page_title: The Good Samaritan (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
section_title: Writing
hierarchical_section_title: The Good Samaritan (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) / Production / Writing
caption_attribution_description: Gabriel Luna speaking at the 2017 Phoenix Comicon at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere.
context_page_description: "The Good Samaritan" is the sixth episode of the fourth season of the American television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., based on the Marvel Comics organization S.H.I.E.L.D., revolving around the character of Phil Coulson and his team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as they race to find Eli Morrow. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, sharing continuity with the films of the franchise. The episode was written by Jeffrey Bell, and directed by Billy Gierhart.
  Clark Gregg reprises his role as Coulson from the film series, and is joined by series regulars Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, and Henry Simmons. José Zúñiga guest stars as Morrow, while Gabriel Luna portrays his nephew Robbie Reyes / Ghost Rider. The episode is part of the first "pod" of eight episodes for the season, subtitled Ghost Rider, and uses flashbacks to tell the origin story of how Reyes became the Ghost Rider. This included the surprise appearance of the Marvel character Johnny Blaze as the titular "Good Samaritan", introducing him to the MCU. FuseFX was the main visual effects vendor for the episode.
context_section_description: Gabriel Luna, who portrays Reyes, explained at the end of October 2016 that the confrontation between his character and the last member of the Fifth Street Locos gang in the episode "Lockup" revealed to Reyes that the accident that caused him to become Ghost Rider "wasn’t just random, it was a hit, somebody ordered that, these guys were just the guys who carried it out—there’s a whole batch of new questions that Robbie has after that. In episode 6, we’re going to find out exactly how it happened, and we may find out why later." Luna said that the series' take on Reyes' origin story would mix elements from Felipe Smith's original comic with "this new angle that we’re approaching from, but that new angle still draws from the source material." He also felt the episode's approach to revealing the story, by having Reyes tell it to his brother Gabe for the first time, was "really interesting and powerful" and the most surprising aspect of the script for him.
  Ahead of the episode, Luna had also hinted at the continued conflict between Phil Coulson and the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Jeffrey Mace, saying, "Coulson has been doing what he wants, doing his own thing, taking the quinjet out for a spin wherever he needs to go. He’s shooting from the hip with a lot of these moves he’s making, and I’m sure that’s going to rub the director the wrong way. [He’s bringing Ghost Rider] in who is reportedly a serial killer, so how the director is going to respond to that, we can only wait and see." Bell talked about this, acknowledging that Coulson "wants to have his cake and eat it too", having decided to step down from the role of director himself but still wanting to do what he wants. He said that they were mostly trying to "tee-up" that conflict and give the audience time to get to know Mace before more thoroughly exploring that aspect in later episodes.
  Discussing the thought process behind changing Reyes' origin for the series, Bell said that the writers first wanted to ground the character in the more realistic world of the series and the wider MCU, and so though Reyes believes he is possessed by the devil in the series, they decided to instead tie the Ghost Rider figure to another dimension. Bell noted that the MCU film Doctor Strange also explores other dimensions and dimensional beings, and was being released around the same time that the episode was. The other issue that writers and producers had when approaching the origin story for the series is that they felt it was too complicated to translate accurately from the comics, particularly because the series had already used the character Mister Hyde in a different way to the comics and with Reyes' uncle Eli Morrow being a serial killer whose spirit possesses Reyes in that version. They decided to bring their origin story closer to that of other Ghost Rider iterations such as Johnny Blaze and Danny Ketch by having Reyes be more of a traditional "Spirit of Vengeance", and use Morrow in a different way that was still as a villain and "hopefully in a way that surprised people". They hoped that the series' version was true to the spirit of the comics' Robbie Reyes story while also connecting to "the past of the other" Ghost Rider characters, which was described as "the best of both worlds".
  The episode also explores the idea that Reyes made a deal that involved becoming the Ghost Rider, and now he has "this thing in" him that wants to murder people which Reyes is "ambivalent" about. Bell said that this is the main aspect of their version that grounds him in "a sadness ... and a weight", particularly when interacting with his brother Gabe. In terms of the season's overarching plot, Bell said it was important to tell Reyes' origin story in the episode, rather than earlier or later, because it also reveals the "truth about Eli, and they're very connected." He also drew comparison to the Marvel Netflix television series which often wait to tell the origin story of their heroes later in the season, using flashbacks, saying, "It kind of helps to know more about the character, and be emotiona
caption: Gabriel Luna portrays Robbie Reyes / Ghost Rider, whose origin story is told in this episode
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