I do want to give you a fair warning, this breakdown does include spoilers of Episode 4×06 “The Good Samaritan”, so if you haven’t watched the most recent episode yet, save yourself from spoilers and back away now.

Another week of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has gone by and in my honest opinion, this season has only gotten better episode after episode. Another Ghost Rider? Ghost Rider v. Director Mace? Uncle Eli going bat-shit crazy? That and more on this week’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. breakdown here on MCUExchange.

Who’s the other Ghost Rider?

I think one of the best bits of the episode was the introduction of another Ghost Rider into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With Robbie finally telling his brother Gabe the real story of who he has become, we get to see Robbie’s transformation into Ghost Rider.

While on his way with Gabe to a street race, Robbie is driving their uncle’s car while they’re ambushed by a gang (that we later find out was contracted by their Uncle Eli’s off-the-rails colleagues) aiming to kill Uncle Eli. Since it’s technically Eli’s car, honest mistake, right?

In the process of the ambush, the car starts rolling and Robbie is ejected from the car and lands on the street several feet away. Gabe comes to, having lost the movement of his legs, to see “The Good Samaritan” pull up on a motorcycle and attend to Robbie, making sure he was alive.

This is where it gets good: Robbie tells Gabe that he had actually died and the person who Gabe thinks is a good samaritan is actually the Devil. That’s when we see the fiery face of the person, who is very much reminiscent of an older Johnny Blaze or Danny Ketch Ghost Rider from the Comicverse.

Ghost Rider v. Patriot

After striking a deal with Senator Nadeer at the end of last week’s episode, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Jeffrey Mace, a.k.a. Patriot, is in pursuit of Agent Coulson’s team to make sure Robbie Reyes and Daisy Johnson, both known fugitives, are brought to justice in order to avoid a public relations nightmare.

Eventually, Mace finds Robbie and Daisy hiding in a containment module underneath Zephyr One and although Fitz reassures everyone the module is safe and no one can break out, Robbie turns into Ghost Rider and is able to break out after just a few punches to the door.

What happens next was a bit surprising to me: after a very brief tussle, Ghost Rider starts beating the living hell out of Director Mace until Gabe is finally able to get his attention and make him stop.

For an Inhuman with superhuman strength, it wasn’t much of a fight and if these two were in the boxing ring, it would have been a knockout in the first round. Was Director Mace pulling his punches in hopes that Robbie did some major damage? With blowing the door off of the containment module and getting the upper hand against Director Mace, is Ghost Rider one of the strongest members on the show?

Long Live Agent Carter

Not only did the majority of this episode surround the Darkhold, it started tying into Agent Carter towards the end when Uncle Eli was able to form dark matter out of nothing.

If you recall, dark matter was the main plot point during the second season of Agent Carter. Couple the dark matter talk with the SSR references earlier in the season, and Agent Carter fans should be a bit content.

Uncle Eli/Coulson & Fitz & Robbie Disappearance

Even though the show made us feel a bit sympathetic towards Uncle Eli over the course of the past few episodes, we saw at the very tail end of the episode there was nothing to be sympathetic about. Uncle Eli was big cheese behind the other bad guys as we find out he wanted control of the Darkhold, to the point where he trapped his colleagues in the boxes that turned them into the ghosts.

Flash forward to present day, Agent Coulson & Co. track the Darkhold’s location to Eli’s former workplace, where they assume Lucy is using the ancient text for more experiments. It is there that Ghost Rider encounters Lucy, the last remaining ghost and kills her just before Coulson & May located the Darkhold and secure it on Zephyr One.

With Mack and Fitz unable to power down the equipment Lucy and Eli are using, Coulson encounters Eli and finds out he’s the really behind all of this. With Eli locking himself in the chamber to “power” himself up, Coulson starts tinkering with the equipment in an attempt to power it down.

Needless to say, Eli’s procedure completes before sending a surge out that apparently makes Coulson, Fitz, and Robbie disappear, assumedly to another dimension to complete the ultimate Doctor Strange tie-in.

What’d you think of the episode? Are you digging season four so far? What are your thoughts about the Uncle Eli twist? How about the second Ghost Rider…was it Johnny or Danny? Let me know in the comments below.

When you’re done commenting, make sure to head on over for a more in-depth review of the episode courtesy of Matt by clicking here.