'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' Recap: 'Purpose in the Machine'

— -- The second episode of the third season of the Marvel show "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." opens in an unlikely place and time: 1839 in Gloucestershire, England, at a dinner party where a group of men are drawing straws. Well, colored rocks.

The one unlucky soul who produces the black rock gets handed a sword, some last-minute bucking up from his colleagues and a hale and hearty farewell for his “journey,” which starts with a walk through a door to the same shape-shifting monolith that sucked Simmons away to points unknown.

Needless to say, the unlucky traveler doesn’t return for dessert.

Back in the present, Daisy is trying to convince Mack to approve last week’s metal-melting Inhuman Joey, but Mack disagrees, advising that although their team is shorthanded, they need to consult May’s ex Dr. Garner for his evaluation. Just then, Bobbi rushes in to report Fitz has breached the monolith’s secure room, and is trying to basically smash his way in.

His colleagues pull him back just as the monolith goes squishy, just like it did before it sucked in Simmons. While Fitz misses his chance, the monolith leaves behind some sand that the scientist discovers is ancient.

With no way to access the monolith to try to get Simmons back, Coulson turns to an unlikely source, another ancient artifact, Professor Randolph (Peter MacNichol), whom fans know as the Asgardian, who doesn’t look like Thor or Sif.

“He’s traveled through space through a portal and he’s an alien, so he’s got a lot going for him,” Coulson quips.

In short order, Randolph helps the team trace their clues back to that previously seen castle in Gloucestershire. So while Hunter leaves to settle a score with former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Grant Ward, the rest of the team jets across The Pond.

Meanwhile, we learn Ward has been busy recruiting a new bunch of bad guys to reform a “leaner” Hydra. One unlikely recruit is a spoiled playboy (Spencer Treat Clark) entertaining a bevy of bikini girls on a yacht. Ward and his henchman, Kebo (Daz Crawford), scatter the girls with some rats, and make short work of the spoiled guy’s guards before they snatch the young man.

After a little testing of his mettle, courtesy of some tuning up at the hands of Kebo, we learn the young man is tougher than he looks, and that he’s Werner von Strucker, the son of former Hydra head thug Baron von Strucker, who met his end in Age of Ultron. Thanks to Strucker’s dad’s trust fund, Ward is eager to fund his new Hydra, and tempt the younger von Strucker into following his father’s dastardly legacy.

In England, the S.H.I.E.L.D. team searches the castle only to discover a Frankenstein-tech contraption that they hypothesize was used to access the monolith’s power. They haul the rock to a holding chamber and, sure enough, the old-timey technology gets the rock rolling.

Fitz tosses in a flare, but the machinery breaks before any progress can be made. But they determine the machine is designed to vibrate at a certain frequency that opens the monolith like a key, and while the device is broken, they have Daisy, whose seismic power allows her to open the portal.

A desperate Fitz jumps in, trailing a cable behind him. He lands on the same blue-tinged planet on which Simmons is marooned, and they spot each other. But just as they lock hands, Daisy’s power starts fading, leading Coulson to order Fitz pulled back. The portal collapses and the monolith shatters to ash, from which Fitz and Simmons emerged, dazed.

Meanwhile, Agent May has been reconnecting with her father in the wake of a hit-and-run accident. But the semi-retired spy in her can’t seem to shake the feeling the accident wasn’t intentional, and that she can’t truly leave her old life behind. With that suspicion in mind, Hunter manages to connect with her, and convinces her to join him on his mission to kill Ward.

In the show’s closing moments, we learn Ward is getting closer to May’s world, too: her ex, Dr. Garner, learns he has a new psychology student, none other than Werner von Strucker.

Marvel’s "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." returns Oct. 13, at 9 p.m. ET, on ABC.