- Title: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Purpose in the Machine
- wiki: link
While bringing back Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), and eventually intertwining her into the ongoing Hydra subplot, the main focus of “Purpose in the Machine” deals with the investigation into the mysterious monolith and a discovery by Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) which gives the team hope of finding the missing Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge). The storyline brings back Peter MacNicol to reprise his role as former Asgardian Berserker Elliot Randolph who helps the team relocate the monolith to a dusty castle where, thanks to the help of Daisy (Chloe Bennet), the portal is opened once more.
Despite needing some serious trimming, the episode is full of sequences which could have been cut (May hanging out with her father takes far too much of the episode and the opening 19th Century sequence turns out to be superfluous to the plot), the sequences that do work in fact work very well. Tying in ongoing storylines such as Daisy’s frustration about putting together her own team of Inhumans (we hear the term “Secret Warriors” for the first time), and Ward‘s (Brett Dalton) efforts to rebuild Hydra, the episode continues to build towards future conflicts and reveals. The most interesting line of the episode comes not from any member of the cast but it’s guest-star whose reaction to the word Inhumans foreshadows trouble to come.
