Agents of SHIELD isn't a show that likes to step out of its comfort zone. Has it before? Of course. The big ol' HYDRA uprising and SHIELD's downfall happened in the show's first freaking season. And it's a show about SHIELD agents! But for the most part, every Tuesday, I turn on the TV expecting roughly the same thing: an entertaining hour featuring SHIELD agents fighting evil, solving mysteries, and keeping secrets from each other. That's not to say the show is boring or repetitive, it's just the show's norm.
This week, they smashed that norm to dust, albeit probably for one episode. And, guess what? It's one of SHIELD's best and boldest episodes yet.
The Recap
The whole episode tells us what happened to Simmons on that mystery alien planet. From her being swallowed by the monolith to her rescue by the team.
When she first touches ground there (literally), she panics. After settling down, she begins to get her bearings and do what any scientist would do: study her new surroundings. She decides that Fitz must be finding a way to get her back and that she should stay where she is and wait, to no avail. She begins to lose it when she realizes there is no sunlight on the planet. Anywhere.
Simmons leaves a marker where the portal opened pointing whoever comes through in the direction she starts to travel. She places another one a bit farther. But, after making it quite a distance, a sandstorm comes and wipes them away. On the bright side, though, she's stumbled upon a small pool of water, which she drinks from and takes a swim in. On the other not so bright side, there's some giant man-eating plant lurking below, which Simmons has a not so pleasant scuffle with. Some time passes before she realizes that the plant is her only food source right now, and that she'll have to be food to eat food. Using herself as bait, she kills the plant, starts a fire, roasts it, and devours it. Yum.
A bit more time has passed when Simmons falls into a hidden pit and awakes to find herself in a cage, occasionally visited by a human man about her age. She is able to escape by faking being poisoned, but injures her leg while fleeing. to make matters worse, another storm is on its way. The man demands Simmons come back to his hidey-hole to get first-aid, much to Simmons' chagrin.
As Simmons stitches herself up, the man introduces himself as Will Daniels. He captured Simmons and mistreated her because he wasn't sure if she was real or a conjuring. She finds out he's a NASA astronaut who was sent here, along with a small team, through the monolith by NASA back in 2001 to conduct research on it. Will's job was to keep everyone's mental health in check, which he tragically failed at since the rest of his team died, basically from insanity. Simmons is the first person he's seen in over a decade. Simmons insists they work together to find a way home. She'll be the voice of optimism while he'll be the voice of doom.
Two months later, the pair are no closer to getting back. Simmons decides she'll venture into what Will has marked on a map as the "NO-FLY ZONE," a place he insists is infinitely dangerous. There, she finds some supplies belonging to ancient corpse (presumably the same dude who got tossed here in the flashback earlier this season?). The biggest prize is a telescope which Simmons realizes is the key to their escape. Another sandstorm hits, and in it, Simmons sees and is pursued by a figure in a brooding black cloak. She finds her way back to Will's cave and shows him what she found.
The portal will open in the same location in space, but it will appear at a different location on the planet. In other words, it's not the portal that moves, it's the planet. Simmons explains that she'll chart the stars to find where it'll open next, but she will also need to use up whatever power is left in Will's NASA tech, as well as her phone.
Eventually Simmons gets the location. Will's hesitant, since according to her, the portal will open next in the N.F.Z. and on the other side of a rather wide canyon. He and Simmons build a device that will shoot a cable across the canyon and to the portal. Simmons has also put all her research concerning the portals into a bottle, and plans to send it through if neither one of them can make it in time.
When they reach the canyon, it is much, much, much wider than they were expecting and the portal on the other side has opened. Will tries to use their grappling gun to get the bottle through, but he just misses, leaving Simmons devastated. Back at the cave, she finally concedes and laments that they'll be stuck here forever. Will tells her to have hope, and that before he met her, he didn't have any either. The two kiss.
At 4,720 hours, just two hours away from the rescue, we see that Simmons and Will have become more openly affectionate to one another. They plant to watch the sunrise, the only sunrise every 18 years, together. Their "date" is interrupted by the flare Fitz sends through. They race to its location, but are separated by a sandstorm and the cloaked figure. Will urges Simmons to keep going, and uses the last bullet in his gun to fend off the cloak. A distraught Simmons finds Fitz and is rescued.
Flash-forward to present day, and Simmons has finished recounting her tale to Fitz, who looks floored by what he's heard. Simmons tells him she needs to go back and find Will, just as Fitz spent months trying to find her. Fitz tells Simmons he will help her.
Meanwhile, back on the planet, the sun is up. Will ditches his gun and heads back to his cave as the sun disappears once again. Poor guy.
The Review
As I mentioned earlier, this was a bold episode for SHIELD. Bolder than most of what they've done before. An episode dedicated to one character and one story with in an entirely different setting and not too much action. It's a new beast, but the people in front of and behind the camera make it work really well.
The most praise has to be given to Elizabeth Henstridge, who gives a fantastic performance. For the first quarter, Simmons is all alone, and Henstridge nails the despair, determination, and almost ease I would imagine one would feel in the character's situation.
The investment I had in Simmons as a character was a its highest this week, and that investment carried over to the character of Will. Once Simmons realizes he's got the same mission in mind as her, you trust him like she does and root for the two of them together. When they miss the opportunity to get a message to Earth, it's tragic, not just because you know that that;s not how the team finds out Simmons is till alive, but you know Simmons will be broken over it.
Another thing I really liked was the episode's title card. Instead of the customary, flashy title and the "BWAAAH" sound that accompanies it, the title just faded onto the screen with the alien landscape as its backdrop. No bells, no whistles. It told everyone watching that this wasn't a regular episode of Agents of SHIELD and showcased just how desperate and alone Simmons was. Also, the regular title would've taken me right out of what was happening.
I'm not sure how to feel about the romance that blossoms between Simmons and Will. I mean, it makes sense. Both of them are accepting the then strong possibility that they'll be on this planet for the rest of their lives, so why not? Plus,their flirtatious attitudes toward each other near the end was cute to watch. But what always sours my feelings toward their relationship is the melodramatic way it starts. Will says something like "I had no hope once, until I met you," or something and then they proceed to make out. It just felt so generic, so corny, so cliche' that a fifth grader could write it.
The other glaring problem I have with the episode is the cell phone conundrum. Simmons'phone lasts for six months without dying or being charged. Yes, she conveniently explains that it's a SHIELD phone, and Fitz upgraded it to last longer, but wouldn't it have been made more sense and be way more interesting if the phone died and she still talked to it for sanity's sake? Think Wilson from Cast Away. But the phone also represents Simmons' only real "connection" back to her home, with that picture of Fitz she always stares at and the birthday video she shows Will. It's a literal plot device, but it's one that requires a lot of suspension of disbelief than usual to accept.
The scene between Simmons and Fitz was sweet, showing us that he'll do anything for her because of his unconditional love for her. I really feel bad for Fitz. Put yourself in his shoes. The love of your life is trapped somewhere just after you finally make progress in your relationship. When she returns, you find out the only other human with her was a man she fell in love with. I feel for ya, Fitz.
Other Notes:
- Brubaker easter egg!
- We still don't know the name of the planet, or who the cloaked figure was. Both are almost definitely famous elements from the comics. I don't read many comics, so I'll leave the speculation to other, more capable nerds.
- I liked how some of the things Simmons says or does on the planet call back (or forward) to how she acts after she returned. She says she misses wine. When she does get it, she has an emotional breakdown.
- So was Will actually planning to eat Simmons when they first met?
- The plant Simmons killed and ate actually looked kind of delicious.
Rating: 9.2/10 bottles of ancient wine.
Next week, the hunt for Ward continues...
Noah
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