Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Tuesday’s episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Read at your own risk!
The real villain was revealed during Tuesday’s episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but the revelation may have come at a steep price.
In the Ghost Rider-centric episode, S.H.I.E.L.D. hunted down Eli Morrow (José Zúñiga) and Lucy Bauer (Lilli Birdsell), whose experiment in the past was trying to create matter out of nothing. Becoming power hungry, Lucy’s husband Joseph (Kerr Smith) had ordered the hit that caused Gabe (Lorenzo James Henrie) to end up in a wheelchair and Robbie (Gabriel Luna) to become the Ghost Rider.
But it turns out that Eli wasn’t actually a good guy, causing the “accident” that turned the rest of the team into ghosts in the first place; he’s the one who lusts for power. Eli rebuilds the experiment in the present and causes an explosion that Coulson (Clark Gregg), Fitz (Iain de Caestecker), and Robbie get caught in — allowing him to create matter out of nothing, but causing the trio to disappear. What’s happened to them?!
“The way we see it is they are dead,” Henry Simmons tells EW. “In my mind, they’re gone, they’re dead, because that’s everything we’ve experienced so far.”
Considering Coulson already died in The Avengers, it’s likely that Coulson isn’t dead, but viewers will have a while to wait to find out what has happened since Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on hiatus next week for election night.
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.