Category Archives: Agents of Shield

Agents of Shield S7 E9

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“As I Have Always Been”

Phlebotinum!

Absolute genius of an episode.

I wanted to give this episode its own post since my memory of it was that it was a great episode. I am underestimating it, because this is, by far, my favorite episode of Agents of Shield from the entire seven season run.

Season seven has been using some overall themes for the previous episodes. Their first trip into the past was played like an old school b-movie type sci-fi. We got the black and white noir episode. There was the 1970s action show (which had to have an influence on WandaVision) and the 1980s sci-fi type film including max Headroom (which Coulson hilariously namedrops in this episode).

This one was Groundhogs Day mixed with Doctor Who. The thing was, it was so much more than just re-using the trope of repeating the day over and again.

It took the situation and gave us remarkable humor, much of it coming from the exquisite Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, the LMD. It gave us a fantastic mystery about who was preventing the implant from being removed from Jemma Simmons’s head. It forwards the relationship between Daisy and Sousa. And it provided the most selfless self-sacrifice I have seen in ages with Enoch’s removal of a part from his own Chronicom body, leading to his death.

The episode is featured around Daisy, who was inside a healing pod at the beginning. She goes about the process of discovering that the Zephyr was trapped in a timestorm and was in danger of being wiped out of existence. The episode was wild, and then took another major step when she went to activate Couslon, who was recharging. He filled her in that this was not the first time that she had come to activate him and that she had died.

The frustration and annoyance of Coulson was extremely funny and delivered so perfectly by Gregg. It played right into the feelings that Coulson was having last episode where his predicament as an LMD was starting to get to him. The show added the character growth of Coulson into a list of amazing stuff this episode addressed.

Enoch was another standout of the episode. We discovered that he was the one killing the crew members to prevent the implant from being removed from Simmons’s head, and there were some of the best scenes of the episode as the team confronted Enoch and he fought back in the most amazing and hilarious ways. We did not see much, if any, of the actual fight, just the aftermath with the team scattered across the floor. They added the line “Deke’s dead” in one of them and it was such a gas.

Each time loop brought the Zephyr closer to the center of the timestorm, providing real jeopardy for the team and not just the trial and error until they figured it out. They did not have unlimited time. Time was ticking away.

There were two outstanding monologues during the episode. The first was Daniel Sousa’s explanation of why he stayed with Daisy as she slept. His explanation of wanting to be near “…people like Diasy” was such an awesome character moment and made allusions back to his time with Agent Carter, who he was clearly referencing. The second monologue was Enoch’s dying words, spoken to Coulson and Daisy, after he had pulled his electrochron displacement mechanism from out of his chest. I had tears during this moment. Who knew that I would have become so connected to this robot who was introduced in season five as a Chronicom sent to retrieve the team? Watching Enoch slowly succumb was heartbreaking and painful, while providing important healing for Coulson and Daisy. Joel Stoffer brought his amazing character to life here and you couldn’t have asked for a better heroic send off for Enoch than what he got.

Elizabeth Henstridge, who played Simmons, was the first time director of this episode, which was just a remarkable feat. She provided an exciting and energetic show despite many scenes needing to be repetitive because of the episode’s hook. Every time we got a repeat scene, something new was added. I have to shout out the entire cast as well as they had to repeat lines and adjust to the situation and they all did it wonderfully well.

I love this episode and I would put it at the top of the MCU TV show episodes along with Agatha All Along’s “Death’s Hand in Mine,” Moon Knight’s “Asylum,” WandaVision’s “We Interrupt This Program” and “Previously On,” and Loki’s “Journey Into Mystery” and “Glorious Purpose.”

Agents of Shield S7 E8

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“After, Before”

Episode eight of the final season of the Agents of Shield finds the team in major trouble aboard the Zephyr-1 as the time drive was not working properly. It was making jumps in time at a quicker and quicker intervals, leading to the potential of collapsing on them.

Yo Yo’s power becomes a key to fixing the time drive, so Yo Yo and May go on a trip of discovery to try and get Yo Yo’s Inhuman powers back… which meant going to Afterlife to ask for help from Daisy’s mom, Jiaying.

This episode becomes an internal story of Yo Yo, her doubts, her guilt and how she had been holding herself back. The episode uses both Yo Yo and May in a great interaction, but only the way that they could do it.

As Yo Yo was discovering her inner truth, other problems and tidbits popped up for the show.

  • Simmons provided Sousa with a new prosthetic leg.
  • Coulson was becoming somewhat down on his LMD-ness.
  • We find out that Enoch can keep the tempo on drums.
  • Daisy is slowly healing from her traumatic situation at Nathaniel’s hands.
  • Nathaniel arrived at Afterlife, coming to recruit Kora to his side.
  • Kora asked how Nathaniel knew about her and Nathaniel told her it was his new friend, Sibyl.
  • Nathaniel and Kora have the Inhumans at Afterlife captive.
  • Simmons sends a emotional message to Fitz.
  • Yo Yo’s efforts with the time drive did not work and the Zephyr jumped again at the end of the episode.

I chose to only do this one episode for a couple of reasons. The first one was the time available was short, but the main reason was that, in my memory, episode nine of this season may be my favorite episode of the entire seven years, and I wanted to make sure to give that episode its flowers. And since I went ahead and watched “The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and The D” with episodes 4,5 & 6, instead of pairing it with this one, that meant I needed to do one by itself.

With Nathaniel and Kora setting themselves up as some “big-bads” for the last few episodes, this was an important episode to connect the series to where it was going.

Agents of Shield S7 E4, E5, E6, E7

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“Out of the Past”

“A Trout in the Milk”

“Adapt or Die”

“The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and The D”

This continues to be my favorite season so far, and the show has been taking some gigantic swings.

How about a whole black and white, noir episode? Coulson with the monologue over the scenes (which is an internal monologue), the cool mystery and the saving of Sousa, sort of.

Daniel Sousa was supposed to die in 1955 after he delivered an object to Howard Stark. Coulson said that he was a hero and that he was taught in SHIELD history. The team decided to save Sousa, fake his death (by using Coulson) and bring him with them in the Zephyr.

All in black and white.

Turned out, the black and white came from a malfunction of the Coulson LMD.

The next episode was into the 1970s and the show had a seventies style opening theme, with voice over introducing the cast.

It was clear that the writers had a freedom to come up with remarkable situations over the time stream and that they were having a hoot. There is drama, comedic moments and some great action.

Mack goes through a lot as his parents are killed and replaced by Chronicoms. He gets left behind with Deke in 1982. He spends a year mourning in isolation as Deke tries unsuccessfully to help him. Deke created a cover band…as a cover. The Deke Squad was his covert Shield group filled with weirdos and losers. Deke shows some real character development during these episodes and Jeff Ward is just remarkably funny. His dialogue is some of the series’ best.

Coulson destroyed his body in an explosion that killed the Chronicoms. Coulson wound up a Max Headroom-type character in 1983 with Deke.

Sousa and Daisy are growing closer as Daisy was getting tortured and experimented on by Nathanial Malick, who wanted Daisy’s powers transferred to him. He was able to do it, but he could not handle the new power.

It was awesome to have General Rick Stoner, played by Patrick Warburton, in his real body in the 1970s. Warburton played Stoner as a hologram when the Lighthouse closed up a few seasons ago. That hologram was based on a past Shield executive, and now we got to meet him.

Again though, Shield and the Chronicoms were playing havoc with the Sacred Timeline and I wonder what the TVA was doing.

Agents of Shield S7 E1, E2, E3

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“The New Deal”

“Know Your Onions”

“Alien Commies from the Future”

I kicked off season seven of Agents of Shield today with episodes 1-3. I think it might have been my favorite season of the show because of the wild time travel aspects that they have, plus the addition of Daniel Sousa, from the Agent Carter series.

The time travel of this show is different than the greater MCU, which, I choose to believe, is where the Agents of Shield show went off the wire for the MCU. Up until a certain point, it maintained continuity with the movies, but that clearly changed. It might have been when the agents came back from the future, but there is no doubt that with the whole crew back in the past, they would have been creating branch timelines all over the place.

The TVA must have been extremely busy cleaning up the sacred timeline here.

First, we landed in 1931 and we got involved in an attempted assassination of FDR… or so we thought. Instead, the Chronicons were after Freddy Malick, who we know would become the father of future Hydra leader Gideon Malick.

We also met the first of the Koenig family involved, Ernest “Hazard” Koenig. He learned a bunch about the Shield group, which probably is what started his family’s involvement down the line. Enoch got left in the past as the Zephyr time jumped on its own. I remember the first time that I saw this episode being so sad about Enoch being left behind. He had become one of my favorites, and this rewatch has only helped solidify him as a personal favorite secondary character.

In 1955, they have Simmons pretend to be Peggy Carter, which was both inspired and crazy, to infiltrate Shield base at Area 51. Coincidentally, Peggy’s old partner Daniel Sousa showed up for the testing as well. I was not a big fan of Sousa on Peggy Carter, but when he came to jo0in Agents of Shield, I found him to be an exceptional addition.

Both May and Yo Yo are having problems. May was lacking emotions, even more than before, and Yo Yo has not been able to use her Inhuman power since the alien parasite had infected her.

The show continued to have that great action mixed with laugh out loud moments and created a different brand of sci-fi genre than it had had before.

Agents of Shield S6 E11, E12, E13

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“From the Ashes”

“The Sign”

“New Life”

The shorter season six finished off with some awesome action and a bunch of subverting of expectations.

The main expectation that is subverted is something that they teased throughout the season. The fact that Sarge was created as part of Coulson made everyone think that he would turn out to be saved by the team and we would get Coulson back yet again.

However, he turned out to be the villain after all.

I talked about Deke’s hero moment in the last block of episodes, and he has one here as well. He does disappoint his grandparents (Fitz & Simmons) with some of his motives, or at least they way the way they saw it. I loved how Mack appreciated him, he thanked Agent Shaw, for the sort of rescue. Deke is a great character with a lot of contradiction within him. He is one to show silliness on the outside, only to hide the pain inside.

The end episode sets up season 7 big time, including the time travel aspect, the Hunters chasing them, and LMD Coulson. It was an intriguing choice to do it this way and not just use Sarge, which would have been an easy choice. I like how they kept the character of Sarge in the manner in which he was.

Thinking back, whatever happened to Flint? They created him with the Monoliths and then had Piper take him to get help for his broken leg, but we never see him again and they head back into the past right away. We also never see them rescue Benson from the pod that he was dropped in. I do not recall if these are threads that are picked up again in season seven or if these are just dangling threads never to be considered again.

I do think this was a strong season, but the final few episodes felt a little messy. There were still solid results from them and I love the set up for season 7.

Agents of Shield S6 E5, E6, E7, E8, E9, E10

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“The Other Thing”

“Inescapable”

“Toldja”

“Collision Course (Part I)”

“Collision Course (Part II)”

“Leap”

We got a chunk of the sixth season watched on this Fourth of July. The mysteries of Sarge and crew and what they were doing on the earth. We learned the truth about Sarge during these episodes.

The Agents of Shield finally all got back together on earth. It has been like a season and a half since the entire group were back together in one point. Since the diner scene before they were abducted, they finally were all together. It may not have been for long, but it was nice to see.

The tense scenes on the semi as it rolled seemingly unstoppable toward the structure with a deadly bomb aboard. It was nice to see that Deke was shown to be capable and not just a talkative jerk.

RIP Davis. We did not know you well. I had little connection to Davis when I first watched this show, but I liked him much more this time through. Watching him killed by Izel was both brutal and frightening. She is a monstrous villain and felt as if she could not be touched.

The end of Collison Course (Part II) certainly felt like the end of the season, until May walked into Sarge’s cell and shot him to death… or at least for a bit. I liked how Mack and Yo Yo finally go back together.

The battle of machismo between Sarge and Mack was also some great stuff. Who was ahead of the other one? It always seemed that both Sarge and Mack were two steps ahead of each other.

“Inescapable” highlighted some great performances from Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge. The scenes where Elizabeth is told that Fitz was killed and when Fitz learned about his own death and the marriage were bangers. I loved this episode because it was a great character study about these two complex characters.

There are three remaining episodes of season six remaining for the team to prevent Izel from her evil plan.

Agents of Shield S6 E2, E3, E4

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“Window of Opportunity”

“Fear and Loathing on the Planet of Kitson”

“Code Yellow”

Agents of Shield went more sci-fi last season and less superhero/superspy action, and they have maintained that in season six.

The Coulson-lookalike Sarge continued to be doing something strange with his new crew. They robbed a jewelry store to get some basic piezoelectric gems. May confronted them, physically beat the crap out of some of them, but could not stop them. She was taken aback coming face to face with Sarge.

Poor Fitz and Simmons never get a break. They wind up face to face on the planet of Kitson, after a fun episode in a casino. However, Fitz is snatched by Malachi, a bounty hunter looking for Fitz.

Enoch is one of my favorite characters of this season. The whole Chronicom bit makes him feel kind of like Mr. Spock, and Enoch’s relationship with Fitz is sweet.

Deke is back in episode four, using technology he stole from SHIELD to set up a company dealing with video games and virtual reality. It was good to see him back, though the character does feel a little shady.

There are some strange alien bird creatures that fly inside people. I believe this is part of what non-Coulson is doing here. One got inside Shield’s HQ and flew inside Keller. Yo Yo had to kill him to stop him from destroying the base with crystalline structures.

Sarge captured May at the end of episode four and he is taking her somewhere.

Lots of fun and mysteries in this season so far.

Agents of Shield S6 E1

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“Missing Pieces”

I started season six of the Agents of Shield today with the first episode of the season. “Missing Pieces” has several meanings as a title. That included:

  • Phil Coulson gone, died during the off year
  • Daisy and Jemma are in deep space in search of…
  • Fitz who was in suspended animation (or is he?)
  • Mack, who is the new director, is emotionally separate from Yo-Yo.

The show’s new season arc began with some individuals arriving in this dimension through some portal. We also get a new character named Sarge who arrived in a semi. This new character is being played by Clark Gregg, making everyone uncertain because of he is a lookalike of Coulson.

Jemma is pulling shenanigans in space when Daisy and the others wanted to head back to earth to regroup when they couldn’t find Fitz. Jemma had a clue come to her and she forced the others to go with her. Jemma has had a long history of doing things like this for Fitz.

I only had a chance to watch the first episode of that season, but I am looking forward to seeing more.

Agents of Shield S5 E13-E21

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“Principia,” “The Devil Complex,” “Rise and Shine,” “Inside Voices,” “The Honeymoon,” “All Roads Lead…,” “Option Two,” “The One Who Will Save Us All,” “The Force of Gravity,” “The End”

I have set a goal that I wanted to get through the rewatch of Agents of Shield this summer break, and so I sat down to finish off season today with a binge of the last 10 episodes.

A wild season that started off in the future with the earth destroyed, supposedly by Quake, the Destroyer of worlds, revealed the answer to all of that. It wasn’t Daisy that would shake the world apart, it would be Graviton.

I really loved the use of this secondary villain who has the power to be more than secondary. Graviton could control gravity and he was always cool in the comics. In Agents of Shield, I liked how they took General Talbot and made him into a decent variation of Graviton.

Talbot was always a fringe character that was an ally/enemy for Shield during the shows entire run, and they did a great job of using the Gravitonium, which was a season one storyline, and circle it back into a major item in season five.

This season was set up to be the final season of the show, as you could tell with the ay they left Coulson behind in Tahiti to spend his last few days/weeks with May. I never believed that he would die from this when I first saw the show, expecting the whole time to see him survive again. It really set up some powerfully emotional moments surrounding Coulson.

Fitz’s death at the end was powerful, but I knew the solution to it this time through. Having Fitz in suspended animation somewhere out in space was a clever way to write in a death scene without losing the actor.

The team really felt splintered through the year, with them all suffering PTSD of some sort from their trip to the future. Por Yo Yo was the epitome of this as she was anguishing over what her future self had told her, and she did some desperate things in an effort to prevent that future.

The show did make some references to Thanos in the MCU timeline, but it did not have any dustings happen. I would have liked this to have happened to help illustrate it more. This is the start of where Agents of Shield separated from the MCU main timeline, I believe. The movies did not ever mention the show, but the show did mention things that happened in the movies at times.

On to season 6, which is a shorter season of 13 episodes.

Agents of Shield S5 E8. E9, E10, E11, E12

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“The Last Day”

“Best Laid Plans”

“Past Life”

“All the Comforts of Home”

“The Real Deal”

The Agents of Shield finished up their adventure in the future with some major battling, found Robin, the little girl (now older woman) who could see the future, killed the Kree, including Kasius and Sinara and had Flint create a monolith so they could return to their own time.

Very busy.

I was not 100% in love with the future stuff, but it did provide us with some major storyline bits including:

  • Yo Yo meeting herself (without arms) and she revealed about Coulson’s sickness.
  • Deke, who seemed to sacrifice himself, arrived back in the present with Shield- and had a surprising familial connection.
  • The Lighthouse is one awesome HQ.

Once back, things got wild as the team learned of Coulson’s impending death, and they got made that he did not tell them about it. Deke was taking in all of the wonders of the earth he had never seen…including Zema. Fitz and Simmons gets married.

The Fitz and Simmons wedding led to a major reveal… that Deke is their grandchild, though no one is aware.

Deathlok came back for back up to close a dimensional riff in a lower level of the Lighthouse. It was manifesting fears from a “Fear Dimension” that was trying to kill them.

General Hale is a horrendous character. She was a clear antagonist for our team, but it does get a little old to have the generals always being the antagonists. Plus, her daughter is a weird assassin of some sort who cut off Yo Yo’s arms.

The whole earth gets blown up plotline is still active and unsolved as of yet, but I know that the series does deal with that story before the end of season 5.

Agents of Shield S5 E1-7

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Season five sends the Agents of Shield into space… and into the future.

Agents of Shield jumped full into a post apocalyptic future with huge elements of sci-fi. These first episodes really started the season off strong.

It was teased at the end of season four that Coulson and the crew believed to be the government, but were actually capturing the Agents of Shield to send them into the future.

Not Fitz though. He got left behind.

We end up in a future where the earth was destroyed… by Quake. Daisy is called The Destroyer of Worlds by everyone.

We meet Deke, played by Jeff Ward, who is a character that will become more important as the series progressed. Here, Deke is shown as a somewhat untrustworthy individual who is out for himself.

The Kree become the major antagonists for this season, including a Kree named Kasius, who reminded me quite a bit of Maximus the Mad from the Inhumans comics. Weaselly and manipulative, Kasius had a Kree warrior named Sinara.

It was weird with the Kree warriors using automatic weapons and guns, but I understand why.

We got a guest appearance from Lance Hunter as Fitz, who was left behind, tried to figure out a way to get to the future. It was great to see Hunter again.

There was a lot of great action and exciting turns in this first seven episodes of season five. Fitz’s insane efforts along with Enoch was amazing and the new characters were all cool additions.

Agents of Shield S4 E16-22

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I have been waiting for the perfect time to finish up the fourth season of Agents of Shield on Disney +. The final seven episodes of this season, which had been split into three sections. This third section of the season was entitled “Agents of Hydra.”

The section included our heroes inside the virtual world called the Framework, which had been around from the early part of the season. It was where Aida had entrapped May, before she replaced her with an LMD. Now, it has expanded as a “prison” for Coulson, May, Mack, and Fitz. Daisy and Simmons entered the Framework on their own accord to try and rescue their friends.

Each of the characters had a regret changed, and it led to the following:

  • Coulson: was a social studies teacher, who made his own soap
  • May: Was one of the top agents at Hydra, which had won the war with Sheild.
  • Mack: Was living a life with his daughter, Hope, who was alive.
  • Fitz: Was the second in command at Hydra, called The Doctor, and was doing terrible experiments and was quite horrible. His father was alive and had raised Fitz instead of Fitz’s mother.
  • Ward: Was alive and with “Skye”. Ward was still a double agent, this time a Shield agent and a good guy.
  • Simmons: When she found her avatar, the avatar had been killed and so Jemma had to dig ehrself out of a grave.
  • Daisy: Called Skye still, she was an agent of Hydra and in a relationship with Ward.
  • Patriot: Still leading Shield as a hero, died saving a bunch of kids.
  • Aida: Was in charge of Hydra, taking the guise of Madame Hydra, and was tied to Fitz.

Lots of returns happened this season too. We got to see Trip again, which was cool. He was helpful in the rebellion. Robbie Reyes, aka Ghost Rider, came back to help finish off Aida and take charge of the Darkhold. Talbot returned, with the same schtick he always had and got shot in the head by an LMD of Daisy. He survived, but ended the season in a coma.

It was sad to see Mack have to say goodbye to his daughter again, as the Framework was shutting down. Yo-Yo went into the Framework to try and convince Mack to come back with her.

Radcliffe sat alone on the beach, toasting the end of the world they had created and he disappeared.

The tag at the end sets up Coulson on a space station somewhere, as the next arc for season 5.

I did enjoy the shorter story arcs that this season had done.

Agents of Shield S4 E13, E14, E15

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“BOOM”

“The Man Behind the Shield”

“Self Control”

In season four, Agents of Shield was divided into three separate story arcs. The first arc was the “ghost Rider” arc, which incorporated the first 8 episodes. The next 7, which included these final three episodes, were under the “LMD” arc.

This arc was not my most favorite of the Agents of Shield show. Still, it was quite an enjoyable three episodes to end off this storyline and it lead perfectly into the next arc “Agents of Hydra”, which sees the Agents of Shield living their lives in the Framework, an AI-type world where their minds are inside this fake world.

The final of this arc was extremely suspenseful, especially as Simmons discovered that Fitz had also been replaced with an LMD. Not only Fitz, but Coulson, Mace and Mack were already LMDs and in the Framework. Watching Simmons stab LMD Fitz was so rough. Iain De Caestecker was great in this scene.

The scenes with Daisy and Simmons was very tense as well. This highlighted the strength of Elizabeth Henstridge as a performer.

Quake continues to be such a kick ass character. She is so great that you have to keep putting her in jeopardy to try and give some stakes for her.

Ada is becoming a sinister enemy who is programmed to protect the Framework. She killed Radcliffe and put his mind into the Framework, believing she could protect both the Framework and Radcliffe that way. Perfect thoughts from an android.

The Framework story goes into full gear next episode.

Agents of Shield S4 E12

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“Hot Potato Soup”

We get a full family reunion of the Koenigs, Billy, Sam, Thurston and LT. They were whom Coulson trusted the Darkhold to in an attempt to keep it hidden.

Of course, Billy gets captured and Radcliffe heads into Billy’s mind to discover where it was hidden.

Patton Oswalt played three of the Koenig siblings… all except LT who was a sister.

The Darkhold winds up in Radcliffe’s possession at the end and the Shield agents finally figure out that May is also an LMD.

Radcliffe and Nadeer want the Darkhold to get rid of all the Inhumans.

Agents of Shield S4 E7-E11

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I jumped back into Agents of Shield last night and watched five episodes of the fourth season.

“Deals with our Devils”

Episode seven: Coulson, Fitz and Robbie are stuck between dimensions after last episode’s explosion. They can see and hear the others, but they could not interact with them.

May is desperate to save them, and she thinks the answer is inside the Darkhold and she gave it to Radcliffe. The idea of having Aida read the Darkhold in order to save Coulson and Fitz came up.

Meanwhile, the Ghost Rider spirit possesses Mack and he heads out to extract some vengeance. Robbie makes yet a second deal with Ghost Rider if he comes back to him. He would swear to keep working with the Rider to find vengeance. It agreed.

Aida ended the episode creating an artificial brain.

“The Laws of Inferno Dynamics”

This brought the mini-season arc of Ghost Rider to an end, as Robbie and the Rider are trapped in the other dimension with Robbie’s uncle Morrow.

Aida was in the heart of the attempt to stop Morrow’s bomb, and because of her action, she was allowed to remain active by Mace.

Daisy is seen by the press, but Mace stepped up and cleared her name. He reinstated her as an Agent of Shield.

However, we discover that Aida has replaced May with a LMD, and she is holding may prisoner.

“Broken Promises”

This kicked off the LMD story arc for season four for the next seven episodes.

Aida turned on Fitz and the Shield agents when they came to reprogram her brain to rid it of any remnants of the Darkhold.

Aida attacks the Shield base in search of the Darkhold. She gets her hands on it, but she gets beheaded by Mack.

Mack and Yo-Yo are fabulous this episode as they are going on about robots and how they are always turning on humans in the movies. Their banter about robot movies was my favorite part of this episode. When Mack cuts Aida’s head off , he says “Roll credits.”

We discover that Radcliffe had been working to get his hands on the Darkhold this whole time. He is quite the rat bastard.

Senator Nadeer’s brother is revealed to be Inhuman and she ends up shooting him in the gut. She has the Watchdog dispose of the body and they dump it in the water. We see a new cocoon form around him.

“The Patriot”

We get the background on Mace and the truth behind him. Turns out, Mace is not Inhuman. Instead, he has been taking a shot that gives him temporary super strength. He always has one of his men nearby with a briefcase containing the shots for any emergency situation.

However, he gets caught in the woods, with Coulson and Mack, by some rogue Hydra agents hired by the Watchdogs. His shots are destroyed and his secret comes out.

They are saved by Daisy and May (the LMD). Coulson convinces Mace to stay as the face of Shield, doing the political stuff, while Coulson takes the head of operations.

“Wake Up”

May is trying to escape, but we find out that she is not actually escaping. She is in the Framework and she is repeating everything in her “attempt to escape.” The Framework will become one of the major arcs this season in Agents of Shield.

There is a Senate hearing that does not go well.

The May LMD realized that she was the leak that caused Coulson and Yo-Yo to get caught breaking into the Senator’s office. She confronted Radcliffe and realized that her programming prevented her from telling the truth to Coulson or from hitting him.

Radcliffe is captured by Shield at this point, but Fitz figured out that this Radcliffe is also an LMD.

We learn of some tragic back story for Mack, whose daughter died days after she was born. mack and Yo-Yo grow closer.