Relationship Spotlight: Jemma Simmons & Leo Fitz (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

No post yesterday - shameful of me, I know.  Have two tonight.

Although Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has gotten palpably better as time has gone by – season 1’s post-Captain America:  The Winter Soldier episodes were a big improvement on what came before them, and it’s been decidedly cooler this season – it’s still not everything I hoped it would be (either as an Avengers satellite or a Whedon-adjacent property.)  Given the pedigree involved, this show could have been one of my favorite things ever, but as it is, it’s only a reasonably enjoyable piece of genre TV with a comic-book bent.  However, one place where the show has delivered on almost every level is with the team’s resident nerd duo FitzSimmons.

 

Bio-chemist Simmons and tech expert Fitz have gone through the S.H.I.E.L.D. ranks together.  When they’re introduced as the lab geeks in Coulson’s team of agents, they’re both brilliant but green, untested in the field.  They’re also nigh inseparable – everyone discusses them as a unit and refers to them by a portmanteau.  The two smartest people in any room, they’re on the same finishing-each-other’s-technobabble wavelength in almost every aspect of their work.  The instant one has a spark of inspiration, the other will be snapping their fingers in epiphany, and before anyone else even knows what’s happening, both are off and running to scan, analyze, or invent.  They share the same utter delight in science.  Both live to ask questions and solve problems, and they squee ecstatically over things that no one else can wrap their heads around.  

 

That was a paragraph composed entirely of plural verbs, which should give you an idea of how in sync they are.  Don’t think, though, that they’re essentially the same person split into two.  Simmons is much more of a risk-taker than Fitz; while she’s eager to spread her wings, he’d be content to stay in the lab.  But of course, side by side is how they roll, so he faces up to his discomfort and follows her into the fray.  Likewise, they’re both rather awkward, but his expresses itself in nervous verbal fumbling whereas she’s maybe-tries-a-bit-too-hard bubbly.  These differences allow the two to have a nice give-and-take between Simmons’s need to expand her horizons and Fitz’s desire for safety and consistency.

 

Though I obviously love FitzSimmons together (or I wouldn’t be writing about them,) I like that season 2 has placed them more in different spheres.  Not only does the divide allow them more dramatic material when they are together, but it’s also very valuable in defining each character separately.  Now that I think about it, it’s a lot like Poussey and Taystee on Orange is the New Black, who are developed apart in season 2 after being joined at the hip in season 1.  The circumstances of the separation are wildly different in each case, but as with Orange is the New Black, it seems to be facilitating a richer narrative here and better chances for the actors to shine.

 

(Warning:  this last paragraph contains some spoilers.)  I said above that FitzSimmons deliver on almost every level, and while I was starting to see hints of it late last season, it was still disappointing to have Fitz declaring his love for Simmons.  Oh so many reasons – 1) why do the most important relationships so often have to involve romance? 2) since Simmons hasn’t given any indication of returning his feelings, I’m not sure how well they’ll be able to weather it, and perhaps most significantly, 3) I love their scenes together, but if they were best friends, work partners, and lovers, I think they’d fall into this FitzSimmons vortex where they’d pretty much only interact and have plots with each other, and I like both of them with the rest of the team too much to want that.