Throughout its six seasons, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. gang have seen friends come and go, whether by choice or due to unfortunate circumstances. The agents have gone through hell and back, and though they sometimes hit rough patches, they always make it through together. The found family dynamic is a timeless trope.
Some friendships evolved into something new, while others came to an end. The friendships between the SHIELD agents are what make the show a fan favorite. Without those relationships, the show could not have thrived as it has. Here are the 10 best friendships on the series.
Leopold Fitz and Alphonso Mackenzie
Mack has a penchant for giving everyone nicknames, so he affectionately refers to Fitz as Turbo. The sentiment comes from the time when Fitz struggled with aphasia after his hospitalization. From anyone else, the name would seem cruel, but from Mack, it's a testament to his belief in his friend's ability to regain his old skillset.
While Mack knew mechanics he fully trusted in Fitz's engineering knowledge to propel his work further. More than that, Fitz became like a brother, something the scientist was in dire need of after Ward's betrayal.
Daisy Johnson and Jemma Simmons
Season six finally gives this duo a storyline that develops their friendship. Daisy takes Simmons all over time and space to help her find the love of her life, Fitz. That is what makes a ride or die friendship.
In a silly moment at an alien bar after ingesting candy that acts like LSD, the two SHIELD agents go on a trip of a different kind together. This leads to Daisy and Simmons opening up emotionally, where Daisy confesses she wants to find something like Fitz and Simmons have.
Agents Piper and Davis
Agents Piper and Davis are recurring side characters that got caught up in the main crew's shenanigans after SHIELD imploded and rebranded. They followed Daisy and Simmons into space on the quest to recover a different timeline's Fitz.
They held the house down when the main crew got sucked into the future. Every interaction between them has them bickering like a married couple, which is a dynamic that makes for a fantastic friendship. That's why when Izel killed Agent Davis, Agent Piper's devastation felt so raw.
Phil Coulson and Melinda May
Phil and May act as the parents of the SHIELD crew, playing the roles of Mom and Dad to Daisy, Jemma, Fitz, and company. Their friendship goes way back to before these recruits ever came to SHIELD to a time when Agent May was fun and mischievous.
When May experiences a traumatic event that others congratulate her for and call her The Cavalry, Phil knows it is anything but glorious. Their friendship turned romance at the end of season six makes Phil's death bittersweet as they finally share their feelings.
Elena Rodriguez and Joey Gutierrez
When the inhuman outbreak happened, SHIELD gained new agents in Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez and Joey Gutierrez. While Joey ended up leaving after a short stint as an agent, the dynamic between him and Elena made a wonderful friendship for Latinx fans of the show to see.
Their easy rapport and organic conversations in Spanish added a cool cultural element to the sci-fi heavy comic book series. The dynamic between Yo-Yo and Joey enhanced the series already diverse cast of characters.
Fitz and Daisy
When Daisy is coping with her new inhuman powers and Fitz is coping with a disconnect between his brain and his body, they find solace in a friendship with one another. Both undergo the experience of learning to navigate the world with their body's new capabilities and limitations, even if in different ways.
The bond they created during those trying times solidified their relationship for seasons to come. That's why when Fitz betrays Daisy and forces her to regain her Quake powers it's such a heavy blow to the inhuman.
Daisy and Mack
Once more Mack makes an apt nickname for his friends, calling Daisy Tremors when she gains her Quake powers. It's another moment that seems like it could easily be bullying, but because it comes from the lovable Teddy bear that is Mack, Tremors is a term of endearment.
They became a solid team as agents, becoming perfectly in sync with one another in the field. In their downtime, they enjoyed playing video games to de-stress. Daisy and Mack's partnership grew to become more mature, but the love remained.
Phil and Daisy
Before she was Daisy, she was Skye, a lone hacker who moved and changed names at the drop of a dime. She was an orphan looking for a family and Coulson gave her that. He brought her into the fold of SHIELD and introduced her to its true intentions.
Along the way, he became a father figure, especially after finding her biological parents and learning they weren't the ideal she always wanted. Coulson's death was hard enough, but his revival as an other-worldly being with no memories of her is a gut punch.
Fitz and Enoch the Chronicom
An android figure from the future and a genius mad scientist who gets thrown into a time travel loop because of him sounds like the buddy cop movie fans never knew they wanted. Enoch started as an anthropologist Chronicom sent to study Earth, but when the timeline shows a future where the planet is destroyed, he intervenes.
He becomes fond of the Agents and agrees to watch over Fitz's body in cryostasis. Once awake, they traverse space together surviving rogues, alien casinos, and his fellow Chronicoms come to destroy him.
May and Daisy
Daisy doesn't cope well with her inhuman powers after losing Lincoln and facing humanity's prejudice against her kind. She goes rogue and becomes known as Quake, disassociating with SHIELD to protect her friends. But Melinda May, ever the mother figure, doesn't let her get away with her self-exile and self-pity.
Her friends continue trying to bring her back in and to stop her vigilante destruction. Daisy tries to stay away but May firmly tells her, "You don't get to decide who cares about you." Tough love has always been the way of their relationship.