Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Ghost (4x01)

It's back! And it's darker and more intense than ever. Before we dive in, a PSA: I'm starting night classes which means my free time is decreasing. A lot. So expect these reviews to be rather pithier than usual for a while. Thanks!

Cons:

This episode may have been a little crowded, what with catching us up on everybody. There are a lot of different plot threads to capture. We've got this mysterious new director, the splintering of our team, Radcliffe's AI, Daisy's illicit activities, the introduction of Ghost Rider, and more. It's simply a bit difficult to give each of these plot threads time to breathe. I felt like the most underutilized character here was Yo-Yo. We see that she has signed the Sokovia Accords and is following the rules, but slipping information to Daisy on the sly. I wanted a bit more time to understand her divided loyalties, but unfortunately that was sacrificed for other things.

Pros:

The introduction of Ghost Rider is pretty awesome... I mean I don't know anything about the character outside of the terrible Nicholas Cage movie, but whatever. The effects are actually pretty great, and the show is taking advantage of its new time slot to show some darker, grittier imagery. I also like the idea of Daisy being on his trail. They meet up by the end of the episode and have a fight. Daisy basically tells Ghost Rider that it's not okay to be a vigilante, even though most people think of Quake as just that. This could be setting up some interesting parallels!

Over on the S.H.I.E.L.D. side of things, I adore the fact that we are keeping the new Director in the shadows. We don't need the details just yet - it's better this way. Simmons has been elevated to a higher position than anybody else on the old team, including May and Coulson, which makes for some interesting shifts in power dynamics. Simmons' reasoning makes sense: she doesn't trust the new Director, but she's making sure that the new Director trusts her, so she can retain a modicum of control. This feeds in well to Simmons' experience going undercover in Hydra. She knows how to gain people's trust now.

Coulson and Mack are an awesome duo. The two of them, along with May, try to sneak past the new Director's orders and find Daisy, but even though they get close, there's no contact between Daisy and anybody else, other than a brief scene with Yo-Yo. I like that they're keeping things separate for now, and building out a more serialized story. I'm excited to see how Coulson works on the fringes of the newly official S.H.I.E.L.D., as opposed to his old position as official boss of an unofficial organization. Things are certainly shaking up! May and Coulson's dynamic should be interesting when working on this new sneaky level, as well.

Fitz gets introduced to Radcliffe's new sexy AI. I'm curious about where this is going to go, but I'm reserving judgment for now - obviously this kind of thing is bound to be risky in this universe... Radcliffe and Fitz both acknowledge how poorly it went in the case of Ultron. But a small-scale self-sacrificing pretty lady robot? What could go wrong, right? I'm excited to see where this goes. I also think this will be a good way to introduce an interesting element into the Fitzsimmons relationship. Simmons has this new position of power that is drawing her further away from the rest of the old team, Fitz included. Meanwhile, Fitz is being drawn into an illicit activity with Radcliffe, one that he's forced to keep quiet from Simmons because she must submit to random and frequent lie detector tests.

That's where I'll wrap things up. I thought this premiere was perhaps a bit too ambitious, in that it was trying to cover a lot of ground very quickly. But it managed to give me a snapshot of each important character and what they're up to, while introducing what seem to be the major themes of the season: Daisy vs. Ghost Rider, and the new leadership and structure of S.H.I.E.L.D. With a nice little AI subplot running in the background, there seems to be a lot of promising stuff in the works!

8/10