Agents of SHIELD - Purpose in the Machine

It's James Hong, folks!

Episode 2 of Season 3 returns us to the diabolical mastermind behind the resurrection of HYDRA: Grant Ward. Well, bollocks. I'm actually really warming up to Daisy now, but Ward still irks me, and Hunter's vendetta could not easily be less interesting to me. Sure, he recruits May to help him out - and yay for May, and for her bonding with her father (played by James Hong, who is as always awesome) while trying to protect him from possible Ward reprisals - but seriously, it's Ward, so I can't care that much. It's been thirteen hours and I have literally just now remembered that he would be gunning for May because she tricked him into shooting Agent whatshernumber, the latest alleged love of his life.

The main arc of the episode focuses on Fitz and his struggle to retrieve Simmons from wherever the monolith-portal took her. Lacking experts in several key fields, Coulson taps the only known earthbound Asgardian, Eliott Randolph, and the interplay between Randolph's rambling banter and Fitz's fierce intensity drive most of these scenes, with Coulson and Morse, and to a lesser extent Mac and Daisy, providing a more measured back beat.

"I know I like retro..."

The search leads to the discovery of a hidden chamber in a castle in Gloucestershire, where an ancient gentleman's society (I'm calling Hellfire Club,) installed a mass of funky steampunk machinery designed to control the portal by replicating and sustaining whatever conditions cause it to activate. A prologue shows the club selecting a member by ballot to go through the portal, never to return.

Although the machinery sparks out, Fitz realises it is designed to resonate with the stone, and Daisy is able to open the portal with her powers. Randolph is a little taken aback by this, and clearly knows the name 'Inhumans', and I wonder if that wasn't who the Berserker Army was sent to fight. Fitz is able to jump through with a rope and rescue Simmons right before the monolith explodes into gravel, much to Randolph's relief. Back at HQ, Simmons wakes up threatening the air with some sort of stone shiv, which is also awesome. I hope this isn't the last we see of the alien world, since it would be disappointing if it were just a throwaway.

And Ward recruits Baron von Strucker's son in a wearyingly extended torture scene. Yay! Grant Ward and his army of angry, entitled, poor little rich boys.