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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
“Purpose in the
Machine” definitely continues the trend from the season premiere of including
multiple plots and subplots, but for some reason it does not feel too
crowded. Each subplot only gets a little
time, but they make the most of their time.
We get some good character development from a few of the characters, as
well as a lot of background on May and what she’s been doing since the season
finale. Also, the Monolith question gets
solved quite definitively, and it’s really cool.
This time around, the
main plot of the episode is essentially a continuation of Fitz’ nervous
breakdown at the end of the season premiere, “Laws of Nature.” The episode begins with a flashback to a
fancy dinner in Gloucester, England, in 1839.
Everyone present draws a stone from a bag, and the man who draws the
white stone is given gifts before entering a room with the Monolith. The Monolith liquefies and the man is drawn
through. According to the
seeming-leader, they have been trying to figure out what it is with no
success. However, there is little chance
of the man returning because “As far as we know, in all of history, no one has
ever returned.” There really isn’t that
much explained about the flashback, but who the men are isn’t quite as
important as the fact that they knew that it was some sort of portal and were
sending people through it. Why they
would do it is beyond me, though.
Professor Randolph seemed to suggest that the “ritualistic killings” and
“half-baked Satanism” were part of the attraction for that group. Regardless, it was interesting to see how the
Monolith was used in history, especially as the location connected to the rest
of the episode.
In present day, the
rest of the team rushes in to get Fitz out of the Monolith containment box,
which they succeed in doing shortly before it liquefies. Note that yet again it goes liquid when an
Inhuman is present (Daisy). It’s
impressive how Fitz’ nervous breakdown from the previous episode is actually
what drives this plot forward—and more than just his dedication and refusal to
give up. Fitz discovers sand on his
fingertips which he picked up from the Monolith, and he analyzes it to discover
that it is from a planet far older than the Earth—it really is a portal. At this Coulson decides to let Fitz run with
the Monolith portal theory a little more (It was their first—and as far as we
know only—breakthrough). This
immediately leads Coulson to their resident Asgardian, Professor Randolph,
who’s been spending his days in a Norwegian prison after getting a little drunk
and violent (because where else would you find an Asgardian who’s hiding
on Earth?). Can I just say that I find
Randolph to be hilarious? He doesn’t
exactly make jokes, but he and Coulson have a witty banter going in this
episode that I really enjoyed (“drunken stumble through history,” anyone?). And of course it doesn’t hurt that when he
decides to leave with S.H.I.E.L.D. he just picks the cell door up off its
hinges and walks out.
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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
While observing the
Monolith, Randolph is rather unimpressed at first, though when it goes liquid
with him standing next to it, he changes his tune rather quickly. I don’t find it at all surprising that he would
have investigated every rumor of portal generation through the centuries; he
seems to like it on Earth, and portals could mean Asgardians dragging him home
to his rocks. As such, his goal in
joining them is to eventually destroy the Monolith and destroy the portal. Because he’s investigated all these stories,
he knows about that group in Gloucester from the beginning of the episode, and
he, Coulson, Fitz, and Bobbi all go to Gloucester to check it out. At the castle, he shows them מות carved into one of the stones and suggests a
connection between it and the Monolith.
They go deeper into the castle and discover a room filled with
late-1800s-era machinery which Fitz believes to have been designed to control
the Monolith. Mack and Daisy bring the
Monolith to England, where they set up the machine and start it up. However, Daisy quickly gets a headache, hears
a humming, and collapses as the machine starts to fall apart at the seams. At that point Fitz and Daisy realize that the
machine causes the room to vibrate at a specific resonant frequency which opens
the portal. And even though the machine
is damaged beyond easy repair, they don’t need the machine to vibrate the
Monolith; they’ve got an Inhuman subwoofer to do it.
The scene with
Daisy attempting to keep the portal open while Fitz jumps through and Mack and
Bobbi hold the winch scaffolding was insanely intense and easily the biggest
“action” scene of the episode. What I
found so fascinating about it was the level of suspense they keep us in
throughout. Fitz jumping through was
completely unexpected (though it really shouldn’t have been; the dude’s been
going nuts), and there was always the possibility that he would get left on the
other side with Simmons and that the remainder of the season would be their
attempts to return. Meanwhile the
struggle Daisy is undergoing to keep from collapsing and closing the portal was
mirrored in intensity (and visualized) by Mack and Bobbi struggling to secure the
scaffolding. Hearing and then seeing Simmons
through the dust storm was incredible as we had no idea what was really going
on. And then when Coulson started
retracting the winch before Fitz and Simmons could touch, there was even more
suspense: would Fitz manage to bring her
back? That final moment when the portal
closed with the Monolith exploding was incredible as we really didn’t know if
Fitz and Simmons had come back through it or not. And even when we saw Fitz in the rubble that
still didn’t mean Simmons had made it through also. Overall, I really enjoyed this main plot and
how well that final scene was set up visually.
The rest of the
subplots for the episode were relatively minor.
Andrew stops by S.H.I.E.L.D. to evaluate Joey (which happens off-screen)
and give his recommendation to Daisy.
This gives us a chance to learn more about the Secret Warriors
recruitment—it’s not been going well.
Evidently Daisy has brought in multiple possible recruits and Andrew has
rejected every single one with a “check back later.” Granted, Joey really doesn’t seem ready to
leave his box, let alone suit up. The
more important part of this scene is the insight we get into Daisy. Andrew sees her becoming a leader, and he is concerned
for both her and Coulson. She explains
that she sees the Secret Warriors as a way to show Inhumans that they have a
place to belong. I really appreciated
this scene for how well it fleshed out Daisy’s character and what she’s been
doing between seasons. I think that
going forward we will see Andrew come in like this to help flesh a character
out quite a bit, and it makes sense for him to be the one to do it.
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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
Ward for his part is
busy recruiting new agents for Hydra, something which he has apparently been
busy doing for quite some time.
Specifically, Ward is recruiting Werner von Strucker, son of Baron
Wolfgang von Strucker, to the cause—incidentally, Werner von Strucker is a
character from the comics who takes over Hydra during one of his father’s
apparent deaths. Is it weird that I
found Ward’s plan to kidnap the kid to be rather comical? I mean, loosing rats and then calling
yourself an “exterminator” takes some guts!
And then he drops the kid in a room with his “muscle,” Kebo, and lets
Kebo beat on him for a while—just long enough for the kid to decide he’s had
enough and fight back against Kebo (did he kill him? It’s not entirely clear…). I love how Ward is pretty much channeling
Garrett here while “turning” Werner:
he’s equal-parts evil jerk and father-figure, and it works on the kid. And then at the end of the episode Werner is
signing up for Andrew’s psychology class… and it can’t be a coincidence. I’m going to call it right now that by the
end of the season Baron Werner von Strucker will be one of the new Heads of
Hydra alongside Baron Zemo (and possibly Ward, assuming he survives the
season).
Speaking of Ward’s
chances of surviving the season, I kinda think they went down in this
episode. Now that Coulson has given
Hunter carte blanche to eliminate Ward and Hunter’s teamed up with May, I don’t
see them not getting close enough to at least do some damage to Hydra. It was really fun getting to see May’s
father, played by James Hong. For as
funny as his character is (albeit more so by association with everything else
he’s done), he brought a lot of humanity to May, even more than meeting her
mother in season 1. Simply put, here is
proof of May’s humanity: she cares for
her father, so much so that she will put everything else on hold when he might
be in danger. That was a really
well-done bit of character development. May’s
decision to leave with Hunter felt a bit surprising, but considering that her
father essentially gave her permission, it made sense. I am very curious to see how the May/Hunter
buddy-cop thing is going to go.
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| Image Courtesy www.facebook.com/AgentsofSHIELD |
I think the most
purely-sweet moment of the episode comes near the end when Simmons wakes up in
a panic of night terrors and we see that she is sleeping in one of the adaptive
pods. She looks around in confusion and
sees Fitz asleep sitting up against the wall next to her bed. And then she gets out of bed and lies down on
the floor to sleep with her head in Fitz’ lap.
Let the Fitz-Simmons shipping recommence! I expect that over the next few episodes we
will learn a lot more about what happened to Simmons on that planet, and I am
very curious to find out.
This episode had a
lot going on in it, with one major plot and 3 varyingly-minor plots on the
side. However, for some reason the
subplots felt natural: sufficiently
developed and connected to be necessary, but sufficiently minor to avoid taking
away from the main plot (though I wouldn’t have minded more time spent with the
alien planet). I like how the minor
plots focus more on character development while the main plot bears the brunt
of moving the story forward. I also
appreciate how a few characters have been left out of each episode or had
greatly-diminished roles; that definitely helps keep the episode from becoming
too complex and over-full. I do think
that at some point they will need to reduce the number of characters and plots
for the series, but I don’t think they can really do it before season 4, when
the spinoff Marvel’s Most Wanted begins (taking at least 2 characters
and 1 plot away from the main series). Of
course, I was saying the same thing last season and look where we are, so… I think the ideal would be another spinoff
focused on Marvel’s Inhumans.
Long story short,
this was an awesome episode with a lot of excitement to it. I love the characters, I’m glad that they
brought Simmons back (though it would have been cool to leave her and Fitz on
that planet for another episode together), and I’m excited to see where the
Hunter-vs.-Ward plot is going. I can’t
wait to see the Inhumans plot return next week!
What did you think
of this episode? What is your theory for
where Simmons was? Let me know in the
comments!
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