S03.E09: Closure

[Watcher0363]

Yeah, considering how bad the screaming sounded, I expected Jemma to look a lot worse.  It looked like she was backhanded once and that's it.

I roll my eyes, anytime I see people bring out brute force tools when they are about to torture people. The best torture is nerve stimulation, not concussing people. Stress positions, nerve points and drugs to heighten the nerve ending. After a good torture session a person should look overly tired with a hint of very bad food poisoning.

 

As for Ward, he is just a man in search of someone to love him for who he is, really is, deep down inside. Ward the eharmony profile questions are long and time intensive. But they do have a pretty good success rate.

[Ariah]

The amount of "Ward was really just protecting FitzSimmons this episode" I saw on other board made me utterly sick.

 

It's scary how people (misguided young women?) perceive a villainous behaviour if the perpetrator is attractive.

 

I wonder if Malick knows something more about the "It" lore that he was not telling Ward - like, "It" needs a human host and will be drawn towards the strongest Alpha Male on the planet, hence Malick's move to have Ward leading the team. Now, with Coulson in the mix, "It" may find it hard to decide which body to chose.

 

(I still believe the storm/revenant Jemma saw on the Planet was a security system guarding "It" and its current host. That's why it didn't cross through the portal with Fitz and Jemma, even though it was pretty close. It was stopping the real HydraLord from crossing over.)

 

I must admit that even though Fitz told Jemma he's going to get Will back, his face made me wonder if he's not trying to pull a suicide mission, make good on his promise to Ward and leave them all forever stranded on PlanetBlue.

 

I admit that Jemma looked pretty good for all the screaming she did - either she has a really low pain treshold (not likely, concerning previous episodes) or the makeup department botched the job. The show is not Jessica Jones, so I'm rulling out the other ways in which she might have been hurt that would not leave marks visible on a clothed body (yes, my mind went there, thanks to Killgrave and Jessica).

 

Those who feel cheated that Jemma's story was reduced to a typical damsel in distress kind - I'm hoping she'll have a large part to play in the next episode, with Secret Warriors storming the castle and her trying to figure out how to help Fitz and keep the portal open.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

When Fitz said he couldn't lose Gemma again, it reminded me of The Princess Bride which made me go awwwww.

 

Stupid Wo Fat (sorry, he will always be Wo Fat to me.)

Hee, whenever I see Mark D, I remember him yelling, "ALLEZ CUISINE!" on Iron Chef America.

[Ottis]

I knew that they were going to kidnap Fitz and Simmons.

 

 

That's pretty much Step 1 in the Hydra Bwahaha Manual. In fact, at this point they should just put tracking devices on Fitz and Simmons and assign a retrieval team 24/7.

[KirkB]

The way Simmons was screaming, she should have been much more bruised and bloody than she was. Busted lip. Bruising. Torn out fingernails or something. In fact I'll bet if you showed that episode to someone who has never seen the show and doesn't know the characters they would probably think Simmons was actually pretending to be tortured (just getting slapped to make it convincing) and was in fact one of the bad guys.

 

And yes, I imagine Fitz really was planning to save Will, for Simmons' sake, before Hydra came along. Now that he is going back for them I think he might be ready to trap himself and Will over there rather than let the monster lose.

[Ariah]

The way Simmons was screaming, she should have been much more bruised and bloody than she was. Busted lip. Bruising. Torn out fingernails or something. In fact I'll bet if you showed that episode to someone who has never seen the show and doesn't know the characters they would probably think Simmons was actually pretending to be tortured (just getting slapped to make it convincing) and was in fact one of the bad guys.

 

THAT would have been a twist...

 

(It's a pity they didn't introduce an Inhuman whose touch could cause enormous pain - that would explain the screams and "beauty is never tranished" look)

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

Agents Of SHIELD Goes Off The Map
Some of the season's unbreakable rules get broken on the way to some unexpected cliffhangers.

[SongbirdHollow]

I think Ward is a good villain in that he legit scares the crap out of me. That kind of coldness is chilling (pun intended). I can't really think of too many bad guys that frighten me in that way.

When Jemma asked him at the portal, "What are you doing?" And he replied "Leading" the look on his face was perfect, like he knew he was an idiot to listen to Malick but for some reason he agreed to go anyway. He looked embarrassed.

And yes, the scene with Jemma and Fitz was all kinds of Empire Strikes Back.

[paigow]

And if they want to keep Brett Dalton around after this entity story, they could have the entity expunged from Ward's body but leave him as an amnesiac blank slate.

Next year the show can be renamed: Marvel's Blindspot of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Curly Bill Tolliver" needs to die by the hand of Coulson.

[Jack Kerouac]

That's pretty much Step 1 in the Hydra Bwahaha Manual. In fact, at this point they should just put tracking devices on Fitz and Simmons and assign a retrieval team 24/7.

 

Heh. The FitzSimmons Retrieval Extraction Divison, or FRED.

[Cthulhudrew]

The amount of "Ward was really just protecting FitzSimmons this episode" I saw on other board made me utterly sick.

 

It's scary how people (misguided young women?) perceive a villainous behaviour if the perpetrator is attractive.

 

Not just misguided young women, for sure. Men (boys) do it all the time, too.

 

On another note, was glad to see Mack as the (temporary) #1 guy, though I wish he'd been a bit more proactive. His first move as acting Director- better call Coulson to see what we should do. At least when he went to May it seemed a little more like getting a second opinion on a decision he'd already more or less decided to make rather than asking for permission.

 

This show needs more Mack. He and Bobbi are the most professional and effective agents on the show. I say we ditch Hunter in the spinoff and make it Bobbi and Mack. Mack and Mock? M&M? Mackingbird?

Edited December 3, 2015 by Cthulhudrew

[OtterMommy]

I finally got the chance to watch this episode last night and I can't add much else to what has already been said except that I was surprised, happily so, with Mack's temporary promotion.  I know it isn't permanent, that Coulson will be back at the helm soon, but I actually think he is a far better fit for the job than Coulson.  It isn't that I dislike Coulson, because I do like him, but he has just never seemed like the "guy in charge" to me.  Mack, at least in this particular situation, is not emotionally involved and has always seemed to keep his cool under pressure.  

 

Also, I have to jump on the "time to kill Ward" bandwagon.  I haven't thought he was a badly done villain--he's a hell of a lot better than the villains on some other shows that I watch--but it is rare that you have a villain that you can keep going indefinitely.  Now that we know that his weakness is ("he cares too much...."), it's really time for him to begin his destructive descent.

Edited December 3, 2015 by OtterMommy

[sinkwriter]

I don't see the show as giving away Jemma's storyline to the guys. I think they're still telling the story and it's not done yet (for Jemma or anyone else involved). The stranger thing (to me, anyway) is Jemma's 180 turnaround from obsessing night and day about getting Will back to repeatedly arguing against it. I know she's a scientist so she's rational, and I know she probably weighs the one-for-the-many arguments, but when she came back she was torn apart about leaving Will behind. Why would she stop feeling that way? Why wouldn't she work to find a solution that would allow for both options (destroying the evil and bringing Will back)? I still have to wonder if Will IS (or has become in her absence) the evil, and that's how Jemma and Fitz will finally get together (because there is no true Will remaining for her to be with). Which would be sad, really, because I don't want them to get together because there's no other options. I want them to get together because they both want to. Otherwise, I like them as best friends. 

 

I didn't see any option for them to have a deep heart-to-heart chat or strategy session before Fitz went into the pit. They were surrounded by Hydra soldiers and Ward and Powers Boothe, all of whom could probably hear anything they said. And they were trying not to give up all info to the bad guys. So the "come back to me, but not with that monster" was pretty much the only kind of talk they could have. 

[sinkwriter]

Ward needs to die a very slow and painful death. I can see why they chose to get rid of Roz, Banks and the other group (Hydra and SHIELD are plenty without introducing yet another bureaucratic secret military government organization), but ... what a WASTE of a good female character. Roz was complicated. I liked the burgeoning relationship she had with Coulson and how we wouldn't have always known if we could trust her because she's very good at dodging his comments and questions. Plus, she's good at firing back at him when he's being an ass. I liked that they're on a level playing ground as characters. They've both been duped by people they've worked with and trusted, she's not his daughter-figure (Daisy), she doesn't work for him (like May and the rest of the characters), she doesn't have to do anything he says. And I really liked how the eye-roll and "oh please" look she gave him when he got upset that she was going back to work in her organization and blurted out, "But I can't protect you there!" She was still a strong, confident woman who felt that even though she'd been caught off guard, she still had opportunities to do her work. I was really starting to like her. So of course the writers had to kill her.  *grumble grumble*

[Fogh]

The stranger thing (to me, anyway) is Jemma's 180 turnaround from obsessing night and day about getting Will back to repeatedly arguing against it. I know she's a scientist so she's rational, and I know she probably weighs the one-for-the-many arguments, but when she came back she was torn apart about leaving Will behind. Why would she stop feeling that way? Why wouldn't she work to find a solution that would allow for both options (destroying the evil and bringing Will back)? I still have to wonder if Will IS (or has become in her absence) the evil, and that's how Jemma and Fitz will finally get together (because there is no true Will remaining for her to be with). Which would be sad, really, because I don't want them to get together because there's no other options. I want them to get together because they both want to. Otherwise, I like them as best friends.

 

I don't think I could ever want them as just best friends simply because of what they have put Fitz through heartbreak-wise.

 

Jemma is still torn up by the fact that Will is on that planet. She said so in this episode but she isn't willing to try and get him back if it means an ancient evil they know nothing about could come back to Earth. The risk for her is too big. She even told Fitz he should let them kill her.

 

When she came back and was torn about leaving Will there and wanted to save him, she didn't have all this new information. She new there was something there and they probably still discussed the risks but as far as she knew the Evil couldn't go through the portal. It didn't seem like it tried last time but rather tried to stop her and Will from leaving.

 

I also really don't want Fitz to be the default option. I want her to choose him. Anything but that isn't payoff. That's ruining the ship.

[sinkwriter]

 

I also really don't want Fitz to be the default option. I want her to choose him. Anything but that isn't payoff. That's ruining the ship.

 

I really, really do want her to choose him.

[sinkwriter]

 

And that line by Daisy about Ward feeling too much was just all kinds of wrong.

 

I believe my immediate response to that Daisy comment was, "Oh, fuck you for that. BULLSHIT."  LOL.  And then it was followed by, "Do not even TRY to redeem him now. He's done. I know you writers may think it will be the greatest feat ever to somehow make us feel for him again somewhere along the way of this series, but... don't do it. It's bullshit. He does NOT feel too much. He's a psychopath."

I'm also confused by Ward's brother being alive. I guess I misunderstood that whole backstory because I was under the impression that -- along with the highly dysfunctional abusive family element -- another part of what made Ward snap (and fall prey to someone like Bill Paxton's character) is that he killed his brother. I thought we were shown that the poor kid was not only pushed into that well but Ward turned away and left him there and it looked like the kid was about to drown or something. Or am I remembering incorrectly? I admit, it's been a while since I've seen those earlier series episodes.

Edited December 3, 2015 by sinkwriter

[Crim]

A lot of stuff happened that was probably very interesting and emotional and good stuff, but when I realized time will be spent talking about Ward, I said to myself "A Ward-centric episode. Oh well." and couldn't care less about anything anymore.

 

I'll be watching the next episode because it's the last for now, but I'm most probably done with the show. It's been fun coming back to it and, as someone who quit in early season 1, I'm glad I did give it another chance. And who knows, maybe Ward will die in the next episode and all will be well.

[blackwing]

Hee, whenever I see Mark D, I remember him yelling, "ALLEZ CUISINE!" on Iron Chef America.

I think a lot of my loathing for Mark DaCaca stems from my dislike of him on Iron Chef.  The buggy eyes, the quick head snaps, the glaring, the karate chop, the excessive cheesiness. When he went over to Hawaii Five-0 all I could see was "the Chairman" and it hasn't stopped to this day.  He is a terrible actor.

[Ariah]

I think a lot of my loathing for Mark DaCaca stems from my dislike of him on Iron Chef.  The buggy eyes, the quick head snaps, the glaring, the karate chop, the excessive cheesiness. When he went over to Hawaii Five-0 all I could see was "the Chairman" and it hasn't stopped to this day.  He is a terrible actor.

Ah, you see, my experience with DaCascos has been vastly different - I first saw him in Crying Freeman and appreciated the physique. Then, in French Brotherhood of the Wolves, he played a Native American ninja warrior... Or something to the extent. I remember him from those kick-ass roles and realy enjoyed him then.

 

Actually, I find him pretty underused here, as a telekinetic with hands-off approach.

 

(And I still don't understand what he did with the hammer and the plumber wrench, because the use of such heavy tools should do more damage than a slight cut... Unless we'll see heavy bruises on Jemma's abdomen next episode.)

[TVSpectator]

The way Simmons was screaming, she should have been much more bruised and bloody than she was. Busted lip. Bruising. Torn out fingernails or something. In fact I'll bet if you showed that episode to someone who has never seen the show and doesn't know the characters they would probably think Simmons was actually pretending to be tortured (just getting slapped to make it convincing) and was in fact one of the bad guys.

 

And yes, I imagine Fitz really was planning to save Will, for Simmons' sake, before Hydra came along. Now that he is going back for them I think he might be ready to trap himself and Will over there rather than let the monster lose.

 

 

You know when they showed the hammer and the large pliers being lifted out of the tool box, and once we heard Jemma's screams, I was shocked to see that she only has a cut on her face. I mean it was implied that a hammer was used on her, but where is the bruising? I wonder if they broke her arm(s)?

[Traveller519]

I chose to believe that Wo Fat used his telekinesis to inflict internal damage on Simmons organs. hence the lack of physical injuries.

 

The "tools" were just for visual effect.

[TVSpectator]

I chose to believe that Wo Fat used his telekinesis to inflict internal damage on Simmons organs. hence the lack of physical injuries.

 

The "tools" were just for visual effect.

 

Maybe the tortured was more psychological?

[Traveller519]

Maybe the tortured was more psychological?

He Floated a naked pasty hydra goon, who had just eaten the Taco bell menu, around her head.

[TVSpectator]

He Floated a naked pasty hydra goon, who had just eaten the Taco bell menu, around her head.

 

Yeah, I think Jemma doesn't like junk food. 

[Bisquit]

 

Ah, you see, my experience with DaCascos has been vastly different - I first saw him in Crying Freeman and appreciated the physique. Then, in French Brotherhood of the Wolves, he played a Native American ninja warrior...

 

  I liked him in Brotherhood of the Wolves, too.  And I thought he did a very good job in, The Crow: Stairway To Heaven, a tv series based on the original Crow movie with Brandon Lee.  In fact, I was very impressed with how close I thought DaCascos came to capturing both the look and essence, I guess, of Brandon's portrayal of that character.

 

 

[silverstream]

During Fitz' first session with Ward, was anybody else thinking Simmons' screams were actually from a recording? Part of me honestly expected for them to cut to Simmons' cell and have somebody play recordings of Fitz' screams there in order to get to her the same way. After all, it is a common fiction staple that hearing somebody you care about be tortured is harder than being tortured yourself, so it would have made sense to me for them to try to use that tactic on both. (Honestly, with the way Simmons barely looked roughed up at the end, I'd still believe it if Malick hadn't confirmed they actually hurt her. IIRC, Fitz didn't even ask her if she was alright!)

 

Also - I can't help thinking that this 'monster at the other end of the wormhole' has been on that other planet for thousands of years now and is nothing but a legend on Earth. For all we (or Hydra) know, it could actually be a cuddly teddy bear, and the fog of insanity is just something it has set up on its planet to keep those pesky Hydra-humans out that keep popping up in its home. (It's not like word-of-mouth ever distorts anything over a long period of time - especially since most of the members of Hydra don't seem to know what Hydra is actually for anyway... After all, until Simmons returned, nobody had ever come back, so as far as Hydra knew the doorway could have led directly into the vacuum of space and killed everybody they ever sent through immediately.) Not that I really believe it, but wouldn't it be great for Hydra to get to the monster and discover it's basically the Marshmallow Man :P?

 

But for real, why would the monster, whatever it is, care about Hydra or even work for them? I mean, it's been on that planet for centuries and we're led to believe the portal opens quite regularly, so it could probably have come back if it wanted to.

 

As far as body-hopping goes - count me to the crowd that believes the monster is going to body-hop into Fitz, if that is its thing.

[kieyra]

Quick meta question: is the term "fridge" for the plot-mandated death of a female character specifically from Arrow or does it have an older provenance? I've only seen it used there (and the character who I won't name was specifically put in a fridge, so I assumed that was the origin). Did it jump here from Arrow or is there some other source?

[TVSpectator]

Also - I can't help thinking that this 'monster at the other end of the wormhole' has been on that other planet for thousands of years now and is nothing but a legend on Earth. For all we (or Hydra) know, it could actually be a cuddly teddy bear, and the fog of insanity is just something it has set up on its planet to keep those pesky Hydra-humans out that keep popping up in its home. (It's not like word-of-mouth ever distorts anything over a long period of time - especially since most of the members of Hydra don't seem to know what Hydra is actually for anyway... After all, until Simmons returned, nobody had ever come back, so as far as Hydra knew the doorway could have led directly into the vacuum of space and killed everybody they ever sent through immediately.) Not that I really believe it, but wouldn't it be great for Hydra to get to the monster and discover it's basically the Marshmallow Man :P?

 

But for real, why would the monster, whatever it is, care about Hydra or even work for them? I mean, it's been on that planet for centuries and we're led to believe the portal opens quite regularly, so it could probably have come back if it wanted to.

 

As far as body-hopping goes - count me to the crowd that believes the monster is going to body-hop into Fitz, if that is its thing.

 

IMO, that is the thing that is bugging me about what is IT. For all we know IT could be just Ego, Rocket, or Death walking around or IT could be Thane or the Unspoken One (although, I don't think that they will be IT). They stated that It is/was a powerful Inhuman that was born on Earth thousands of years ago, but how the hell did IT survive to the present (unless there is some kind of supernatural aspect to the planet that wasn't even mentioned, but it's unlikely they will go there with this storyline). Also, does anyone really think that Gideon really thinks that IT will just reward them when IT comes over (at least Ward had a look on his face like, "I am an ass to go to here, but it looks like I am doing it anyway...." 

 

IMO, I think it would make more sense if Gideon's version of Hydra was just a bunch of Satanists who controls the portal. Or they could've just made the Monolith not  connected to Hydra at all and instead go with another group, like Leviathan.

Quick meta question: is the term "fridge" for the plot-mandated death of a female character specifically from Arrow or does it have an older provenance? I've only seen it used there (and the character who I won't name was specifically put in a fridge, so I assumed that was the origin). Did it jump here from Arrow or is there some other source?

 

The term comes from the trope by the same name:

 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge

[KirkB]

Hydra, or the people who became Hydra anyway, seem to believe IT is a powerful Inhuman who will serve their purposes. I'm not sure it matters if they believe it is a god or simply a tool they can manipulate, they want it. Honestly, most of them seem to be delusional egotists. Red Skull, Pierce, Garrett, they were all under the impression they were the baddest and the best and that everything else existed to serve them or else be destroyed. So naturally Gideon assumes the Inhuman will be on his side. Even if, no, especially if, it IS a powerful and evil Inhuman, the first thing it is likely to do if it does get back to Earth is eat him and go out for a night on the town.

 

I half expected Fitz to give Hydra all the information he had (which really boils down to Daisy zapped the rock and I tied a rope around my waist) only for Ward to saunter into the room with a recording of someone screaming and Simmons right beside him, tied up but fine. Instead she was actually tortured, I guess, only the Inhuman seemed to get a lot of pain out of one little cut.

 

The first place I ever saw Dacascos was the Crow show too. I remember really liking it.

[Cthulhudrew]

I've been ready for them to end the Ward story for quite a while now, but I have to admit, his performance on this week's episode was the best (and scariest) he's had in... I can't think how long. Possibly since the end of season 1?

 

I've always wished they'd have done something different than what they are with him; rather than have him come after SHIELD trying to destroy everyone, stalk Skye, pretend he still cares about FitzSimmons, etc., why not have him just work for whomever the new "Big Bad" of the season is as the SHIELD profiler? The guy with an intimate knowledge of our plucky heroes, who can help the villains stay one step ahead because he knows every move they are going to make before they do? 

Edited December 4, 2015 by Cthulhudrew

[Fogh]

I half expected Fitz to give Hydra all the information he had (which really boils down to Daisy zapped the rock and I tied a rope around my waist)

 

I've seen many comments like these ever since 3x08 and they inspired me to come up with a theory on the history of the monolith from 1839 in Gloucestershire to now. I did so because the information Fitz and Simmons had, that was so valuable to HYDRA, was WHERE the portal opens on the other planet. Simmons figured it out on the planet and together they wrote a program to calculate it (they say so in the warehouse scene where Banks is killed).

 

So we know HYDRA has been trying to bring back in the Inhuman. By that logic they most have figured out that it was a portal of sorts. Their method in the beginning was simply to send people through. They also must have figured out the pattern since they send the guy into the monolith chamber just before it liquefies.

 

In 3x02 we saw there were holes in the monolith which means they probably expanded their strategy from just sending people through to perform science experiments on smaller samples in order to get more information. Some people have stated there were up to 12 holes so I'm going with that.

 

At some point when technology got more advanced, one experiment yielded a surprising result. At a certain frequency the miniliths liquefies. This is where they must have figured out that the liquefied state can only be maintained for a certain amount of time. The monolith were destroyed after period of time when they got Simmons back. We also saw Malik close the portal in 3x09. Malik said 5 miniliths were given to powerful HYDRA leaders so it stands to reason they lost 7 of them - most likely to experimentation. 

 

Then they built the chamber in order to open the portal manually. I assume they send some sort of probes through, maybe even people (but only for a brief period because otherwise the monolith would be destroyed). They probably kept sending people through to get the Inhuman, closed the portal and when the opened it again a day later, no one came through. Most likely because they were either dead or the portal had moved. We know where the portal opens depends on the position of the moons.

 

This leads us to NASA or HYDRA within NASA. They used the pretense of a mission to a foreign planet (unless NASA was totally unaware of the mission) to send scientists and Will through, presumably to figure out where the portal opens on the planet. The mission failed, the scientists died, HYDRA lost the monolith to SHIELD and divided up the remaining miniliths. They did try to get the monolith back when they attacked the helicarrier with the monolith in the cargo hold.

 

When the team opened the portal using the room in 3x02, they shot a flare through. This allowed Simmons to go to that location. Minutes later the opened it again with the help of Daisy's powers. Even in that time the portal probably moved location on the planet, but not far so they were able to locate each other in the sandstorm.

 

So to sum up. The portal can only stay open for a brief period of time. The portal on the planet changes location. FitzSimmons figured out the pattern and wrote a program that can determine where a portal opens at any time which was the missing part of the puzzle HYDRA needed to send a "rescue" mission through.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Fogh

[xqueenfrostine]

So to sum up. The portal can only stay open for a brief period of time. The portal on the planet changes location. FitzSimmons figured out the pattern and wrote a program that can determine where a portal opens at any time which was the missing part of the puzzle HYDRA needed to send a "rescue" mission through.

 

That's definitely more or less what I've been assuming since Simmons came back.  Knowing how the portal moves is crucial to being able to return to Earth, because the planet is too large* for flares to be a reliable way of showing where a portal is open at any given moment.  The only reason the flair worked for Jemma was because she and Will had traveled to one of the planet's poles to witness the sunrise (and had purposely chosen a spot on high ground to give them maximum visibility!), and that just happened to be near where the portal opened up. 

 

*We don't know the exact size of the planet obviously , but it's big enough that Will estimated that it would take 40 hours for the two of them to hike from their base camp to the location Jemma predicted for the portal.  Even if they were walking slowly over rough terrain, that suggests that the distance between them and their predicted portal was much greater than the distance that a flare can be seen under good conditions.

[jhlipton]

Next year the show can be renamed: Marvel's Blindspot of S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

Appropriate since both shows had a character shot through a window that the character had no reason to be facing.  

[Happywatcher]

 

*We don't know the exact size of the planet obviously , but it's big enough that Will estimated that it would take 40 hours for the two of them to hike from their base camp to the location Jemma predicted for the portal.  Even if they were walking slowly over rough terrain, that suggests that the distance between them and their predicted portal was much greater than the distance that a flare can be seen under good conditions.

Both entities have large resources. Use a 155mm Illumination round, they light up a whole grid square and hang 1,500 feet up in normal firing. The new guns can be helo lifted, so suspending them from a crane is no problem.

[Fogh]

*We don't know the exact size of the planet obviously , but it's big enough that Will estimated that it would take 40 hours for the two of them to hike from their base camp to the location Jemma predicted for the portal.  Even if they were walking slowly over rough terrain, that suggests that the distance between them and their predicted portal was much greater than the distance that a flare can be seen under good conditions.

 

What does the distance traveled to one portal have to do with distance traveled to another? It's not the same location.

[xqueenfrostine]

Both entities have large resources. Use a 155mm Illumination round, they light up a whole grid square and hang 1,500 feet up in normal firing. The new guns can be helo lifted, so suspending them from a crane is no problem.

What good would a crane do if they aren't able to hold open a portal for very long? Especially when there's no means of predicting what kind of terrain a portal will open onto? And the 1500 ft of an illumination round sounds impressive, but the blue planet has rugged terrain. If you're shooting the round up from a portal that has opened up on low ground, surrounded by tall hills, it might not be visible from even a few miles away.

Plus flares of all sorts are useful on earth because the persons shooting them have time to wait for the people who see them to travel to meet them. That's a less practical proposition when your current location is only good for a short window of time and the people coming to meet you have to travel on foot. Because what good is a flare that can be spotted from tens of miles away, if there's no way the people who see it can run that distance before the portal is long gone?

My point was flares worked in Simmons's rescue largely do to a lucky set of conditions. If she had been even a mile further than she had been from the portal when the flare was shot, she probably never would have reached Fitz in time. You'd have to be a fool to not have a better plan that relying on flares to lead people home a second time, because that's a risky plan. That's why being able to predict a portal's movements is so important.

What does the distance traveled to one portal have to do with distance traveled to another? It's not the same location.

I wasn't suggesting that they'd be in the same locations. I was pointing out that given that the planet seems to be of a decent size (an assertion I based on the distance Jemma and Will travelled in 4,722 hours), if a Hydra team needed to spend more than a day on the planet, the portal might move far away enough from their point of entry that visible cues like a flare could be useless in marking a portal's location unless they know roughly where to look. I know Hydra's current mission is only meant to be 12 hours, but there's a good chance that they might need more time than that to complete their mission or that they could be forced to stay longer because conditions on the planet could make them miss their scheduled extraction portal. Edited December 6, 2015 by xqueenfrostine

[Happywatcher]

I have my fingers crossed that Fitz says something like "Oh, we need a lot of luck and rope from the other side to get back. I didn't ask for rope. We are going to die here. Torturing Simmons not so fun now, huh?"

Edited December 7, 2015 by Happywatcher

[Ariah]

About those 12 hours - I was wondering why didn't Malick tell Simmons and Fitz that if the team Hydra is not back on time, if Fitz fails to lead them to the extraction spot, Simmons dies. Perhaps it happened off-screen. But that's a pretty good leverage. Maybe Ward will bring that up on the planet, when he notices Fitz is stalling.

 

I wonder about the miniliths - we only saw one time someone got back through the portal - and it exploded. Perhaps it's the way it should work? At first I thought it was because of Daisy's powers and being open too long. But what if it's another layer of the security system? It lets objects through, but self-destructs so that the knowledge gained is useless.

 

Naturally, those who made the great monolith did not account for Hydra people cutting the miniliths out. 

[KirkB]

I suppose it depends. If the alien planet is being used as some sort of prison, then the monoliths would reasonably be easy to open from this side but hard to get back through. There is always a chance someone on the other side could be near the door when it opens so possibly the monoliths are rigged to self destruct in the event someone comes back through. But that raises a couple of questions for me. Why would you have the door to your prison periodically open at all, even if it is semi-inaccessible on the other side? And if the big bad is so dangerous they exiled it to another planet, why do they keep the only things that can release it around? Why not destroy the monoliths so there is no possibility of Mr. Evil escaping?

Edited December 7, 2015 by KirkB

[Ariah]

I suppose it depends. If the alien planet is being used as some sort of prison, then the monoliths would reasonably be easy to open from this side but hard to get back through. There is always a chance someone on the other side could be near the door when it opens so possibly the monoliths are rigged to self destruct in the event someone comes back through. But that raises a couple of questions for me. Why would you have the door to your prison periodically open at all, even if it is semi-inaccessible on the other side? And if the big bad is so dangerous they exiled it to another planet, why do they keep the only things that can release it around? Why not destroy the monoliths so there is no possibility of Mr. Evil escaping?

 

Perhaps it's also a type of punishment - to have a possible exit / escape route, but only as a tease. Like Sisyphos and his stone, a door that closes anytime you're near it.

[Sakura12]

Jemma's done nothing since coming back from the planet. The second she got back her story was handed off to Fitz to be her savior. He was the one doing the research on Will and the monolith, he's the one that got all the books, he's the one that got to explain the secret Hydra symbol hidden in the NASA logo, he's even the one that still wanted to save Will when Jemma changed her mind and he's the one that got to go to the planet to save Jemma. While Jemma spent her time moping around in her PJ's over missing her space boyfriend, then being confused with her feelings for two men, she did hold up under torture but poor Fitz couldn't take her screams and needed to save her.  I do love that Fitz having to save Jemma is romantic but Will doing it takes away her agency. To a non shipper they are exactly the same. They better have saved something awesome for Jemma to do in the finale. 

[Fogh]

Jemma's done nothing since coming back from the planet. The second she got back her story was handed off to Fitz to be her savior. He was the one doing the research on Will and the monolith, he's the one that got all the books, he's the one that got to explain the secret Hydra symbol hidden in the NASA logo, he's even the one that still wanted to save Will when Jemma changed her mind and he's the one that got to go to the planet to save Jemma. While Jemma spent her time moping around in her PJ's over missing her space boyfriend, then being confused with her feelings for two men, she did hold up under torture but poor Fitz couldn't take her screams and needed to save her.  I do love that Fitz having to save Jemma is romantic but Will doing it takes away her agency. To a non shipper they are exactly the same. They better have saved something awesome for Jemma to do in the finale. 

 

Jemma has a whole episode dedicated to her so yeah she didn't have as many scenes as Fitz or others in the following few episodes but she was very much a part of the story line. Fitz is running the simulations and taking lead in the research because a) he is the one that has done 6 months of research on it b) Jemma is still getting acclimated. She helped in the research with the books. She found out that Will was sacrificed and that it went back centuries. She is also the one that found the missing link albeit by accident and it was her that presented their findings to the others. This story is very much also for the romantic entanglements and if you don't like that then I can't help you there. Also I don't think Fitz getting to go though the portal should be seen as a price - would you rather she didn't hold up under torture and went instead or they tortured Fitz and she folded? She believes in the greater god and isn't driven by her emotions like Fitz. The way it happened is true to the characters. That is important to note.

[kieyra]

I was fine with Gemma taking a minute after her ordeal, yeah. That means other characters do the heavy lifting for a bit. It's ok. Everyone gets to rescue everyone.

[Jeezaloo]

but poor Fitz couldn't take her screams and needed to save her.

How simply awful of him! 

[Sakura12]

Didn't say it was. Just said it was about Fitz manpain instead of being Jemma's story. 

 

I would've rather it was Jemma that said she'd go back on her own terms. She knows the planet she could've used it to her advantage. She knows where the hiding spots are. She could've drawn the creature out to take care of Hydra soldiers, then ran off leaving Ward on his own.  She could've even gone to find the weapons that were laying around to defend herself.

 

It would've been smarter to take someone that's actually been on the planet. Fitz knows nothing about the planet other than what Jemma told him. And from the sneak peak

he didn't believe her about the creature that was there with her.

But then we couldn't have another grand heroic gesture by a man to save the woman. How many of those is Fitz going to do? This is his third by my count and Jemma's still unsure about her feelings. That's probably a sign. 

[Jack Kerouac]

Didn't say it was. Just said it was about Fitz manpain instead of being Jemma's story. 

 

The term 'manpain' is simply sexist. Why is it that male characters cannot experience pain without it being denigrated? Why does it have to be ridiculed in a sexist way when female character pain is not?

[Ariah]

The term 'manpain' is simply sexist. Why is it that male characters cannot experience pain without it being denigrated? Why does it have to be ridiculed in a sexist way when female character pain is not?

Recent online reaction to mid-season finale of Once Upon a Time made me think female pain (fem-pain?) is also looked down upon, so it all depends on fanbase...

 

I don't understand it either, it's like the fact of even showing weakness makes a person... unworthy? I don't know. I like my characters human and this means flawed. I like them being torn emotionally, being weak and rising up to the task. Making mistakes. I don't care if they're male, female or any other designation.

 

I think Jemma was shown as the stronger of the pair and I don't see how Fitz's choice lessens her sacrifice.They both chose what's best - Jemma chose the world and Fitz chose Jemma. Fitz is the romantic lead in this pairing.

[Sakura12]

I don't use the term "manpain" to say men can't feel emotion. For me Manpain is when a woman or even another man are killed or tortured to give the man, pain to have to deal with. Killing Roz was for Coulson to go all ragey, Simmons storyline was pushed aside for Fitz to be the hero. That's manpain, it has nothing to do with the man being emotional. 

Edited December 8, 2015 by Sakura12

[romantic idiot]

I suppose it depends. If the alien planet is being used as some sort of prison, then the monoliths would reasonably be easy to open from this side but hard to get back through. There is always a chance someone on the other side could be near the door when it opens so possibly the monoliths are rigged to self destruct in the event someone comes back through. But that raises a couple of questions for me. Why would you have the door to your prison periodically open at all, even if it is semi-inaccessible on the other side? And if the big bad is so dangerous they exiled it to another planet, why do they keep the only things that can release it around? Why not destroy the monoliths so there is no possibility of Mr. Evil escaping?

 

Maybe it wasn't meant to be just for the one guy. The monolith was introduced as a weapon against inhuman. So it is supposed to open and take more people in. Presumably to be eaten by the big bad. And for all we know it was surrounded by more security so that even if someone stumbled back they wouldn't get far?