The latest episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., "Inescapable," was dedicated to the inevitable FitzSimmons reunion - and depending how up-to-speed you are on S.H.I.E.L.D. lore, you may have a lot of questions. Although Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. began as Marvel's official tie-in TV series, over the years it's built a mythology all of its own. "Inescapable" built on that in an emotional, character-driven episode dedicated to dealing with the time travel paradoxes left over after season 5.
It saw Fitz and Simmons placed in a so-called Mind Prison, where the Chronicoms hoped they'd be able to work together in order to solve the problem of time travel. The Chronicoms don't really understand organic life, and as a result failed to reckon on the fact that human minds aren't built to bond in quite this way. Fitz and Simmons have suffered a lot of trauma over the years, and while Fitz's scars have been the most evident, Simmons isn't exactly stable either as a result of all the craziness she's been through. Soon the Mind Prison was going catastrophically wrong, and the Chronicoms were watching in bemusement as Fitz and Simmons wound up at war with their own minds.
For long-term viewers, this was probably the most entertaining episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. since season 3's "4,722 Hours." Unfortunately, the very Easter eggs that made this so rewarding for fans make it a little less accessible if you don't have a command of S.H.I.E.L.D. lore. Here are our answers to all the top questions you may have.
6. Have We Seen This "Mind Prison" Before?
The idea of the "Mind Prison" is actually pretty well-established in the MCU, and it's been seen twice before, in both Captain Marvel and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 5. It's technology that the Kree refer to as an Astralscape, a virtual realm that represents a person's mind. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 takes the idea on step further, with the Chronicoms using a "cerebral fusion machine" to combine Fitz and Simmons' psyches. The creator of an Astralscape can easily dominate it, but in the case of "Inescapable" the Chronicoms allow Fitz and Simmons an unusual amount of control.
5. Could Fitz and Simmons Solve Time Travel?
The Chronicoms have been content to observe causality for hundreds of thousands of years, but the S.H.I.E.L.D. team are the first beings they've seen succeed in changing time. Based on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s experiences in season 5, the Chronicoms believe that it's possible to rewrite history and save their destroyed homeworld, Chronica II. Fitz and Simmons, in their view, are the ones who can crack time travel.
Unfortunately, the truth is that the Chronicoms are probably wrong in this assumption. While one version of Fitz and Simmons did indeed figure out time travel, they needed a lifetime to pull it off, and that timeline was erased. The Simmons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 was an unwilling time traveler, while this version of Fitz didn't even realize it was possible to change time until Simmons revealed it to him. The Chronicoms would have been better off going after Tony Stark.
4. What's With the Paradox Fitz?
Much of "Inescapable" revolves around Simmons trying to find a way to explain everything she's been through since she and Fitz last met. Simmons was transported to a future timeline in which the Earth was shattered like an egg, and was eventually joined by a version of Fitz who'd gotten there the long way round, by going into cryogenic suspension. He was key to getting the S.H.I.E.L.D. team back to their own time; when they returned, he and Jemma married, but the stress of fighting to change the future caused his mind to break and he experienced a mental breakdown. This version of Fitz ultimately died when S.H.I.E.L.D. successfully broke the time loop they were trapped in. That neatly set up the paradox that lies at the heart of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6. Because this future timeline had been averted, Simmons knew that Fitz no longer needed to go to the future; thus she could track down the original Fitz and bring him home.
3. What's With Doctor Leopold and Zombie Simmons?
Both Fitz and Simmons have suffered a lot of trauma over the years, and the Astralscape technology leads to their darkest fears and greatest pains being made manifest. For Fitz, that manifests as Doctor Leopold Fitz. This is an alternate persona created by the android Aida as part of the virtual reality called the Framework, and Leopold was romantically entwined with Aida, one of Hydra's most twisted leaders. Fitz retained all Leopold's memories when he was freed from the Framework, and was left shaken by the experience. He ultimately attempted to repress the Leopold personality, but it's still there, and has come to representing all Fitz's darkest urges.
While Fitz's repression is evident, the truth is that Simmons too has been repressing her own pain for a long time. She was taught to deal with trauma this way as a child, when her father encouraged her with a metaphor in which her dreams ascended to the stars while her fears were locked in a music box. In the Astralscape, that music box represented a prison for all Jemma's rage and hurt, and when it was broken open a monstrous version of Jemma was revealed.
2. What do the Shrike do to a World?
While the bulk of "Inescapable" is concerned with the resolution of Simmons' quest for Fitz, it still ties in to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6's overarching narrative. The Chronicoms reveal a little more of what happens when the Shrike ravage a world; they somehow transform a planet's molten core to solid rock. Chronica II appears to have been the last world attacked by the Shrike before Earth, which presumably means the recording Sarge's group took of a planet being destroyed was Chronica II.
1. Has Mack Told Daisy About Sarge Yet?
"Inescapable" ends with a scene in which Daisy and Mack are catching up, and Mack is delighted to hear that Fitz is still alive. He's not particularly concerned about the fact the Chronicoms are holding them prisoner; in Mack's view, Fitz and Simmons reunited are enough to deal with anything. He's right; Enoch has broken them out after just five minutes in the Astralscape in real time. But he does have bad news for Quake; the forces that destroyed Chronica II are on Earth. The stinger doesn't, however, see Mack reveal the most shocking news of all; that there's a Coulson doppelganger running around. Quake considered Coulson to be her father figure, so she'll take the news hard - and will certainly want to have a word with Sarge when May brings him in.