"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Recap: "4,722 Hours"

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

With every new episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that arrives on my television screen I continue to find myself impressed more and more with this series. It's either the colorful characters and the events that surround them that blow me away or the show manages to do something new and exciting that tells a story in unconventional fashion.

Both of those elements came together on last night's episode "4,722 Hours" as the show at last revealed to us what the heck happened to Jemma during those six months she was missing on the alien planet that the monolith transported her to, and it was done in such an incredible fashion that this may well be one of my absolute favorite episodes of the series. I say that because rather than go back and forth between present day and Jemma's memory the show just decided to take us through the six months with Jemma and strand us on the planet with her and the end result was simply amazing.

First and foremost, credit must be given to Elizabeth Henstridge and her acting skills. This was an episode that required her to be alone for quite some time and some actors can pull off that range of emotions of being alone and terrified and some actors cannot but Elizabeth did an outstanding job of making us feel for Agent Simmons as she discovered how far away from home she truly is and the struggle she had with finding food and water. It made for a desolate and sad first half of the show as we witness Jemma's fight to survive and that's when the show threw us a curveball by revealing another human being was on this planet as well.

This other poor soul is Will and he just so happens to be an astronaut whose mission with NASA went awry and the team he arrived here with went mad after seeing some kind of being in the sandstorms that ravage this planet. But Jemma writes off that last part of his tale to isolation and uses the technology available to figure out how the monolith works and how to get them home, but her plan fails and left with no hope, she and Will get cozy together and settle in for a life without earth. But that brings us to a few episodes ago when Fitz found her and she was forced to leave Will behind to battle whatever odd creature appears in the sand. 

So now we know why Jemma is so desperate to go back and quite frankly, the whole settling in to become Will's girlfriend/lover thing actually managed to tick me off. Fitz loves Jemma to a fault, and that fault is the fact she treats him like crap when she knows what she has with him and she was willing to say goodbye to the thought of ever finding Fitz again and settle and that's infuriating. It's also infuriating that Fitz is going to help her. He deserves better. But outside of that, this was one wild episode and one that I absolutely loved since it didn't feature anything but this struggle and what a fresh and interesting way to tell a story on this show. But despite all the fun this episode brought...it's back to business next week as the hunt for Ward and Hydra continues. Until then. 

---