What happened? Plot hole?

(SPOILERS)
I rarely pull the "plot-hole" card, but here I am really stumped:
When the main characters wife (yeah, I forgot their names, that´s how much this movie meant to me ...) smacks the android that´s about to take a sample of "brain fluid" from the main character, whose head is in a vice of some sorts, she is brutally escorted outside. "Get rid of her!" yells the antagonist. A few clips later we see the wife and hubby being pushed into the sandbox (oh, excuse me, the flammable powder box) and they hug.

Why, how and when did the antagonist release the main character from the head-vice? He just gave up on his elaborate plan of harvesting brain-fluid, because the little missus threw a spat? Did the needle perhaps break and it was THE LAST ONE?