Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD ‘The Good Samaritan’ Review
The tragic origin of Robbie Reyes’ Ghost Rider.
Full SPOILERS are discussed in this Agents of SHIELD review.
Okay, I’ll admit it, I am a fanboy of this show. I believed in it, invested my time in it since its first season. Ya know what? For the most part, it’s paid off. Episodes like “The Good Samaritan” make me so thankful and proud to be a fan of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Trust me, when the show begins to dip in quality, I’ll let you know. So far, I have nothing to say in that department. Certainly, you’re not going to hear any negativity from this episode’s review. This was the episode where plenty of questions were answered and loads of insight was brought to the forefront.
This episode sealed the deal on why Robbie Reyes was the correct variation of Ghost Rider to go with for the show. His story is now synced up very well with the events going on with the Darkhold book. In this episode, we saw some excellent backstory on how and why Robbie became the Spirit of Vengeance and how is uncle Eli Marrow is responsible for the fateful night Robbie became cursed and his brother, Gabe became crippled.
Last week, when Robbie killed the leader of the 5th Street Locos, he referenced a drive-by shooting that was carried out by the gang, leaving one kid paralyzed. I was certain he was referring to his brother, Gabe. This episode confirmed it was him, but also, it was Robbie who was the second person attacked. Robbie actually died, but as he was dying, that is when he made his deal with the Devil. This was all shown through a very dramatic and intense flashback as Robbie comes clean with Gabe about who he really is. Gabriel Luna has played Robbie so well, but in this episode, he broke the mold. He displays his widest amount of range throughout the episode, whether he is being playful while hanging out with his brother in the flashbacks, to showing his rage as the Ghost Rider. And let’s not leave out the talented work done by Lorenzo James Henrie as Gabe. He was very much a big part of this episode too. He and Luna had their best chemistry in this episode. This was one of the show’s greatest flashbacks. It was shocking, violent, thrilling, and quite heartbreaking.
Adding to the shock value is knowing the hit was intended for Eli Morrow. We came to find out while Lucy and her husband Joseph were indeed driven mad by the Darkhold, it was Eli’s quest for power and his possession of the book that led to the tragic accident at the energy lab. Well, then again, it wasn’t an accident, now was it? Eli’s actions led to the death of his fellow scientists and his nephews being attacked since It was Joseph who wanted to have Eli killed before he could take possession of the Darkhold. The revelations were actually chilling. Now with Lucy being no more, thanks to Ghost Rider after an intense exchange between the two, Eli was able to perfect the process he originally wanted to carry out, he might just be our new powerful villain our team has to take down. Once you factor in the family dynamic, it should make for a very dramatic conflict between Robbie and Eli.
Jeffrey Mace took direct action against Coulson for harboring Daisy and Robbie. I must say, they handled Mace in a cleverly tricky way. The jury is still out on whether he is friend or foe, so here we see him perform his director duties in a stern manner but also in a foe-ish way. Keep in mind, he is being blackmailed by Senator Nadeer, but that doesn’t mean he might not be out for his own interests while posing as the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. First off, what did he assign Simmons to do and where did he send her? She certainly wasn’t happy with him at all when he sent her on her way so suddenly. Second, why was he so insistent on putting Daisy and Robbie in a cell at HQ before allowing the team to stop the threat happening over at the energy lab? Could this have to do with whatever Nadeer asked him to do? Did she want the experiment to happen perhaps? Mace avoiding the conflict seems like a direct contradiction to his duties as director. At least thanks to Mace’s behavior, Robbie was able to show how dangerous he truly can be, as he transformed as Ghost Rider and had a brutal brawl with Mace, who gets credit for standing his ground at least.
As for our regular cast, everybody did their part to make the episode flow neatly. Coulson’s exchanges with Mace were excellent. It was especially entertaining hearing them talk about heroism through Star Wars references. The lack of Jemma would normally go against a reviews rating, but with so many compelling issues going on, I barely noticed her absence. They did however drop more clues that the relationship between Fitz and Simmons is getting a bit rocky. No, no, no. What did I say before? Don’t put holes in my ship. Leave Fitz-Simmons alone, damn it. Fitz had plenty of screen time though, as he was doing his science stuff in a very take charge kind of way. Daisy even showed a compassionate effort as she tried convince Gabe his brother was an agent and not a killer.
There didn’t appear to be any weak links this week. Everything felt like it had a purpose and because they didn’t try to squeeze in additional subplots, the episode was perfectly balanced. This is the best episode of the season so far. It was an hour of pure dramatic intensity and good storytelling with minimal violent action. Now that Lucy and her band of ghostly scientists are all gone, and with Eli having the power to create matter, we may get more some heavy duty excitement in the coming weeks. Just as long as we get plenty more Ghost Rider action. Yes, sir, this episode did a lot to keep me invested in the events happening this season. By the way, what happened to Agent Coulson???
Apparently, Agents of SHIELD is taking a small hiatus. The show returns November 29th. See ya then.
