If you would like to read a recap of last week’s episode, click here. The team is together now as they try and save Eli from Lucy and also find the Darkhold. Last week’s episode was kind of filler but they are back on track which could not come at a better time with Marvel’s next movie, Doctor Strange, releasing this Friday. Now promos of this episode showed that it would include the origin of the show’s incarnation of Ghost Rider, Robbie Reyes’, origin story and it did not disappoint.
The episode starts off with a flashback sequence with Eli pulling in to work at Momentum Alternative Energy Labs. He happens to be driving Robbie’s current car. Eli learns that Joe has had a breakthrough, making them much further along than he expected. Joe has built some sort of contraption that can create matter. He has done this in secret with only him and Lucy seemingly knowing about it. Once he activates it, it appeared that things had gone bad but in reality, the contraption managed to create some mysterious new element.
Eli claims that it is impossible but Joe claims that nothing is impossible. The scientists celebrate. They are simply amazed by what happened. Eli is still skeptical as what they achieved defies laws of thermodynamics. Lucy tells him that they had help. As soon as Eli asks how, Joe pulls her away. Joe tells Eli to just accept it.
Back in the present, May and a group of agents raid what is left of Momentum Alternative Energy Labs. Things look different as Lucy took a bunch of equipment. Fitz figures out that she took the equipment to try and re-perform the experiment that created her to try and fix herself and took Eli to help.
Gabe is on the phone, trying to find Robbie since he’s been missing for a few days. Daisy knocks at the door and offers to take Gabe to Robbie. Simmons is given a new top secret assignment by Mace which isn’t affiliated with SHIELD. Being an authority on inhumans, those in the highest levels of government want her expertise. Mace believes that it is crucial. He doesn’t tell her where she’s going and is blindfolded away. Mace has his own mission.
Robbie is glad to see Gabe. Based on what he sees, Gabe thinks the reason for Robbie’s recent behavior is because he’s a secret agent. Robbie and Daisy play along. Eli is working with Lucy somewhere. Lucy believes that the first attempt at the experiment was sabotaged but Eli believes it was because they did not have enough power. They are at a facility which should produce enough power but if they fail, they can kill thousands.
Mace comes for Daisy and Robbie while Coulson stalls him. Mack escorts them and Gabe into a containment pod and drops them underneath the ship. Gabe is not scared of the pod but is more scared of what they’re not telling him. Robbie decides to stop lying.
Time for another flashback. Gabe catches Robbie about to take Eli’s car. Gabe says he needs it for business, he races for money, and is giving some gang member a rematch. Robbie invites him but Gabe can’t go because he has homework. Robbie tells him that he has to learn to live a little and convinces him to tag along. As soon as they leave, a van follows them.
Fitz is conferring with May about what she found at Momentum while SHIELD agents come and check his lab for traces of Robbie and Daisy. Fitz is worried about Simmons since he doesn’t know where she is but May presses that it may due to more problems. Fitz figures out that Lucy needs more power in order to re-perform the experiment.
Robbie still blames himself for what happened to Gabe. This cues another flashback with Robbie and Gabe heading over to the race. Gabe tells him that he should go back to school and become an engineer but Robbie doesn’t want that. The van from before pulls in front of them and the back doors open with Molotov cocktails being thrown at them. Robbie pulls away but a chase ensues. When another gang car pulls up next to them, they open fire causing an accident with the car flipping and Robbie being thrown out. Gabe is barely alive and sees Robbie lying on the road, close to death.
Fitz is looking for Coulson. He needs clearance to look at old SSR files involving Isodyne (Agent Carter reference) which manufactured some of the equipment that May recovered earlier.
Time for another flashback. We see someone coming in on a motorcycle pulling Gabe out of their burning car but Gabe claims to have never seen him. He then says the man went over to Robbie, bent over him and did something to him and then he started moving which convinced him that he wasn’t dead. Robbie claims that it was not how it happened. When Robbie was thrown from the car, he was begging to any higher power that would listen to save Gabe and that he would do anything in return. When he hit the road, he died but then he saw darkness accompanied by a voice asking him if he wanted a second chance, one where he would get to punish the people who hurt his brother and avenge his death. He said he wanted it more than anything and then he came back to life. The Samaritan, who Robbie calls the Devil (but who really is another Ghost Rider, maybe Johnny Blaze), transferred his power to him.
Gabe accuses him of killing all those gang members but Robbie claims that it wasn’t him but rather the thing inside of him that did all that stuff. He says it craves vengeance. Gabe doesn’t like that Robbie did it all because of him.
Mace didn’t find anything on the ship but then notices the missing capsule. Fitz tries to cause a distraction by bringing up their case but it doesn’t work. Mace is more interested in bringing in Daisy but especially Robbie. He is upset that Coulson tried to lie to him. Robbie doesn’t want to go back so he tries to break out of the pod. He then transforms into Ghost Rider in front of Gabe who is shocked by what he’s seeing. He eventually breaks out and engages Mace. Coulson and Gabe try to calm him down by appealing to his human side and it works. Gabe has had too much and wants to go.
Fitz is frustrated with bureaucracy and just wants to know where Simmons is. He finally gets the Isodyne files. He learns about their work on Dark Matter (another Agent Carter reference). This led him to connect Isodyne to another company called Roxxon who also happens to own Momentum Alternative Energy Labs. He find an old, decommissioned power plant which was also owned by Roxxon that can produce enough power for Lucy’s experiment. Mack reroutes the Zephyr and sends Mace’s ship the coordinates to the location.
Coulson convinces Mace to keep Robbie on the mission. Eli is having difficulty getting the plant operational which makes Lucy tell him to work faster. She brings up the fact that she misses Joe which makes Eli remind her that he tried to warn them about the book but they just didn’t listen.
Now time for another flashback. Eli confronts Joe about his work and Joe becomes hostile. Eli just wants to take the book away. Lucy tells him that the goal of their project has changed slightly because the book gave them more information and now they don’t need the machine. Eli thinks it’s all crazy.
Coulson arrives at the power plant followed by May. May notices that Robbie is part of the mission and wonders why he’s involved. Robbie is the only one who can stop Lucy but who’s going to stop him? Daisy can’t hack into the plant because it isn’t on a network so they have to stop it from the inside.
Once inside, their communication devices begin to get static and eventually leading them to lose Daisy, who stayed behind, all together. Lucy shows up but Robbie offers to take care of her. She tells him that Joe hired the gang that attacked them to kill Eli. Coulson finds the Darkhold but gives it to May because he trusts her.
Fitz and Mack work together on shutting down the plant. They can’t seem to figure it out, until Mack suggests they use the EMP they used before. Since the coms are out, Mack has to get it himself. Eli appears, looking for the book. He warns Coulson about the equipment and that he’s the only one who can dismantle it. He then locks himself in some sort of chamber.
Lucy tries to explain herself to Robbie and then tries to ghost him. She then realizes that it doesn’t work on him. He tells her she needs to pay for playing god but she claims that Eli was playing god too and he started it.
Now time for the last flashback. Eli demands Lucy to see the book but Joe has it and she tells him that he will never get it. It appears that Eli has done something to the others. He throws Lucy into a similar chamber that she claims to not be finished yet. Lucy figures out that Eli was warning Joe about the book because he wanted the power all to himself. He locks her in and turns on the machine (which we now know turned her into a ghost). Robbie then kills Lucy.
May runs into Mack back at the ship. Coulson figures out that it was Eli that was responsible for everything. He uses the machine on himself while Coulson and Fitz try and stop it by pulling out wires and trying to knock out the power. A shock wave hits May and Mack outside and they then run into the plant with soldiers. Eli then walks out of the chamber but with powers.
Overall, this was a great lead up to Doctor Strange but also a great episode offering a satisfying origin story for Robbie while probably ending the ghost subplot and introducing a new villain in Eli. It was also nice to see the whole team together. The only thing that got to me was where Simmons is and what Mace’s motives are since they seem to always change.
Score: 9/10
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.
