulling an inside job, because no on trusts new the director either.
On the Fitz side of things, we had the beginnings of the Life Model Decoy (LMD) storyline. Fitz was suitably freaked out of the appearance of a naked Aida in the living room. But the implications are what’s more interesting. I can’t say I’m sure what the purpose of this storyline is except to put a rift between Fitz and Simmons – it has to be a secret of course. Will be seeing the return of some old characters?
Of course the big draw this season has been Ghost Rider! He’s essentially the hook for Season 4. I’m not sure what means exactly though. Gabriel Luna is only a guest star, so I have to imagine he isn’t going to be in every episode. Is Ghost Rider the main villain of the season as well? Where does a character like that go? It’s obvious he’s not going to stop killing any time soon. In fact, it might even be that he enjoys it. Not in a sadistic way, but in a “delivering justice” way. He’s been Ghost Rider for some time, and knows enough about the demon that he seems to coexist with it pretty well. They obviously have similar goals.
Thankfully the character looks awesome. Even though Robbie Reyes is the newest incarnation of the character, the look of the Ghost Rider himself is something of a mix between the new and old. He’s got the new jacket, but instead of the head being a flaming motorcycle helmet, it takes the flaming skull from the original Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider. I’m really glad the character was front and center in this episode because he’s been all over the marketing and it would have been a shame if they continued to tease the character for a few more weeks.
Lastly, and I feel the need to mention this because it seemed so odd for the show. AGENTS OF SHIELD has moved another hour down in terms of its ABC time slot. It’s hard to remember back to Season 1 when they aired at 8 p.m. Eastern. Now, because they air at 10 p.m., they can get away with a bit more. That was clear with the amount of blood and violence on the show, which fits with the tone they’ve gone for. Even Season 3, which aired a 9 p.m., was fairly violent. But AGENTS OF SHIELD never really dealt with overly sexualizing its characters, so it was weird when we spent a few second watching Daisy get dressed in the opening of the episode. It felt rather unnecessary, and I hope it isn’t something that continues.
Overall, I’m pretty excited to see where Season 4 goes. It’s clear that the connection to DOCTOR STRANGE will be more about introducing magic, demons, possession and all the fun that comes with them into the Marvel universe. Whatever was in that box will probably be related to the season’s overall plot, as well as its effect on May. She’s obviously holding it together better than those Chinese mobsters did. I wonder how they’ll explain that. It should be fun to see what happens in the coming weeks!
Written by Peter Freeman, AGENTS OF SHIELD Beat Writer -- Click to read Peter's posts
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