Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire Review

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was full of explosions in its latest episode titled “Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire." Not only was the ghost threat further expanded on, but some unlikely characters joined together to figure it all out. This episode might have finally brought the whole team back together for the first time since season three. The episode began with an almost domestic scene of Simmons apartment hunting for a place to live with Fitz. It was charming to see that their relationship is still going strong, even if they are rarely seen outside of work together. Simmons kept saying the apartment was too good to be true and she was right. Daisy used Simmon’s internet search history to lure her to the empty apartment. Simmons helped treat Daisy’s wounds and then they casually hacked S.H.I.E.L.D. to see what Inhumans the Watch Dogs might be after next. For some reason that wasn’t clear, they decided that James, the flame guy from last season, would be next. They found him working at a fireworks warehouse, as one who has explosive abilities would. They planned to arm themselves against the Watch Dogs, but surprise (not) he was actually the one helping them hack S.H.I.E.L.D.’s database. Fitz and Simmons were literally trapped in a corner, when Ghost Rider showed up. So how did he know where they were? Well naturally Coulson and Mack found him earlier in the episode when they went to visit his uncle Eli in prison. It turned out Robbie’s uncle, Eli, worked for Momentum Lab where all those people were thought to have been killed, but they were really transformed into ghost-like beings. Eli has a PhD. and was helping the lab build a machine that created matter from nothing. In other words, these scientists were trying to play god, when everything backfired. So now we know how Robbie’s uncle is connected to all of this, but we still don’t know how or why Robbie sold his soul to the devil. One of these ghosts was Dr. Lucy Bauer, the main ghost girl from previous episodes, who was searching for a mysterious book. She went to wake up a guy that had been in a coma since the incident to help her find it. But, according to Coulson, this book has been sought after for decades and no one has been able to find it. It has been called a number of things over the year, including The Book of Spells, The Book of Sins, and the Darkhold. None of those titles make it sound like a good thing. Robbie agreed to help S.H.I.E.L.D. if they can help clear his uncle’s name. So that’s how he ended up saving Simmons and Daisy. He had a pretty epic fight scene against James; fire fighting fire. Naturally they ended up exploding the whole fireworks warehouse, which was pretty awesome. Nothing beats the visual of someone walking away from a burning building with fireworks going off behind them. So it looks like Daisy and Robbie will be working with S.H.I.E.L.D. to find this dangerous book, so that should be fun. The third main storyline this episode was all about Aida. She was taking care of May while Fitz and Dr. Radcliffe watched to see if Aida could pass the Turing test and therefore pass as human. They managed to fool May, but that isn’t surprising. May sort of has the personality of a robot at times. She is always right to the point and doesn’t let feelings cloud her judgement. Coulson also seemed fooled, but Aida was no match for Simmons. She didn’t say how, but she knew immediately that Aida was an AI. Not surprised there either. The only problem is that now Simmons has a lot of secrets to keep from S.H.I.E.L.D., who just so happens to be giving her a lie detector test tomorrow aka next episode.

Final Thoughts:

- This episode had all the clique action sequences: car chase, two characters with superpowers battling, and of course, the “walk away from a burning building” sequence. Pretty cheesy, but enjoyable. - It’s exciting to see Daisy and Robbie working with S.H.I.E.L.D. now. - Aida isn’t quite as annoying as I assumed she would be, but there’s still time. - Still confused about how Ghost Rider works. Does he have control over when he changes? Where is this power from? - Really enjoyable episode, but nothing too shocking happened. All that “twists” were pretty obvious.