Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 4, Episode 1 Review

Ghost Rider (Gabriel Luna) © Marvel

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD returns for its fourth season in its opening episode 'The Ghost', introducing the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Ghost Rider, played by Gabriel Luna. Several months after the end of Season 3, Daisy Johnson has now run away from SHIELD, becoming a vigilante known as 'Quake', who discovers the mysterious Ghost Rider. As now-Agent Coulson and Mack try to find her again, back home at SHIELD HQ loyalties are divided, with Simmons now a personal assistant to the new director, and Agent May being pushed to the side. Meanwhile, Fitz discovers that Dr Radcliffe has turned his AI Ada into an eerily realistic robot.
'The Ghost' is very much a set-up episode, with very little actually going on. Every scene feels like its establishing a plot thread of a new side to the characters that will become important later, and thus makes the episode feel a bit nothing-y on its own.
I suppose my first criticism is that the episode rushes the build-up to the Ghost Rider reveal a bit too much. Maybe because of the delayed UK broadcast, I hadn't seen Agents of SHIELD for nearly a year, so it took me almost the entire episode to catch up, by which point they'd introduced this new critical element to this new season and done the big reveal, plus a small fight with Daisy. Maybe the cliffhanger should've been Ghost Rider revealing himself to Daisy? I'm not sure.
Regardless, the CGI on Ghost Rider was...a mixed bag. The CG fire looks pretty good, and blends in quite well, but like the Ghost Rider films with Nicholas Cage, the CG skull just looks fake. I've never understood why Ghost Rider doesn't seem to have a neck, as the floating head just looks a bit odd. The design looks great, and comparing him to his comic book counterpart, the design team definitely brought his image to life, I just wish it looked a bit more realistic.
I also felt like the Sokovia Accords reference in the episode was a bit weak, as it was never entirely established how far SHIELD was going with this, and especially given that Captain America: Civil War left this on a bit of an open note, I had no idea if the Sokovia Accords were still a big deal. Clearly they are, but the series hadn't made it clear before now.
Furthermore, I was expecting a bit more from the show, given that its been moved to a 10pm slot in the US - apparently allowing for more adult content than would usually be featured on the show, but nothing felt particularly extreme compared to previous seasons. The Ghost Rider kills are all censored, so that's by no means a problem, and its not like the characters are all foul-mouthed suddenly. This isn't so much a criticism with the episode, as it is with the way it was sold to me.
Season 4 of Agents of SHIELD is going for more of a Netflix Marvel vibe, which, while I can understand, again shows how little faith the series has that it basically reboots itself every year. While I don't exactly dislike this new approach, Agents of SHIELD still changing itself shows a lack of confidence, but also a lack of unique identity. The reason the Netflix shows stuck out to audiences in the first place was that they weren't expecting Marvel to go to such dark places, and the shows had that tonal approach start-to-finish. Daredevil was always a gritty crime drama with morally ambiguous characters, Jessica Jones was always a psychological thriller-noir, and Luke Cage was always a slightly goofy crime drama. Agents of SHIELD, on the other hand, started off as a fun, light-hearted Marvel/Joss Whedon endeavor, before turning into a dark and gritty show with little humour or character, before balancing super-heroics with a sci-fi thriller, before becoming...whatever it is now.
Overall, I could look back on 'The Ghost' more favorably once this season is over, but for now it really didn't do much for me. I'll hold off on a rating for now, but it didn't grab me as much as I had hoped. Here's hoping next week's will be stronger.