Meet the new boss! But will he be the same as the old? Well, this is SHIELD we’re talking about, so undoubtedly there’ll be the same amount of secrets, subterfuge, and fun with the unknown, but he’s certainly no Coulson. So who is this mysterious new director? Read on and see…
1. Director Jeff
The last episode raised plenty of questions about the new director of SHIELD. Whoever he was, he was not someone to be trusted, who was taking apart Coulson’s team, and would not take kindly to Coulson going off in search of Daisy.
What we got was Jeffrey.
In hindsight, I should have expected they would show us someone who would, at first glance, be the opposite of what we’d been lead to suspect. He praises Coulson for his loyalty to his friends, and seems to even trust his judgement.
However, there are still some good indications that he’s playing a dangerous game with SHIELD. He’s good at buttering up the other agents to make them feel needed, while at the same time giving them menial tasks that keep them out of the field. While he compliments Coulson’s actions, he still keeps him out of the loop from anything related to his old teammates.
Oh, and did I mention he’s an Inhuman with super strength and invulnerability? Because that’s a thing too.
This may be Jeffrey Mace, who in the comics was The Patriot and the Captain America of the 40’s. However, it’s unlikely that he’ll take the same path in this show, given the vastly different setup. In all likeliness, he’ll be as true to his comic namesake as Victoria Hand; that is to say, recognizable but very distinct.
There’s undoubtedly good reasons for Coulson’s team to mistrust this new director; we’ll see if he lasts as long as last season’s “True SHIELD.”
2. What’s in the box?
Last episode featured a mysterious box, apparently containing a ghost woman that drove people crazy. A single touch from it can plague people with visions that drive them to insanity.
Also, there’s more than one of them, each with a little box of his or her own.
What first seems like your run of the mill haunting (knocking down pictures, telling people to get out of what was her house) takes a turn as she returns to the lab she was stolen from. And in spite of the fact that she can walk through walls, apparently she can still use a computer without difficulty to release the other ghosts.
So, what have we learned from them? There’s multiple ghosts, they know each other, and there’s a certain person who did this to them in some sort of vague betrayal, and brief mention of “The Darkhold.”
“The Darkhold” is a book that’s tied into several “Doctor Strange” and “Ghost Rider” stories, so it only makes sense for it to be introduced around the same time as the “Doctor Strange” movie, and with Ghost Rider making his Agents of SHIELD debut. Just such a pity all the ghosts have to talk in very vague terms to avoid letting the audience know what’s going on.
Though we do get a cute scene of Fitz and Simmons trying to come up with a scientific explanation for the ghosts, before Mack just calls it what it is.
3. May off the deep end
Speaking of people affected by the ghosts, Melinda May got a nice little tap on the shoulder last episode, and its effects are beginning to show. Her descent is a little slower, perhaps due to her own mental fortitude, or perhaps because the ghost woman barely grazed her. Either way, she slowly but surely starts seeing the faces of everyone she knows getting warped into monstrous forms.
In such a situation, there are a few possible conclusions one could come to. They could conclude that something is affecting them, bring it up to the SHIELD scientists, and get help. Or they could conclude that everyone else is affected, then start attacking them madly.
May chose the latter.
It seems everyone in SHIELD needs a little mental breakdown now and then, so it’s her turn, and credit must be given to Ming-Na Wen for her performance as she slowly begins to lose control. Seeing her strapped to a straightjacket, being flown to parts unknown, as she cries out for anyone to listen to her, now that’s a powerful scene.
Continued below4. Quake and Ghost Rider
What’s a show based off comic books without a team up or two? In the grand comic book tradition, first Quake and Ghost Rider fight, then they’re generally antagonistic towards one another, then they put their differences aside and team up.
Last episode had their fight, and a great fight it was. This episode has Daisy showing that she did quite a bit of research on Robbie’s history, but goes too far when she subtly threatens Gabe. Yet in spite of her slick moves against Ghost Rider in their previous encounter, she goes down pretty quickly this time, and Robbie didn’t even need to go ghost to do it. (And either the line about the Ghost Rider’s flames burning one’s soul was a load of superstition, or Daisy now has a soul-burn on her arm where he smacked her with a burning exhaust pipe.)
However, a later scene with them confirms what the last episode indicated: Daisy’s wracked with guilt and feels she deserves death, but neither Robbie nor the spirit of vengeance can find any reason that she should be killed. So instead, after a quick car chase with her on the hood, a little ghost busting, and a few “we’re not so different” speeches, they decide to work together.
A little bit of a forced team up, considering their encounters up until that point, but I do look forward to seeing how they work together.
5. The return of SHIELD
Last season had to deal with SHIELD losing its funding, its agents, and the trust of the public, following the revelation that Hydra had fully infiltrated it. But that may have been enough time for the general public to forget about that and give them a second shot, with plans to return SHIELD to its former status as a government-funded organization.
In fact, that’s partially why Coulson is no longer the director; he felt SHIELD needed a face the public could trust… which is apparently someone not even he trusts. Go figure.
However, even if SHIELD is reinstated in the show, I highly doubt we’ll be seeing any mention of it in any of the Marvel films. After all, nothing involving Inhumans was even remotely mentioned in Civil War, in spite of it being the perfect opportunity, and apparently the film and television heads do not exactly get along.
If anything, we’re more likely to be reminded in the next few films that SHIELD is most definitely gone for good, Coulson is still dead, and there are no Inhumans popping up anywhere around the world. Because while Agents of SHIELD is constantly influenced by the events of the cinematic universe, that seems to be a one-way street.
