13 best Agents of SHIELD episodes ranked from worst to best

7. 4,722 Hours – (Season 3, Episode 5)

At the end of the second season, right after agreeing to go on a proper first dinner date with Fitz, Simmons got swallowed up into the Monolith that the team had recovered and was keeping at the base. It wouldn’t be until season 3 that we would learn that she got sent to an entirely different planet, Maveth. After being rescued by Fitz and the others, Simmons recounts her time on the alien world. The episode opens with Simmons being spit out onto Maveth’s surface, remaining hopeful that Fitz will soon come and save her.

A few hours in, she begins to explore the planet in search of water, getting caught in a sandstorm that knocks her unconscious. She wakes up hours later, eventually stumbling across a small pond. She drinks from it before swimming in to cool off but gets grabbed by a tentacle creature that tries to drag her under. She struggles but manages to slice off the tentacle, allowing herself to escape. After a few hours, she decides to eat the tentacle. Still hungry, she grabs a stick as a weapon and ventures back into the water for the rest of the creature. She ultimately kills it and brings it to the surface, cooking it over a fire she made and eating it.

While continuing to walk, Simmons falls into a pit and later wakes up in a makeshift cage in an underground shelter with a man watching over her. Pretending to be poisoned to get him to open the cage, Simmons attacks him and runs out. He catches up with her before dragging her back to the shelter, narrowly escaping the sandstorm. The man introduces himself as Will and explains that he was part of a team of astronauts sent by NASA to collect samples in 2001. Will warns her about a creature on the planet responsible for the deaths of his crew, which she doesn’t think is real until she encounters it herself. Simmons suggests a fresh start. While Will had given up on going home, Simmons still had faith.

Using the remaining battery on her phone to power Will’s tech, Simmons figures out a way to predict the next portal opening. Realizing they’re too far away, they try to send a message through the portal, but it closes before they can. This causes Simmons to break, losing the hope she once had. Convinced they’re never leaving, they eventually get closer, becoming romantically involved. Over a month later, they see a flare sent by Fitz and start to make their way toward the portal, but Will stays behind to protect Simmons from the creature. Fitz grabs her and takes her back through. In the present, Simmons explains that she wouldn’t have survived without Will, and Fitz promises her they’ll go back for him.

Since the season’s first few episodes showed Fitz doing everything in his power to bring Simmons back, it was great finally getting her perspective. The choice to have it be a bottle episode and spend most of it, aside from the end, on Maveth helped immerse the audience in Simmons’ experience there. Considering Simmons got recruited for her intelligence, she wasn’t used to being out in the field at that point, so it was interesting to see the character so far out of her element, forcing her to rely on her survival skills to stay alive.