Strong Points:
Left on quite a cliff hanger
Ghost Rider's origin story
Ghost Rider and Mace's fight
Twists and turns
Good acting all round
Good special effects
Removing a certain character...
Daisy working with the team
Interesting transitions between scenes
Weak Points:
Eli's story seemed a bit cliché by comparison
They were getting on my nerves
Not sure about breaking the containment cube
The reaction from the shots was odd
In-depth Review:
It's origin time! Come on everyone sit round and let me tell you a story *Fresh Prince theme tune starts playing*. No, not that one, this stories all about Ghost. You could say it is a ghost story? No? OK. But it was a pretty good one at least, especially with the appearance of another Ghost Rider (on a motorbike no less) who seemed to transfer his powers to Robbie. Was this Johnny Blaze? Are we going to have an army of Ghost Riders or can only one person have the powers at any time? Did we see Robbie smile in that origin sequence? So many questions but it's nice to see them start to explain Ghost Riders origins besides it just being the devil. Great acting from both Gabriel and Robbie in this sequence as well even if their reaction to getting shot at was odd.
Gabriel has started to become a great character all of his own, acting as a counter-balance to Robbie and Daisy's vengeance-fuelled thinking. Him telling Robbie that he is fine with his disability and to stop using it to fuel his hate (and also to stop blaming himself) was a great bit of acting and made me personally think about just what all the character's motives actually were. Talking of differing motives actually.
Infiltration by Shield Mace and Coulson have slightly varying approaches to running S.H.I.E.L.D. and if we didn't already know Coulson for the past 3 seasons and films I might've sided with Mace's approach of controlled teamwork and not bringing in murders to help but you can't question Coulson's results so personally I'm going to side with Coulson for this one. While having Reyes, Daisy and Gabriel in a containment module underneath the ship was more funny than tension filled, the battle in power between Coulson and Mace was good to see and Fitz's little outburst (British swearing is allowed a lot more than regular swearing in American shows) was highly entertaining. Of course, it all ended quite abruptly when Mace figured out the ruse and Ghost Rider was released.
A little bit on the fight scene with Mace and Reyes now. Firstly, it was a great demonstration to show just how strong both sides are, neither moving an inch (compared to Coulson who even with his bionics was thrown across the floor). They also demonstrated Ghost Riders power via him breaking the Deus Ex Machina 'Containment Cube'. Here I have a problem because as mentioned in the episode, the Containment Cube has held more dangerous people than Ghost Rider before (Hive for one example). So why could he break it? Is he that powerful? I'm not entirely convinced.
While I'm glad that Lucy and the rest of the ghost people aren't the main evil people in the series (they just weren't compelling), I'm not too sure about Eli either. His motives of wanting to be a god and only feigning being a good guy were all right but not shocking enough to be a twist or set up enough to be general progression. Last week's episode made me think there was something wrong going with Eli but then they changed my opinion again this week to make me believe he was just a hostage. And then he wasn't. We'll have to see how he gets on, but he's definitely no Ward.
Fitz had a couple of 'angry British moments' in this episode, from getting angry at the establishment of S.H.I.E.L.D. to the state of his and Simmon's relationship. I hope that Fitz and Simmons will get an episode together soon as they seem to have been kept as far away as possible from each other and they work best together (as Daisy works best when with the rest of the team). Of course, they're both now in God knows where, so...
Rating: 82%
Conclusion: a standout episode, and with the main villain having changed now it will be interesting to see just what happens next week. Where's Coulson and Fitz!?
Thanks for reading, Satamer.
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