Agents of SHIELD Recap – S03E05 4,722 Hours

This will be quick as I’m very late getting this out.  AoS wastes little time in showing us just what happened to Agent Simmons on the blue-tinged planet.  It starts out as you expect, with Simmons falling back on her training for survival – at first staying near the portal exit in case it can be reopened, then eventually setting off for food and water.  Jemma shows both her resourcefulness (“You’re dinner, biatch!”) and the stress from being stuck on a planet that seems to have near-permanent night.

The surprising twist comes when Simmons is captured…by another human!  “Will” seems nuts at first, not believing Jemma is even real, but turns out to be a decent sort.  Turns out he was the muscle on a NASA mission sent through the portal with hopes that they’d be able to return in a year…14 years ago.  Oops.  Simmons begins working with Will on a plan to get home, with her relentless positivity becoming infections.  It’s all for naught however, when they miss their window to get through the portal, and their message in a bottle backup plan fails as well.  Though it’s quite possible the near-miss may be what knocked the alien dust back through the portal that Fitz found.

Fast-forward to the 4,722nd hour, and Jemma and Will are living a life together on the planet now, as a couple.  They are awaiting the once a generation sunrise…when Fitz’s flare is spotted.  They make a run for it, but the strange dust storms come and in it, Jemma spots a strange figure – one of the other astronaut suits, covered in strange vines or webbing…the ‘death’ that Will warned her about.  He tells her to go while he fights it off with his one remaining bullet.  You’ve seen the rest from the other side, with Simmons pulled through at the last moment, but now you know why she wants to go back so badly.

Poor Fitz is immediately supportive of the task, despite the heartbreak he must be feeling at the reveal about Will and Simmons and the relationship.  It seems likely that at some point in the season, we will be back on the planet, as the end scene showed Will still alive.  But will he still be sane after losing Jemma?

Random thoughts:

• So NASA had the monolith and knew it was a portal.  Will said the information about how they knew a planet was on the other side was “classified…above my pay grade” but it’s an interesting question.  Did someone make it back?
• The prevailing theories about what that planet is are fun.  Ego, the living planet?  I doubt it, but the fact that it is heated internally means I can’t immediately discount the idea.  Still, I think something Kree/Inhuman related makes more sense.
• What the heck was the ‘Death’ on the planet?  Can’t be a coincidence that the word Death appeared frequently around the monolith in the places it was hidden.  Makes the idea that someone came back twisted by whatever it is on the planet a bit more likely.