Flash to “Now” with Joe going into cardiac arrest thanks to ghost Lucy. He spills the beans, letting Coulson know where the book is but that Lucy knows already, too. Too bad it doesn’t work for her ghost hands!
Coulson, May, and Mack want to get answers from Robbie’s uncle, keeping Robbie out of it, and Robbie doesn’t want to stand to the side. Daisy tries to talk him down. It doesn’t work.
Coulson and May head to the penitentiary to take Elias Morrow into protective custody. Except that Lucy (and her whole Peanuts gang) has paid a visit to the jail and infected everyone. He goes out of his way to start shooting at them, raving about evil demons. You know, the usual. May knocks him out, Coulson pulls out the shield from his hand, and they raise the red flags to Mack, Daisy, and Robbie.
Fitz arms them with the cure to the psychosis, and we’re off to the races! We find that the Watch Dogs recruit their new members from prison… just as Lucy locks them in the cell block and lets the prisoners out. This should be fun!
They spoil my fun. Fitz unlocks all the doors so they can escape, and they run away (smartly). On their way to safety, they run out of time, so Daisy locks Coulson and May out of the room so she can kick some ass. (During viewing, you could hear me saying, “Doesn’t one of them have superpowers?!”) It’s a fun hand-to-hand combat scene to show how SHIELD really did train Daisy to be a field agent. She even shoves a dude into a freezer! She gets overwhelmed, however, and May and Coulson come to her rescue.
On the side, Mack and Robbie make their way to Eli’s cell and convince him to come along with them, despite his hesitations against SHIELD. On their way out, Robbie makes Eli go on ahead while he takes care of some unfinished business.
With the man who has connections to the people who ordered the hit on him and his brother. The guy also tells Robbie that every member of that gang burned after that hit. Everyone meets outside, except Eli, who has been taken hostage by Lucy.
FitzSimmons are having a lover’s quarrel because Simmons is angry Fitz didn’t tell her everything and Fitz doesn’t understand her anger because he was protecting her for the sake of her polygraph test!
She fails and gets sent to Mace’s office. But he just needs her help in a debate on TV against Senator Nadeer regarding the “Inhuman War on Humans.” All she needs to do is listen in and respond to questions.
The Director is very good at his job, the PR schtick and all that. I’m not one for debates or political schemes, but they definitely play up the calm versus controlled rage.
And he gives up the ghost–he pulls out the “I’m an Inhuman” card. He gains lots of points in the polls. While he tries to get Simmons to take yet another polygraph, she gets out of it by basically blackmailing him with info we don’t know quite yet.
Back on the Bus, May gives a May peptalk to Daisy about torturing herself. “You don’t get to choose who cares about you,” May tells her, and she should (and probably will) take that to heart.
Back in the lab, Lucy uses Eli to read the book because she can’t. She wants to fix herself and then finish what they started.
Post-Credits Stinger - Director Mace meets in person with Senator Nadeer. She shows him video footage of Ghost Rider. She’s leaking the footage in two hours. Mace asks what she wants.
Badass Moment of the Week - When Robbie uses his fire chains to kill one of the ghosts. I think it was the slow-motion effect that really made it stand out.
As Ghost Rider's quest for vengeance brings him into an explosive confrontation with S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson and Mack must rely on an unlikely ally in their time of desperate need; and Daisy reunites with a familiar face to stop the Watchdogs,
Best One-Liner - “You said if you needed some ghostbusting…” Robbie says when Mack assures he has to stay in the quinjet. Any mention of Ghostbusters is good in my book!
This episode brings a lot of Coulson into the mix. He gets a happy yet brief smile on his face when their mission starts and he’s working alongside Daisy once more. And while he’s very interested in what May saw when she died, he certainly didn’t expect her answer to be him.
With Doctor Strange just days away, this next episode should give us our first good look into Ghost Rider’s background. Not what I expected, but I’m all for it!