Television: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., "Purpose in the Machine" and "A Wanted (Inhu)man"

I could have sworn I'd written about last week's episode, but evidently not. So I'm piling two in one here.

Um . . . So last week we got Simmons back from the monolith thing. We had Peter MacNicol! Who has a vested interest in shutting portals between Earth and Wherever, one of which the monolith is. There was a secret society in England (shades of Strange and Norrell maybe), etc. And a big machine that was used to open the monolith via certain frequencies, and when the machine breaks Skye Daisy has to use her powers to do it instead, and Fitz goes in and grabs Simmons seconds before the monolith breaks apart and the portal is closed down for good. We assume.

And then there was some stuff about May hanging out with her father and refusing to go back to work, but Hunter comes along and convinces her to help him find Ward and kick his ass.

And Ward was busy playing the whole "screwed up kid needs a father figure" card that worked so well on him when he was recruited into Hydra. In this case, Ward lands a dead Hydra member's wealthy son. People are tools to Ward, after all.

Okay, so then this week we had Simmon suffering PTSD and Fitz trying to make her feel better by taking her out for that belated dinner. We had Hunter and May working some of Hunter's old contacts as they try to get closer to Ward. At least, I think that was what was going on; the ultimate result was Hunter getting his ass kicked in an underground fighting ring. We had Coulson and Dana Rosalind (seriously, she's always going to be Dana from Entourage to me) making verbal negotiations that wreak havoc on everyone else, the end result of that being Coulson agreeing to work for/with Rosalind's people. And Lincoln running away again when they were very close to bringing him back in and winning his trust.

I think I'm supposed to care about the Lincoln thing, and Daisy, but I don't really. I'm kind of over all that. So much focus has been on Skye/Daisy that I just can't care any more. I also kind of don't care about Ward and Hunter and Bobbi and all that stuff either. I do find Coulson and Rosalind interesting, and the situation with Fitz and Simmons—I should probably mention that Simmons pulls a Lost at the end of the episode and insists they must go back to wherever that place was the portal took her. Hmm.

What I most appreciate about this season is the streamlining. The coherence. Things feel like they're moving again, and while there's a lot going on (and still way too many characters), at least I can follow the story and it all kind of makes sense. So good on them for pulling it in a bit and regrouping. The show seriously needed it, and I'm enjoying this season way more than the last one. So far.