This week’s episode of Agents of SHIELD takes the audience directly to what they want to see: Phil Coulson’s red convertible against the Ghostrider mobile.
What do we want? The SHIELD team back together, plus Ghostrider! When do we want it…apparently it doesn’t matter because the answer is this week. Well sort of. Daisy comes crawling back to Simmons in order to chase the same leads Coulson and Mack discovered last week: that the Watchdogs are hacking the SHIELD servers and using the info they gain to trace Inhumans and gun them down. And get a bullet wound or two bandaged while she was at it. (She apparently even got FitzSimmons a rent controlled apartment in repayment.)
"Simmons: “You’ve already put a gun to my head. We’re in this together so suck it up.”"
All of Daisy’s trouble to try and sneak Simmons in to hack the SHEIDL serverrs are just another reminder of how much the series changes from season to season. Last year, sneaking in, disguises, faked ID bagdes were all the rage. Now? Instead of imprersonating pople, Simonnons walks up to them and orders them to hack the damn thing for her. After all, she is the bss, and this is the light of day., And though Daisy might assume her quest to stop the Watchdogs before they hit their next target (conveniently James the wish-he-was-ghostrider from last season, meaning they don’t have to cast another actor), the fact is protecting Inhumans is Simmons job. Daisy’s not shaking her.
Image via ABC
But while Simmons and Daisy were talking breakfast nooks, double vanity sinks and involuntary hacking into SHIELD’s servers, across town, Coulson was visiting Robbie’s uncle Eli to track down information on our ghosts. Coulson might not have gotten anywhere, but apparently it’s a popular day to visit. Robbie pulls into the paring lot just as Coulson and Mack are planning to leave.
"Eli: “SHIELD? Still a thing?”Coulson: “We’re making a comeback.”"
And that my friends meant only one thing: Coulson’s red convertible versus the ghostrider mobile in a car chase to rival anything in a Marvel movie, and the patter between rider and driver the same. Robbie’s making a getaway too… until he drives straight into the cloaked quinjet that is.
Image via ABC
There’s a continuing insistence and playing with the idea that the Ghostrider could and could not be Inhuman. But the talk of devils, after we already have our phase shifted ghosts is one that seems to bother Coulson. Still, Robbie can get to Eli in a way that Coulson can’t. The upshit is Robbie walking in wearing a wire and getting Eli to spill the backstory details, most of which we’d already picked up from the ghosts a couple of episodes back. What gets me is that Coulson wastes time asking where Lucy would go now that she’s “alive.” Her husband is Joe, he’s the one in the coma, the one Eli is doing time over. It’s ridiculous that they ask where Lucy would go. Lucy would go to Joe, and wake his ass up. Duh.
"Coulson: “In my experience gods turn out to be aliens.”"
(Cut to: Lucy walking through hospital walls and waking Joe’s ass up to ask where the book is.)
Image via ABC
Of course, that’s when it’s time for plots to collide, as Coulson and Mack are called back to rescue Daisy and Simmons from the oncoming Watchdog attack…which turns out to have been organized by James, not targeting him. Nice twist that, having his self loathing and withdrawal from Hive turn him into someone who hates his kind, and blaming Daisy for “making him into this” when we all remember how much he hated her and Lincoln when they initially refused. Since Robbie’s already in the jet, and wants to come along for the Book Quest, he agrees to the detour. Is he officially part of the SHIELD gang? No more than Daisy is, but it does afford a Fire Mano on Fire Mano as he and James have a chain off.
(Spoiler Alert: James doesn’t have a fire exploding head, so he’s going to lose every time. The fireworks were something else.)
"May: Killed by RadcliffeRadcliffe: For a good cause!"
So that’s the way they all get together, and form a new team, one that’s chasing this “Darkhold” book, one step behind Lucy. All this, while the continuing education of AIDA, who accidentally passes May’s “Turing test” of passing for “human” while she recuperates from that seven minutes in heaven (or at least purgatory) while they cured her last week. (Too bad she doesn’t pass Simmon’s “turing test” for an instant. Simmons has a whole lot of lies coming up on that test tomorrow.)
Next: Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD Recap: “Uprising”
Personally, AIDA learning about the concept of the “white lie” scares me more than the book. How long until she sheds that patriarchal dream of a body, and Ultron walks the world of Marvel once more?