One month hiatus? For fucks sake. Why? I'm guessing Doctor Strange will influence the upcoming story line quite a bit (same as Winter Soldier in S1) and they're just giving us time to watch it. But still. One fucking month.
But at least we saw Johnny fucking Blaze. So that's cool.
Ghosts and Ghost Rider's back story was good. The Darkhold seems really interesting, wonder if we'll have its origins. Although it turns people evil, or at least power crazy. Though not sure when Eli actually read it and if he was already a bad guy before. Does it show what you want ? Or does it decides itself what to show to the reader ?
Director's pretty smart, I like the guy. The Rider can break SHIELD's containment cells ? Meh. He kicked the director's super strength's ass but like Mack said, they had worse. Like Hulk worse. They're supposed to react to inhuman's powers and he's not, but Hulk is not either.
Nice ending. Fitz and Coulson disappeared ? And Eli can now... make coal ?
Birth of the Charcoal Man
What's with the flashback settings being so vague? Last episode had a "then," and this episode had "back in the day" 3 times. Seems very lazy.
Honestly didn't expect the twist of it being the uncle all along.
Fitz, you liar - the Iron Chef Chairman totally broke out of your containment cell last season.
Also - Gabe's kind of a dick. First to Daisy, and now to his own brother.
BTW, did anyone else get the impression, while Robbie was growing more and more upset and talking about "the other guy", that Robbie Reyes should hang out with Bruce Banner for awhile?
Eli Darkhold, eh?. Whodathunkit?
Lots of interesting madness going on, with a bit of a hanger to eat at us over the few-weeks' break. (Phil? Fitz? Where'd you... C'mon guys; not funny!)
Although I'm getting a little tired of Director Mace's hypocritical "a team that trusts" lines. A team that trusts doesn't subject its innermost members to constant invasive lie-detection examinations, Jeff. (Or... does he already fully realize that?) That needs to get thrown back in his face, hard and soon.
As things started, good chapter, to see if it continues in the good path
5.8/10. Well, Robbie's backstory was pretty tedious, but at least we got a little of Johnny Blaze in there. The guy playing Robbie just isn't a great actor, and the hackneyed tearful confession to Gabe about everything, replete with Gabe hitting the audience over the head with the whole "smart kid with a bright future" tropes, just made the faux-tragedy of it all cringe-inducing rather than touching. Sticking Daisy, Robbie, and Gabe in the room and focusing on them having a heartfelt conversation for so much of the episode was not a recipe for good performances or good writing; instead we got the usual exposition dumps and pained looks.
But hey, we got a direct reference to the events of Agent Carter Season 2 in there, so that's something! This whole ghost thing felt too reminiscent of that to begin with, so I appreciate that they're making that analogue clear and tying it in. Maybe we'll even get a nice backdoor finale for the Agent Carter crew out of this.
Otherwise, I'm enjoying the tet-a-tet between Coulson and Director Mace. The cat and mouse game and trust issue make for some entertaining banter and setpieces. I'm less crazy about the Uncle Eli reveal. Again, the whole science ghost backstory is so corny to begin with, that turning Eli into the heavy just makes it feel like another cornball 40s serial twist (and I say that as a Star Wars fan -- appreciate the references to that here too!).
Overall, it's been a slow and wobbly start at best for this season, but maybe now that we have the dull mystery of the main story--both Ghost Rider's origin and what the deal with Momentum is--we can move on to bigger and better things.
I would love for ghost rider to get his own spin off series, but not sure it will happen... Hunter and bobbi's spin off never got a chance.
This season has been a bit too heavy on setting up, exposition, and establishing comic book lore, to its detriment. The characters still help tie it together but I hope they start driving the narrative more soon.
Review by Aniela KrajewskaVIP 8BlockedParentSpoilers2016-11-02T16:38:42Z— updated 2017-08-18T22:38:52Z
What the hell just happened? Where's Coulson and Fitz? Don't leave me hanging!
We finally got Ghost Rider's backstory. I've been waiting for it since the beginning of the season and it didn't disappoint.
I didn't expect Uncle Eli to be a bad guy. The flashbacks were pretty great in this episode. I enjoyed them a lot.
Where did Mace send Jemma? I guess we'll find out in the next episode. I'm curious what her special mission could possibly be.
I love that Isodyne and Roxxon Corporation played a big part in this episode. All those references to Agent Carter as well as other TV shows and movies in the MCU feel almost like a reward for all of us for keeping up with this amazing, crazy universe.
This was one of the best episodes this season so far, but since it mostly focused on one storyline, there isn't much to talk about. It's kind of sad that we have to wait almost a month for the next episode. But hey, at least the ratings were pretty decent for this one! I've heard that 10 PM is generally considered the "death slot", but SHIELD is doing rather well, especially for a show that has always struggled with the ratings and had to face so much backlash from hardcore comic book fans in season 1.