Agents of SHIELD - 'Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire'

"Come on then! I'll throw a shrimp on ya!"

They say that if something is too good to be true, it probably is. It's understandable that your average spod on the street might ignore this truism, but I find it less forgivable when an Agent of SHIELD like Jessica Simmons blithely wanders off to view the perfect house which dropped into her lap via email.

Fortunately, it turns out to only be Daisy, who needs some help with a bullet wound courtesy of the Watchdogs, who are totes Up to Something Big™. Daisy coerces Simmons, officially at gunpoint, into helping her get hold of a copy of the list the Watchdogs are working from to track registered Inhumans via their GPS locators. Top of their list is James, who is working in a fireworks store. Simmons wants to help him to not get dead, but Daisy is pushing him to join her cause and hunt the Watchdogs.

Meanwhile, Coulson and Mack are following the trail of Momentum Alternative Energy to Robbie's uncle Eli, who is unwilling to give them the time of day. When they manage to capture Robbie by tricking him into colliding with the invisible Quinjet, Coulson takes the chance of making a deal with Robbie to work together. They learn from Eli that the man he put in a coma was responsible for the experiments which killed multiple researchers at Momentum by attempting to utilise the Darkhold, a book of ultimate knowledge. Green energy from black magic; who could have seen that going wrong?

"Did two fire dudes just fall into a fireworks warehouse?"
"You had to see that coming."

Scumbag James turns out to be a scumbag (shock, horror,) having decided post-Hive that all Inhumans are bastards. He has been working with the Watchdogs, letting them hack the database via his GPS, and has set Daisy and Simmons up for an ambush. In return for his aid, he gets to die last. Fortunately, Coulson gets an alert that an asset (James) may be in danger and shows up with Mack and Robbie, who is basically not fussed about a pyrogenic Inhuman what with the whole tempered in the flames of Hell thing he has going on. They fight, fall into a fireworks warehouse and Robbie drags James out unconscious and chained up.

Coulson recruits Daisy and Robbie for a mission to recover the Darkhold. When they stop to pick up May from Dr Radcliffe's, Simmons immediately makes Ada for an android, which could mean even more trouble on her next lie detector test.

Season 4 continues to struggle a little with two so-far unrelated plots: The Watchdogs and the Darkhold. It's actually a plot point that they are having to choose between two evils to fight (although in part this must be self-inflicted now that they're official again,) but unless something comes of it it's still just cluttered plotting. I'm more interested to see where the show goes with the Darkhold, and in particular the obvious crossover with the magical concepts introduced in Doctor Strange.