Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Recap: Fitz and Fizzy Lifting Simmons

Credit: ABC

Pulses of electrostatic energy are appearing, and at the center of each of these incidents is a victim suspended in mid-air, dead. So the team gets to work trying to solve the who, how, and why of these apparent murders. After the first victim, a volunteer firefighter named Adam Cross, is discovered dead, Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) is able to track electrostatic activity on the ground, sending Coulson (Clark Gregg), May (Ming-Na Wen) and Ward (Brett Dalton) directly to the next victim, a man named Frank Whalen. A background check by Skye (Chloe Bennet) reveals that Whalen volunteered with Cross at the same fire company. And as we learn, this group of firefighters were first responders to The Battle of New York depicted in The Avengers, meaning someone is knocking these men off one-by-one.

Credit: ABC

Yet as the team quickly learns, it's not someone, but something. Coulson meets with a firefighter named Tony Diaz, who guiltily confesses to having kept a souvenir from The Battle of New York, a salvaged alien helmet that carries with it an aggressive alien virus -- the same virus affecting Diaz and causing all gruesome deaths the team has discovered. The episode manages to wring some fairly resonant drama from the circumstances here, as Diaz comes to realize there's no avoiding the inevitability of his death, and Coulson tries to comfort the man with stories of what awaits him on the other side. The series has been building up the mystery of what, exactly, happened to Coulson during The Battle of New York, as one of his superiors, an Agent Blake (Titus Welliver), theorizes that what the S.H.I.E.L.D. higher-ups have been telling their agents about Coulson isn't the whole truth. The official story is that he succumbed to his injuries and was declared dead for eight seconds before being resuscitated, yet it's something not even Coulson seems to entirely believe. He truly believes that he died, and that he was given a glimpse into the other side. Diaz, desperate for some sense of comfort about his oncoming demise, asks Coulson what it was like. "It was beautiful," Coulson responds, and there's a wonderfully ambiguous look in Clark Gregg's eyes to where it's hard to tell whether he was telling the truth, or simply soothing Diaz with what he needed to hear. As Coulson leaves the firehouse with May, Diaz succumbs to his infection, dying of an electrostatic discharge. It's a surprisingly poignant moment, though there would be more heartstring-pulling ahead...

Credit: ABC

While performing an autopsy on Whalen to research the cause of his death, Simmons becomes infected with the mysterious alien virus, necessitating her quarantining in the lab. It soon becomes apparent just how serious the situation is, however, as Coulson theorizes that, given the advanced nature of the virus, Simmons has little more than two hours to live. Both Fitz and Simmons are compelled to get to work in an attempt to find a cure for the illness, testing various vaccines (which Simmons insists on calling "anti-serums") on lab mice. But none of the potential treatments seem to work, and the clock is ticking. Skye is mortified at the prospect of losing Simmons (though why, I couldn't tell you, since they really haven't been on the same team for very long. But then, I suppose it speaks to Skye's natural empathy for others. After all, no hero worth her salt ever wants to see a person die if it can be prevented).

Credit: ABC

Ward shares Skye's fears, reflecting on his sense of powerlessness. If this were a villain he could fight hand-to-hand, Ward rationalizes, he'd be able to handle it. But a disease is something he's powerless to stop. This approach is an effective way for the story to show just how much Ward identifies his own self-worth in terms of his ability to protect others, as he fears he won't be able to keep his team safe, and is already beating himself up over what's happening to Simmons. It's a fittingly emotional beat that is matched in a subsequent scene in which Fitz blows up at Simmons for talking him into joining S.H.I.E.L.D. with her in the first place, as he'd been perfectly happy with the cushy university lab job they'd shared. Simmons rages right back at him, saying that he's afraid of field work, and adding that this is likely the most excitement he's ever known in his "pasty" little life. Fitz nears tears as he angrily lashes out by saying that Simmons had been by his side the entire duration of their partnership, and it's in saying this out loud that Fitz recognizes just how much Simmons means to him.

Credit: ABC

The episode compels emotion almost despite itself, as we've hardly come to know Simmons well enough to be invested in the threat of her death, nor have we been shown enough of her partnership with Fitz to really invest in that relationship in any meaningful fashion. Yet the storyline still works, thanks to Henstridge and De Caestecker, who make this partnership feel lived-in and long-standing. When Simmons realizes their final serum has failed, having been synthesized from the alien DNA inside the helmet, she tearfully says goodbye to the team, asks Coulson to break the news about her death to her father first, and shares a close moment with Fitz, who exposed himself to infection simply to be in the lab working alongside Simmons one last time. It's far more affecting than it has any right to be, and even a moment as cliche as Simmons sacrificing herself to save the team is gripping stuff, as she throws herself out of the S.H.I.E.L.D. plane to keep from taking the others down with her when she detonates. This moment is made doubly effective by Fitz's last-minute realization that their serum actually worked on the lab mouse after all, giving a larger sense of urgency to his mission to reach Simmons before it's too late.

Of course, the moment then stretches into the ridiculous, as Ward jumps out after Simmons to catch her and give her the injection before she becomes a puddle of gore on the ground below, but this is a show that traffics in that kind of occasional, bombastic silliness, so I didn't mind. It's strange to feel this much relief about a character surviving when so little time has been invested in developing that character, which is why I repeatedly come back to Henstridge and De Caestecker, as they fill in every gap in that relationship and makes it feel like something that's been alive and thriving long before cameras started rolling. I also like that things were kept largely platonic between the two, save for a peck on the cheek from Simmons at the end, as the show needs to further flesh these two characters out before calling upon audiences to get excited about the possibility of their partnership becoming a romance.

Credit: ABC

There's also impactful development on the Coulson front, as he receives his medical test results back from the lab, and they all reveal that he's perfectly fine. But Coulson still doesn't believe it, revealing to May that he ordered the tests on himself with the hope of figuring out why he feels so strange. "This paper is telling me everything is fine, but i dont feel fine," Coulson says plaintively. "I feel different." May tells him to unbutton his shirt, and we see the wound Loki inflicted on him, with the scar from the injury that killed him still remaining. May tells Coulson that he feels different because he is different now. He's been irrevocably changed, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's in how he responds to that change that ultimately matters, and so Coulson decides to roll with the punches, refusing to allow himself to be a pushover when Agent Blake attempts to intimidate him for ignoring S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol in his handling of the Simmons situation. It's a great moment for Coulson, and it's portrayed well by Gregg, who takes a character that might not make the most sense as a leading man on a primetime TV drama, and makes him compelling.

"F.Z.Z.T." is a damn good hour of television, almost despite itself. Henstridge and De Caestecker turn in performances that really should be seen, and Gregg continues to deliver. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. still isn't the show I might have been expecting going in, but I'm enjoying the hell out of it just the same.