The ghost that infected May is back at it, scaring a kid and passing through his dad. The ghost, Lucy, thinks this is her house and is looking for someone named Joseph. Dad has lived here for years, which scares her away. Dad sees his child as black-eyed and evil.
FitzSimmons have used invisible light to reveal some sort of crystal light structure in the seemingly empty box when Mack comes in to tell them about the dad, his signs of dementia, and ghost tales. Then he shows them the surveillance video from the box handoff, and the ghost is clearly visible on the video. FitzSimmons discovers that there is some rare element that is only available at three locations on the planet. One of them happens to be Pasadena, the same place Dad was from. Simmons has to stay behind to do sciencey stuff for the director, so Fitz and Mack head out to Pasadena.
Lucy has also returned to the energy plant in Pasadena. The place, we later learn, has not been operational for years, yet the lights are on and computers are running. She sets about releasing three other “ghosts” from boxes similar to the one she was released in. None of these men are her mysterious missing Joseph, and they are all mad at her. Wherever they were trapped, they had no sense of time. In the same room as these boxes is a huge capsule of some kind that glows blue. The “ghosts” argue, mostly because the others don’t want to listen to Lucy anymore. They blame her, and this mysterious Darkhold, a book of black magic that she obtained, that led to their incorporeal state. Instead, Lucy blames a mysterious, unnamed “him” and divides the team up to look for “him,” Joseph, and the Darkhold, while one guy stays behind, determined to blow up the facility.
Robbie finds Daisy waiting for him at his auto garage, claiming to need some repairs for an engine that caught fire. She tells his co-workers they went to school together, which seems as much a cover story as it is a way to remind Robbie that she knows a lot more than he thinks. There was a lot of angsty jibber-jabber between Robbie and Daisy that, quite frankly, got a little tiresome. The gist is that she believes him to be an Inhuman, even after he flatly tells her he sold his soul to the devil. She mentions his brother, which angers Robbie and makes him knock her out. When Daisy comes to, she is tied up in the office while Robbie pilfers through her stuff. He is looking for proof that she deserves death. “My problem goes away and your wish comes true,” he tells her. She tries to convince him there is a “bigger picture” he is not seeing, but it isn’t until she mentions a weapon stolen from a Pasadena lab that Robbie duct tapes her mouth shut and leaves. She uses her powers (painfully) to break free and chase Robbie down. She clings to the hood of his car for a few blocks before he shoots fire at her and she drops to the road.
Fitz and Mack have made it to the lab. Mack stands watch while Fitz tries to shutdown the core meltdown code. He isn’t having much luck, and one of the ghosts appears. Mack shoots it, and it disappears, but just temporarily. Fitz warns Mack that if it touches him, he will go crazy. The next time the ghost comes back, he manages to lock Mack in the glowing blue pod. “I won’t go back,” the ghost proclaims. He is just about to touch Fitz, when another ghost enters and saves him: Ghost Rider. With his skull aflame, Ghost Rider kills the “ghost.” Fitz goes to release Mack but finds the door stuck. Luckily Daisy shows up and quakes the door open. Fitz stops the meltdown and Ghost Rider grabs a photo off the wall (of Lucy and her team in their “corruptible mortal states”) before leaving. Daisy stops Mack from pursuing.
Back on the jet, Mack puts Daisy’s broken arm into a splint and theorizes that Ghost Rider can’t be all bad: “He saved Fitz tonight.” Mack wants Daisy to come back home with them, promising her pills that will help heal her bones…. then he puts it all together. The drugs have been disappearing because Elena was stealing them and supplying them to Daisy. Mack is furious. He feels betrayed. Fitz has more of a long-simmering anger, not surprised that Daisy would do that because she “turned her back on us.” “We’ve all been through terrible things, but we never turned our backs!” Fitz says. Daisy’s defense is that she is doing what she needs to do. She thanks him for the splint and splits.
Back at the base, we finally meet the director: Jeffrey Mace who, at one point or another (in the comic books, at least) becomes Captain America. Jeffrey is an Inhuman with incalculable strength, and he is getting ready to unveil SHIELD as an official government agency. But first, he has a very important mission for Coulson: to give a tour of the base to a group of senators. Coulson is not thrilled, but he and Jeffrey tell the smitten senators that Coulson knows more about the base than Peggy Carter (I miss her).
May, meanwhile, is seeing ghostly visions in the faces of her friends and co-workers, and it is getting worse. She goes to one of the Chinese gang members, currently locked up in one of the containment cells, and asks him how to stop it. “You can’t. They are everywhere,” he says – then starts smashing his head into the door until Simmons shows up and blasts his room full of tranquilizer. May sees death in Simmons’ face and is spooked.
Coulson finds May tearing apart the locker room. She is manic and paranoid, telling him that “something” got in. His attempts to calm her don’t work, until he suggests they go to the lab to run tests on everyone’s blood. She agrees, but on the way there, finds Piper and her team waiting for their training session. She goes berserk and beats everyone up. It isn’t until Jeffrey shows up that anyone can stop her. He does this by slamming her head against the wall, knocking her out.
After saying goodbye to the visiting senators, Coulson wants to lay out his plan to help May through whatever psychosis she is experiencing. Jeffrey, firmly, tells Coulson he is too close to May and Daisy. He can’t be objective, and he needs to let the new director do his job. He won’t share his treatment plan for May, but we see her, in a straightjacket, strapped to a gurney, in a jet. It looks like she is with the senators, who are all sitting calmly, seemingly not noticing the screaming lunatic on the plane with them.
In our last scene, we see Daisy getting in the car with Robbie. He thinks he is the thing connecting all the weirdness: the Chinese gang, the mysterious weapon, the “ghosts,” the lab. Daisy is officially on Team Ghost Rider.
Watch a preview for the next episode, titled “Uprising,” using the player below.
