In case you haven’t listened to Episode #344 of Mars Needs Podcast, JJ, Jason, and I spoke at length about this review series and how my heart hasn’t been in it for a while so I put it up for a vote; should this article continue and this is what you, the audience, decided…

You rat-bastards sold me out! Yeah, you. Well, fine! You went me to keep reviewing this god damn show? Here’s what I thought about this week’s episode!

It was pretty good. Lockup is more in line with what I wanted from this show. It’s interesting, well-paced and had fun dialogue. I’m serious, guys. I was dreading sitting through another episode of Daisy being the Angsty Avenger but there was very little of that and more of what I actually like about this show.

We see a flashback to Lucy and Joseph Bauer discovering the Darkhold in a musty basement with some curious objects. An old, busted motorcyle, a dusty leather biker jacket and a wall is adorned with a Quentin Carnival poster featuring a motorcycle stunt show. Whether they’ll go that way or not; the show is pointing at Johnny Blaze, the original Ghost Rider, and his connection to the Darkhold.

The team’s infil-exfil op into the prison where Eli Morrow is being held is tense, has a few awesome action scenes and puts over Robbie’s inability to control the Spirit of Vengeance. More of this and this article won’t be heading for the back-issue bin.

Over in teen angst corner, Daisy spends the episode sulking (when not beating an ass or two) and I’m glad May goes into full Mum-Mode, taking Daisy to task for her shitty attitude and, more importantly, breaking Coulson’s heart. Good show, May!

The other big thing is the new antagonism between Director Mace and Simmons, who takes him to task for not being completely honest while subjecting her to constant lie detectors. Is Mace lying about being Inhuman and is actually another super-serum test subject? It’s not out of the realm of possibilities given his ties to Captain America… Regardless, it bodes ill for SHIELD when Senator Nadeer finds some dirt to blackmail the new Director and I can’t imagine anything good will come from this situation.

So yeah, Lockup is a great episode but I doubt SHIELD will hold to this level of quality which is why I’m going to be looking into outsourcing this article. Would you guys be happy with this article being written by another writer? Let me know in the comments and we’ll see how the series progresses next week in The Good Samaritan.