nerd radio

Get ready for the new daily show

TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Agents Of Shield Season 04 Episode 02: Meet The New Boss

September 28th, 2016 by Todd Black Comments

television-news-banner-copy

omara

Season 04 of Agents of Shield took some interesting turns in “Meet The New Boss”. While it advanced some storylines, it also created new ones, though some did come at a cost.

I do appreciate that we weren’t kept in the dark too much about the mysterious “ghost” from the premiere. Though we don’t know everything, we now know that she isn’t alone, and that her crew were prisoners after a failed attempt to get a book called the Darkhold. Which, by the way, is an item from the Doctor Strange comics, of which the upcoming movie will apparently answer questions from this season of Shield. That being said, it kind of lost its luster after seeing now four ghosts emerging and “wanting vengeance”. And it’s still very unclear why they can affect people the way they do. Which of course brings me too…

May, who’s still affected by the incident with the ghost, and is still seeing the people in a darkened state. What made me curious though was that it started to affect her now rather than immediately like the characters from the premiere. On one hand, you could say that May is much stronger internally than them, and thus it took her longer to react. On the other hand, it’s still unclear what she is seeing. So why is she acting so violently now, when last episode she had a long conversation with Coulson, even after his face mutated in her eyes?

A big twist here was the new Director of Shield, Jeffrey. Who almost immediately broke all expectations with his light and cheery persona. Yet when push came to shove, he was much more than meets the eye. First of all…he’s an Inhuman! Twist! And a welcome one, as it explains how a powered person came into power. Also interesting was that Coulson willing stepped down from Director once Shield was acknowledged to eventually go public, and that he wanted a “powered person that people trust to run Shield.” Not surprisingly, Steve Rogers got name dropped as the first candidate, but because of Civil War, that wasn’t an option.

fitz2

It’s still unclear how much we can trust him. Based on the ending scene, my trust meter has gone down. But we’ll see where he ends up.

Meanwhile, in LA, the “Quake and Ghost Rider” show continued, and with more curious results. While I don’t deny Daisy her curiosity in cornering Robbie at work, and making him play by her rules to get answers. I will question how far she pushed it. Bringing up a loved one like she did could only have ended in disaster. This guy has a flaming skull! What did she think would happen? Now, the end scene with the Rider killing the ghost was pretty cool, and it seems what’s going on with the ghosts may be a part of Robbie’s origin in becoming the Rider. Now that him and Daisy are on the “same page” I am intrigued with what will happen next.

One last note. Was it really believable, that after EVERYTHING the Shield team has seen, that Fitz AND Simmons would deny the possibility of actual ghosts? I mean, they’ve seen gods, aliens, monsters, Inhumans, and one dead guy (Coulson) being brought back to life! Why is the idea of a ghost so “unbelievable”?

In the end, “Meet the New Boss” was a serviceable episode. It wasn’t as good as the premiere, but it was hardly bad. I do hope when it returns in two weeks (why the delay?) that it truly fires on all cylinders.

4 out of 5 nerds

4 out of 5 nerds

 

Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!