Ghost Rider’s origins were revealed, and then everything went to hell in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 4×06, “The Good Samaritan.”
The tale of the Good Samaritan is a simple religious parable: A man lies beaten by the side of the road, ignored by his countrymen and comrades. Instead, it is an enemy — a Samaritan — who stoops to save his life.
Easy stuff. Help the helpless, love thy neighbor. God approves.
But matters are not quite as simple in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 4×06, an episode deeply concerned with divine approval. (Or lack thereof.) Ghost Rider stands as an obvious antithesis to the good Samaritan, but the episode goes significantly further in spinning the contrast.
In this twisted interpretation of “The Good Samaritan,” the rules of humanity — and reality itself — are broken. Compassion carries a horrific price. Helpful neighbors aren’t quite what they seem.
This breakdown is evident even in the episode’s smallest nub of plot. Jeffrey Mace violates the natural laws of leadership, sending Simmons off on what feels like an extremely flimsy excuse for her execution. The black bag on her head only compounds the sense that Simmons is a condemned woman.
But “The Good Samaritan” offers no further clues to her fate, because simple comfort — in the kindness of strangers, the solidarity of friends, or the laws of physics — is not what Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 4×06 is about.
“The Good Samaritan” is about what happens when prayers are answered, when human life, human choices, get that extra push into unprepared reality. It’s not God’s side of the spiritual equation; it’s the Devil’s.
As it turns out, Robbie Reyes’ entire existence is an avatar of this idea. As he hides on the Zephyr from an enraged Director Mace, Robbie tells Gabe the truth of what happened the night Gabe was paralyzed. After the Hellcharger was set on fire, shot up, and crashed, Robbie was thrown from the car. He died on impact.
“I begged God, I begged the Universe, I begged anyone who would listen that you’d be spared,” Robbie says of the moments before his death. “I swore I’d give anything to save you.”
A simple prayer, that receives a complicated answer.
Against the darkness of death, Robbie was met with an offer of vengeance. He accepted, naturally, and found himself returned to life. In Gabe’s version of the tale, this is where the motorcycle-riding “good samaritan” shows up to save the day. In Robbie’s, it is the Devil, rolling up just in time to pass on the mantle of the Ghost Rider.
And now, Robbie is stuck with it, his hands soaked in blood. To his horrified brother, Robbie insists that the violence comes from the Rider, and that he wants to avenge Gabe.
“I’m fine,” Gabe tells him, coldly. “Don’t put their blood on me.”
Robbie doesn’t help his own case much as the episode progresses. When Mace finds them, Robbie goes Ghost and attacks the Director, preferring his own brand of justice to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s. Robbie says it is Ghost Rider that fuels his freakout, but I’m skeptical. The fact that Gabe’s stunned insistence pulls Robbie out of Ghost-mode suggests that Robbie may be more devil than he’d really like to admit.
And Robbie isn’t alone in that. In a defunct power plant owned by the Roxxon Corporation (those bastards!) Eli Morrow slaves over the Darkhold, trying recreate Joseph Bauer’s experiment. You know, for Lucy.
Ha, ha.
Flashbacks reveal the rapid successes of Bauer’s team, thanks to the pernicious wisdom of the Darkhold. The book revealed the secrets of creation ex nihilo, allowing Joe and the team to create carbon and dream of greater things. Eli grew frustrated with the secrecy, and curious about the book as Joe’s obsession increased. Eventually, Lucy admitted to Eli that the Darkhold had offered a way of making humans capable of creating matter.
Of becoming gods.
Lucy believed that the Darkhold comes from God; Eli felt it was more like the Devil’s type of thing. As it turns out, he should know.
Coulson, May, Mack, Fitz, and Robbie storm the Roxxon facility with the goal of shutting down Lucy’s experiment, retrieving the Darkhold, and saving Eli. But, you know, things get complicated.
Robbie confronts Lucy, and — after mistaking him for his angelic brother — she tells him that Joe hired the Fifth Street gang to kill Eli. Robbie isn’t impressed, and gears up to get rid of Lucy.
“There are consequences for playing God,” he tells her, to which she scoffs.
“Your uncle is the one who wants to play God,” she says. “He’s the one who started this whole nightmare.”
In a rather Scooby-Doo-ish revelation, it turns out that Eli used the energy machine to kill Lucy and the team. He beat Joe into a coma in search of the Darkhold, and has been plotting his way out of prison for years.
“You’re just like your uncle,” Lucy tells Robbie. “You have the same fire.”
“No,” he says, sending her back to the dark mystery. “Mine’s worse.”
But that might be a challenge, even for a Devil-possesed mechanic. As Coulson sends May back to the quinjet with the Darkhold, and Mack races to retrieve an EMP to shut down the experiment, Eli’s profound villainy is exposed. He locks himself in the super chamber, while Coulson tries desperately to shut down the experiment.
In the control room, Fitz turns white as warning lights blossom around him. In the dark passageway, Robbie starts to run. A massive blast of energy surges through the plant, just missing May and Mack as they return to their comrades. Said comrades aren’t as lucky.
Coulson is gone. Fitz is gone. Robbie? Also gone.
All that remains is the shocked S.H.I.E.L.D. team above, and Eli Morrow, calmly spinning matter out of nothing.
Bonds of blood and faith, shattered. Laws of logic and life, broken. And now a new god, who, I suspect, will not have much patience for Good Samaritans.
Doctor Strange may want to expand our minds, but Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. just broke our brains.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will return on Nov. 29.