“Purpose in the Machine”
Directed by Kevin Tancharoen
Written by DJ Doyle
What is the purpose? Who is the Machine? Will we see Ward? Will we see May? What’s the deal with Rosalind? Will Coulson do something cool with his new detachable hands? So many questions!
Granted, it’s just one episode in, but, I think the show is starting even more strongly than last year. I can’t imagine they won’t have a close tie-in to Civil War later this year, so every episode it seems worthwhile to keep your eyes open for potential clues.
Hopefully I can watch this episode in a more timely manner! I’d like to attempt to write a recap tomorrow, I always enjoyed putting those together.
The tie-in and impact should be obvious: SHIELD will be very pro-registration, and the Secret Warriors will be very much against it. Then we’ll have to see where Jemma lands.
They’ve set up what would be the best cultural callback/tie-in of all time - have Kurt Russell guest star as the guy who hit & run May’s father.
Last season, weren’t Jiaying and Gordon talking about how the monolith was a danger specifically to Inhumans? Yet it turns out just to be a portal to some old planet, and now it’s been destroyed anyway. Pretty weak payoff.
Great to see Peter MacNicol back. I thought it was a little quick how they got Simmons back but I am guessing that they want to delve into the mystery of the portal and the planet as opposed to drag out the mystery of where she is.
It was soooooooooooooooo obvious who Dr. Gardner’s new student was, I was surprised they took that long to reveal it in the scene.
Interestingly, I just went Marvel’s site to look up Jemma’s name (see the problem you get when you make a cute character combination like “Fitzsimmons?”) They need to update their character page: http://marvel.com/agentsofshield/cast
Does anyone know who the secret society in 19th Century Gloucestershire way? I’d gotten a Hellfire Club from them, but that can’t be right (X-Men property).
In my search for a connection, by googling “Marvel Gloucestershire”, I came across an obvious Secret Identity. Prof. Alan Marvell of Gloucester U, don’t worry. Your secret’s safe.
Since the Hellfire Club was founded in 1718, I suspect that little bit of IP is free for use by Marvel, the X-Men rights, or any random person who wants to.
And surely I’m not the only one thinking Skrull! when they managed to get Gemma back after only one episode of her being missing…
Some parts of this episode were fun… the scene with Ward driving around was pretty cool. But the portal/machinery/rescue scene was just EMBARRASSING. Yeah, Fitz really desperately wants to rescue Simmons, we get it. But how is waiting two minutes so you can send a probe through and see if, I dunno, there’s even an ATMOSPHERE over there going to really matter? And how was Gemma able to see the flare, walk all the way to be close enough to hear and see Fitz, and then suddenly couldn’t get one inch closer to him? I mean, come on. Stupid stupid stupid.
Basically proof that the writers shouldn’t have had Simmons sucked into the monolith at the end of last season without an interesting and well thought out reason.
Doesn’t Fox own the Skrulls as an associated Fantastic Four enemy? I thought that’s the way the contracts were written - studios got the enemies associated with each property. That’s why they had to use the Chitauri in the Avengers.
This season has been better so far. For one thing I can actually see what is happening. It isn’t shot so dark.
However, it did seem the Simmons story was solved kind of quick and when your bad guy’s Evil Plan is releasing rats on a boat you may need a new bad guy.
First, I hate the guy who’s playing May’s dad. I found his performance cringe worthy-and now that I’ve said that, he’ll turn out to be someone super famous
Second, why in their right minds would anyone turn on the machine without studying how it works since it was obviously in crap shape to begin with?
Third, marvels hellfire club explicitly’s stolen/Homage-ing the Diana Rigg avengers episode with the hellfire club to the point where some of the characters in the comics are named after the actors. Copyright should not be an issue.
Fourth and last, she’s not a skrull, she’s a space phantom!
