Agents of SHIELD S06E06 Review: "I Thought You Were One Person"

Agents of SHIELD, Season 6, Episode 6: Inescapable

Well, that certainly was a great bottle episode! One of the biggest problems with the ending of season five, I felt, was the cheap killing off of Fitz, causing everyone to angst, and then sort of brushing over the death with "oh yeah, we have a spare Fitz". And thank god that we actually address that... and a whole lot of other pent-up drama between Agents of SHIELD's longest-running pair. Everyone makes jokes about just how hilariously petty the writers of this show are to keep Fitz and Simmons apart all the time, and at this point it's not even tragic or sad anymore, it's actually darkly hilarious. 

And the setup for this sort of builds up on the Chronicom plotline from the previous episode. Atarah forces Fitz and Simmons into a mind-meld machine that will recreate whatever they think of in order to quickly figure out the time-travel program, and while we get brief scenes of Enoch being rightly miffed that Atarah would subject his friend to such a dangerous machine, Fitz and Simmons are... going through some interesting emotions. 

After the very, very heartwarming reunion and a lot of happy fun catch-up... a huge problem enters, which is just how Simmons is going to break to this Fitz about all the paradoxes that happened thanks to the whole death thing. Including, y'know, getting married and then dying shortly afterwards. Particularly hard, of course, because this Fitz quickly takes the chance to propose to Simmons the first chance he gets. 

But the sheer stress of Fitz and Simmons end up warping their shared brainspace or whatever. First Simmons runs away from her problems by quite literally regressing into a seven-and-a-half adorable little girl... which mostly serves to set up the fact that the very much well-adjusted (compared to Fitz) Simmons keeps all of her troubles into a little box in her mindspace. And while small child Simmons is adorable, she's not particularly helpful, and after a bit of an argument and the return of regular Simmons... Fitz ends up witnessing his own funeral, and that really ended up putting a lot of strain to him. 

Eventually, after a couple bits of acting out some memories (like the night Simmons "put Fitz in the Friend Zone", or their first meeting with Coulson) and then commenting on them, we get our antagonists of the episode. Which is the very welcome return of Doctor Leopold from season four, with Simmons noting that Fitz has been trying to push down his darker side, but Fitz's quick rant about maybe using the time travel for their own good basically unleashed the can of worms. Meanwhile, as they try to escape Doctor Leopold while constantly arguing and reenacting memories, Simmons's own pent-up troubles in the little box in her room is unleashed, which takes the form of an "evil ringu monster that you keep sealed in a box", as Fitz describes. Sadako Simmons is scary. I don't like Sadako Simmons. 

We go through a whole turbulent series of emotions as the couple basically works through a lot of their issues. Simmons used to see herself as just a wall for Fitz to bounce ideas off of. Fitz sort of kind of blames Simmons for getting them into SHIELD and throwing them into this world of madness. Their respective bits of 'cheating' -- Simmons with Will on the deserted planet, as well as Fitz making Aida and the whole Framework thing -- get brought up and thrown at each other. 

Eventually, they each get separated and are held at the mercies of the 'evil' version of their counterparts. The Doctor puts Simmons in the same torture machine from the Framework, while Sadako Simmons... is about to dissect Fitz, I guess? Using "pent-up anger and evil thoughts" as Simmons' dark side is a bit lazy, I suppose, but she admittedly has been a nice cookie throughout the past five seasons, so. But eventually, with a whole "we are not alone moment", Fitz and Simmons manage to temporarily summon illusion versions of Daisy and Mack (hey, gotta let the other actors do something) to rescue them... before they get trapped in the SHIELD containment box as their evil selves stalk them. The argument escalates... before they get into yelling that they keep getting into sacrificial nonsense for each other, all their pain comes from caring too much for the other, and they will never stop doing that because they love each other too much. Aww. 

And honestly, that's what Fitz and Simmons are all about. So much of their pain is caused by caring too much for the other, and that's what love is all about, y'know? Even if you have to yell at each other. Hell, even Sadako Simmons and Doctor Leopold realizes this, as while the real Fitz and Simmons resolve their argument, apparently the two of them end up doing some... interesting positions off-screen. 

And thankfully, they manage to work through their emotional issues before Enoch unleashes his drastic, daring plan, shooting Atarah and the other Chronicoms in the room and teleporting Fitz and Simmons to... well, somewhere else. And honestly, at this point... I really don't care -- I honestly half-expected the three of them to drop in front of Mack and Daisy, because the core of the Fitz/Simmons plotline has always been their character and them addressing their relationship. This is certainly an episode I didn't know we needed, but man it works so well. It builds on the history of the characters and the show and analyzes it well while still moving the characters forwards. Easily the strongest and most focused episode in this sixth season yet. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• In addition to "Leopold" returning from season four's Framework world, we've got a whole ton of continuity nods to the long history of Fitz and Simmons's journey through Agents of SHIELD:
• The exact circumstances of Fitz and Simmons being recruited into Coulson's team is elaborated a bit further in this episode. It's been a couple of years, but I'm 99% sure it happened offscreen in the original pilot. 
• Fitz and Simmons recalls when they were trapped in a box and jettisoned into the depths of the ocean, which happened in the climax of the first season.
• Fitz recalls Simmons leaving SHIELD to infiltrate Hydra in the second season, leading to the subplot of a brain-damaged recovering Fitz having abandonment issues, which took place over the second season. 
• Fitz then recalls Simmons being transported to the planet Maveth by the monolith, happening in the final scene of the second season, as well as Simmons sleeping with Will while on said planet -- and Fitz also notes that Will became Hive later. It happened in season three. 
• Simmons recalls Fitz creating Aida the LMD, as well as the Framework virtual world being based on Fitz's ego and eventually creating Doctor Leopold. Simmons killing Framework!Alistair is also brought up. 
• The storybook that young!Simmons asks Fitz to read briefly transforms into the Darkhold from the Ghost Rider portion of season four. 
• Fitz and Simmons' marriage in the fifth season, and Fitz's eventual death, as well as Coulson's condition, are all things that present!Fitz finally learns. 
• Evil Ghost Simmons has some gold paint on her face, which apparently represents her time as a Kree slave in season five.