We’re rewatching Agents of SHIELD in full before the last season premieres, drift partner and I. We’re in season three, which isn’t a great time for anyone; this week we passed “4,772 Hours,” aka the “Jemma trapped in space” episode. If I haven’t made it clear somehow, I care so much about nearly every girl on SHIELD but Jemma (Elizabeth Henstridge) is my girl, my lovely, brilliant, autistic, thoroughly misused girl. Which makes this hard to say.
This episode is genuinely painful.
A refresher: SHIELD currently possesses a monolith that, for reasons never fully explained although eventually implied, Inhumans fear. While studying it slash trying to hit on Jemma, Fitz (Iain de Caestecker) accidentally leaves its case unlocked. Once she’s alone with it, it liquefies and swallows her whole, then spits her out on an alien world. She has to figure out how to survive. Then there’s a man, for some reason.
This isn’t Elizabeth’s fault. She’s incredible in this episode. The first scenes, the ones that are just her exploring and toughening up and trying not to lose hope, are heartwrenching. (Well, except for when she says “dinner, biatch!” As drift partner put it, Let AOS Say Bitch Challenge.) It’s shades of psychological drama and survival horror, and it rests squarely on Elizabeth’s capable shoulders. (More of it is spent mooning over Fitz than I’d like, but I’ll get into that in a bit.)
But then, a man. Will Daniels (Dillon Casey) is generic at best and an asshole at worst, and it’s my humble opinion that you could completely remove him from the episode and very little would be lost.
Fun fact: I actually guessed the space twist long before season three started airing. I even guessed that Jemma wasn’t alone there. But why, I thought, wouldn’t they just use one of their own preestablished space-dwelling characters? They could surely come up with an elaborate reason for, say, Nebula (Karen Gillan) to be there. This was after the first Guardians of the Galaxy, she was in the wind. But noooo, it had to be some guy.
So I’m going to run through the episode their way (with Will) versus my way (with Nebula). Hopefully this illustrates my concerns.
Full story here.