In the Agents of SHIELD episode “Meet the New Boss,” Daisy pursues a lead on the true identity of Ghost Rider, who has an agenda of his own. Coulson gets a new assignment from the Director of SHIELD, while May continues to hallucinate.
Episode two of season 4 essentially continued the storylines from last week, with Robbie Reyes being unveiled a little more this week, as Daisy, very stupidly, sought him out and provoked him, which ended up fracturing her arm in the process. Aside from giving us some good interaction between Reyes and Daisy, the real point of the subplot was for a brief reunion between Daisy, Mack and Fitz, which turned dark when they discovered that Elena has been covering her tracks. It was a great scene with terrific acting from Henry Simmons and also drives a further wedge between Daisy and the team, seeding her reluctantly working with Reyes at the end.
We also officially met the new Director of SHIELD, played by Jason O’Mara: Jeffery Mace, an Inhuman who in the comics briefly took over the mantle of Captain America. It was fun to see him start out as a annoying frontman, taking pictures with politicians and chatting up tours of SHIELD HQ, only to reveal that he is practically invulnerable and tough enough to take out May.
May’s possession took over the second half of the episode, which was a shame seeing as they could’ve dragged it out a bit more with the mystery, but the ghosts’ conversations and intro suggests greater things to come with this story and the writers have promised a “Doctor Strange” tie-in come November.
While a little rocky in parts, “Meet the New Boss” was another solid teaser for the season to follow and had some impressive scenes, notably Daisy on the hood of Ghost Rider’s car. How the storylines will converge and wrap up will be interesting to see.
Agents of SHIELD airs Tuesdays at 10 PM on ABC.
