Where in the world in Leopold Fitz in Agents of SHIELD season 7? For its final run on TV, Agents of SHIELD has been quite literally delving into its back catalog. Throughout the season, the SHIELD team have visited multiple eras of the organization's past, creating havoc within the timeline and learning things about history they could never have imagined. The purpose of this inter-dimensional excursion is to prevent an alien invasion in the future, with the Chronicoms and their leader Sibyl threatening to wipe SHIELD from existence and take Earth for their own. Throughout the journey, SHIELD have bumped into the Malick family, John Garrett, Afterlife, another Koenig and Agent Sousa.
But while Agents of SHIELD's conclusion has featured many names and faces from the previous 6 seasons, one character has been suspicious by his absence. Iain De Caestecker's Fitz has been part of SHIELD's star scientific duo since the very beginning, and forms one half of the MCU's best love story. At the end of season 6, Fitz and Simmons were rescued by Enoch and the former hasn't been seen since. According to Simmons (who reunited with her SHIELD colleagues), Fitz has cracked the theory behind time travel and is sending his friends coordinates to follow the Chronicoms. Simmons explains that since the cyborgs have ways of making people talk, no one can know Fitz's location, and a device was built into her brain to inhibit memories that would betray Fitz's whereabouts, with Enoch programmed to kill anyone who tried to tamper with it.
From the off, the Fitz situation sounded highly suspect. Without ever seeing the character, viewers were asked to accept that Fitz was happily holed up somewhere munching chips and sending SHIELD on the correct path through time like a cosmic sat-nav. Suspicions deepened in "As I Have Always Been," which saw Simmons remove her memory chip in order to fix a time loop. Although the inhibitor was back in place when time was restored, there was a brief moment where the device was removed, and Simmons broke down distraught, crying "what have I done?" In the following episode, Simmons learned about this reaction and speculated that the coordinates supposedly coming from Fitz might actually have been pre-programmed, leaving her husband's true fate very much uncertain.
In real life, Iain De Caestecker was tied up with other work while filming on Agents of SHIELD season 7 took place, explaining Fitz's absence up until episode 10. Unfortunately, the in-universe reason isn't as easy to deduce. Agents of SHIELD has revealed two key pieces of information: firstly, Elizabeth Henstridge (Simmons actress) claims Fitz will appear this season, and secondly, Simmons did something terrible in the mysterious span of time between Enoch's rescue and her appearance in the time-travelling Zephyr.
Perhaps the most natural conclusion to draw is that Simmons is somehow responsible for Fitz's death. It's inconceivable that Simmons would actually murder her husband, but during the course of their time travel experiments, it's possible that Simmons took a risk that ultimately led to Fitz's demise. Unable to process the guilt and the grief, Simmons and Enoch created the memory inhibitor so she could continue the mission in the belief that Fitz was alive. This theory works even if Fitz does appear later in the season. Iain De Caestecker could feature via flashbacks, recorded message or time travel, and still be dead in the timeline he and Simmons experienced between seasons 6 and 7.
But there's something about the prospect of Fitz being "dead all along" that doesn't sit right. Agents of SHIELD already pulled that card in a previous season, where Fitz died in one timeline but another version of himself was still alive thanks to the wonders of time travel. Fitz dying again would suffer diminishing returns. More importantly, the story of Fitz and Simmons has always centered around the lengths each would go to for the other, whether that be launching an intergalactic rescue mission or spending years in stasis. In Agents of SHIELD season 6, the Chronicoms even realized they could exploit FitzSimmons' dedication to each other for their own nefarious ends. A more fitting explanation behind Fitz's disappearance and Simmons' traumatic memory could be something the latter has done not to hurt her husband, but to protect him. Simmons might have put the whole of existence in jeopardy just to keep her husband safe.
Agents of SHIELD season 7 continues with "Brand New Day" August 5th on ABC.