'Agents of SHIELD' Recap With Spoilers: "Principia"

Alex Braun, aka Werner Von Strucker, is in a therapy session. The therapist says if Alex doesn't start opening up then they'll heavily drug him. Alex brings up the therapist's three-year-old daughter. He knows his therapist's address. The therapist understands the threat. Alex stabs his therapist through the hand with a pen and demands Thorazine.

Simmons and Mack tend to Yo-Yo. Coulson checks in on her. Both Yo-Yo and Coulson are growing irritated with being coddled. Coulson says Fitz is going to do his best prosthetic work for her arms, but it will take time.

Fitz reports that the gravitonium they used to seal the space-time rift in the basement isn't going to hold for very long. They need more gravitonium to seal it for good.

Daisy hopes to get gravitonium and the materials for Yo-Yo's prosthetic arms on a single mission involving Cybertek, Ian Quinn's company. All Cybertek scientists have been killed in the past couple of years, and their death certificates signed by the same man. They've tracked him to New Orleans, and will head there to find him. Deke is left to work with Fitz.

Alex wakes up in an empty room. There's clothing waiting for him. He puts the clothes on and begins wandering the halls. He finds a cafeteria area with some food laid out. He helps himself and takes a knife as well. Ruby enters the room. He tries to ask her about where they're at, but she has her earbuds in and just ignores him.

Coulson and Daisy catch up with the killer, Murray Jacobson. Jacobson takes off in a car, but SHIELD boxes him in. They have each other at gunpoint, but Mack recognizes "Jacobson" as someone he calls "Candyman."

His real name is Anthony Caine. He and Mack were roommates at the academy during Mack's first year, but he flunked out. They ask him about Cybertek. Caine was on a mission to recruit redeemable Hydra scientists, and the Cybertek scientist they need is one of them.

Deke convinces Fitz to play catch with him when an alert goes off telling him they're experiencing another anomaly flare. Yo-Yo falls out of her bed. She woke up and forgot she didn't have arms. She cries, and Simmons tries to comfort her. She's convinced that the future they saw is unavoidable.

Caine says that Mack has changed a lot since the academy. Mack used to abhor violence, but now he's got a shotgun ax and is one of America's most wanted. Mack says he wants to protect the people he cares about, but Caine says the Deathlok program is a dead end. Daisy and May are hoping the Cybertek scientists can help Coulson. He tries to convince them to let it go, but they refuse.

Alex finds Ruby training in a gym. He asks her what the place they're in is. She tells him it's a safe house. Ruby tells him her mother will answer all his questions. Alex remembers Ruby from when they played as kids. He remembers getting beat because Ruby hurt herself when he was supposed to be watching her. He puts Ruby at knifepoint and demands to see her mother.

Caine brings Mack to meet with one of the Cybertek scientists. Mack asks about gravitonium. It was put on a cargo ship, the Principia, and sent to the Pacific Ocean, but the ship sank during a thunderstorm.

Fitz can't find the wreckage of the Principia. He's frustrated. Simmons tries to comfort him. Deke is completely clueless about how the ocean works. Fitz gets annoyed and sends him away. Fitz and Simmons take a moment to reflect on the fact they're married.

Soldiers enter the gym. General Hale follows behind them. She says they were going to chemically lobotomize Alex so she had him transferred here. He thinks she's with Hydra, but she laughs that notion off. She says that she and Von Strucker had overlapping interests at a time, but she always hated his guts. She wants to know how much he remembers about his father. She says she's building something new, a better world. Alex says he doesn't want anything to do with it and tells her to just kill him. Instead, she offers to set him free tomorrow. He's taken away. Once he's gone, Hale tells Ruby to do whatever she needs to do to gain Alex's trust and get that information.

Deke goes looking through the storage room and finds a Twinkie, which amazes him. Someone calls Deke's name. He turns and sees his mother standing there. He thinks she's not real at first, but she manages to get him talking. She reminds him of something she used to say, that the steps you take don't always have to be big they just have to take you in the right direction. She says its something her mom used to say. She tells him to leave before he gets too close. A Kree kills his mother, and he kills the Kree. Simmons finds him. He gets frustrated and starts rambling, but then has an idea.

He runs back to Fitz and suggests he look in the sky where the Principia went missing, thinking the gravitonium may have sent the ship up instead of down.

Coulson's team goes searching and finds the Principia suspended in midair above the clouds.

Alex has nightmares in his bed. He wakes up and sees Ruby standing there. He says he remembers the pain as much as he remembers words and facts. He's forced to relive that pain over and over. Ruby says she never knew her father and that her mother is a tyrant. She tells Alex that Hale is using her to get to him, and that everything that's happened has been part of her plan to gain his trust. Ruby says Alex made the right decision. Hale's not going to be any different then Hydra or SHIELD. Ruby suggests making it their team instead of Hale's. Alex just wants out. Ruby suggests he stay, but understands if he leaves.

Coulson, Daisy, and Mack board the Principia with oxygen backs to stop the thin air from making them pass out. They find the crew all dead, but there's a Blue Raven soldier drone that comes active. SHIELD doesn't notice it. They find a containment box, but no gravitonium. There's a small batch of gravitonium still floating in the air, but the rest is gone. Deke comes up with a plan to box it up and get out of the ship before the gravity field dissipates. Mack boxes the gravitonium and they take off.

On the way out, they run into the Blue Raven robots. They fight them. Mack tells Daisy and Coulson to run while he holds the robots off. He knocks them all out and decides to take a couple with him.

Hale's assistant reports that the sleeper drones on the Principia became active. She realizes SHIELD found the ship.

Caine says his goodbyes, and that he'll keep digging to find out more about the Deathlok program.

Simmons checks on Yo-Yo. She apologizes for the previous day. Simmons isn't bothered. Yo-Yo notices Simmons has a piece of the time travel monolith with her. Deke finds them there and is taken aback as he's reminded of his own past. He looks at Fitz too and notices his sweater. The field team returns to the Lighthouse. Mack is going to give Yo-Yo robot arms.

Ruby finds Alex's room empty. He's eating in the commissary. He tells Ruby that she was right, that the future is their's. She says he should see who else they've got. The Absorbing Man is lifting weights. Hale tells Ruby she did nice work. She asks how she convinces Alex to stay. Ruby says she told him the truth.