Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 4×02 was full of ghosts and tragedies as the Director debuted to mixed reviews in “Meet the New Boss.”
Last week’s season premiere of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. saw our agents fighting to regain control in a world turned upside down. They didn’t do very well, and “Meet the New Boss” continues that trend.
Actually, they do considerably worse. It’s physical power that’s been winning the day so far, and our agents are vastly out-muscled.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 4×02 reestablishes Robbie Reyes as one of the only people able to get a solid grip on any of his goals — in part, because of his power. (He’ll have competition in a second.)
Daisy tugs at that grip, confronting Robbie at his mechanic shop, and fighting his bald, whispered threats of with a library of information about his life. Daisy teases and pulls, determined to draw Robbie out of his silent, cocoon of dark secrecy.
But Robbie remains unimpressed, and ultimately, the two are still forced to communicate through violence. With her arms painfully fractured, Daisy is no physical match for Robbie’s ghostly strength, and finds herself tightly bound and at his mercy.
Not one to miss much with those gorgeous, smoldering eyes, Robbie challenges Daisy on her death wish. (Okay, it was pretty obvious, but they did just meet.) Robbie says he’s looking for proof that Daisy deserves death as she had claimed; she counters with the claim that they are similar.
Someone, Daisy tells him, is arming the various bad guys in the area. She also knows that “a weapon” was stolen from a place called Momentum Energy Labs — at which news, Robbie takes off like he has hell on his heels.
(Which, you know. He does.)
He’s also not alone in being drawn to the Momentum Lab. “Meet the New Boss” fleshes out the story of Creeptastic Ghost Lady, who has a name (Lucy,) a brain, and a surprisingly big stack of problems for someone who is dead. These involve a “darkhold,” a mysterious book, and a plan for vengeance… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
At the lab, Lucy finds several boxes stuffed with the spirits of her pissed-off colleagues, who collectively offer another incarnation of the building power dynamic in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 4×02. In many ways, they have little control over their existences, having apparently been screwed over very badly by someone, being dead, and stuck in boxes for years.
But in other ways, Lucy and her colleagues have plenty of control. They can achieve corporeality, and of course, hold a terrifying power over the living.
The living, which, at least for now, still includes Melinda May and the unfortunate-ish gang members infected by Lucy’s… um… let’s call it “psychic infection,” because that sounds cooler than “Involuntary Snapchat Filter Ever.” Literally haunted by dead faces and told that death is “everywhere,” May quickly goes kind of insane.
Convinced there is some kind of virus infecting the base, she can only be subdued by Mr. New Director, a.k.a. Jeffrey.
Ah yes, Jeffrey. I should probably talk about him.
“Meet the New Boss” introduces us to the new Director like he’s pre-enlightenment Buzz Lightyear and we’re all Woody — old fashioned sensibilities and all. The man is a model of modern management, gregarious and bright-voiced. His eyes twinkle with warm condescension, his cheeks swell with smile after meaningless smile. He replaced Coulson’s old wooden desk with a glass conference table!
Eager to bring S.H.I.E.L.D. back into the light (to which end, he ropes Coulson and Simmons into playing tour guide for congresspeople, and is grinningly insistent that Daisy be brought to heel) Jeffrey is the very avatar of control.
And in addition to his catch-phrases and clearances, the Director is an Inhuman gifted with seemingly indefatigable physical strength. And that means that, beyond the perky attitude, beyond the cheerful hosting of government officials, beyond the coercion and bureaucracy, he is the guy with all of the power.
At the opposite end of the control/power spectrum is Robbie, who can make final decisions for the living and the dead. When Mack and Fitz choose a rather poor time to investigate Momentum, Robbie arrives just in time. Even without the flaming skull, he can touch and destroy the ghosts — though Mack and Fitz are decided more WTF’d when Robbie’s head explodes in flame.
It’s left to Daisy to save Mack from the melting-down reactor, but she has the power to hurt as well as help. She rejects Mack and Fitz’s attempt to bring her home, infuriating Fitz at her abandonment and revealing her partnership with Elena to Mack.
“I’m doing what I need to do,” she insists.
“But it still effects us,” Mack says.
Ooof.
But Daisy won’t be entirely alone. As Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 4×02 closes, Robbie Reyes turns up to her mysteriously broken van, and tells her that he believes himself to be the link between the crowding of strange crimes. They drive off together, for all the world a pair of innocent emo idiots, and this will either be the start of a beautiful friendship, or a complete disaster.
Oh, and speaking of disaster! You know who else isn’t alone? Agent May, who has been strait-jacketed and strapped to a gurney in a quinjet, surrounded by impassive faces.
Let the record show that I kind of loathed the new Director even before he chose this, um, “treatment” for May, but his choice goes devastatingly deep. May, who has met so many personal tragedies with determined equanimity — with iron-willed control — has had both her psychological and emotional agency destroyed.
The Director is content to call himself a hero, to take on the role of trusted, smiling leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. reborn from the ashes.
But guys? I hope his head explodes.
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