indigo sunrise

A simple pair of scissors would've been enough to keep his beard looking the way it does, and the fitness isn't weird to me either - especially when you know you're on a planet with something dangerous, you want to keep yourself in shape in case you need to run/fight for your life. And especially if you're on your own for 14 years, there's not much to do anyway so I definitely buy that working out would've been part of his daily routine.

But I also thought it was weird how young he looked. The actor is 31. Either there was an explanation about that that got cut (like a lot of things apparently...) or there really were some inconsistencies in this ep on purpose.

Raonaild

Or, they went with a younger actor so that the relationship with Simmons was plausible and they didn't have an obvious, awkward age gap, while still trying to give the character an interesting back story that fit the AoS timeline.

On intentional inconsistencies, if they went that route, it could be that something else took the form of the original astronaut who arrived there 14 years earlier, without accounting for changes in look due to age.

indigo sunrise

If they were concerned about having him be the right age for her, they could've made it that he'd been on that planet maybe 8 years. As soon as they said 14 years, I kind of went wait, how old are you even? Even if he's playing a bit older than he is, say he's supposed to be 35, 21 is still very young for an astronaut to be sent out on such a huge mission... He did mention that they trained for years

My gut feeling is that there's definitely something off about him and that things won't turn out to be exactly as we've seen now, but since we don't have anything really substantial to back that up yet, it's hard to really speculate about it...

Butterfly85

I don't see Simmons being pregnant so I don't think think people have to worry about that.

Raonaild

Another thought on Fitz helping Jemma rescue this guy: besides the fact that Fitz doesn't really have the option of refusing to help Jemma, he happens to have pretty painful and personal experience with what she's going through, having spent those 6+ months going crazy trying to save her while not being sure if she was alive or dead. I don't think he'd wish that experience on anyone, especially not her.

gingerly

This episode definitely needed a rewatch for me to fully take it in, but I am just so happy to finally see what this show is capable of doing when it deviates from the norm. It may be premature to say it's the show's best so far, but this episode somehow got better on the second watch and that usually doesn't happen with episodes of this show I particularly like.

Overall it was paced brilliantly, but the only problem I had was that things felt a bit rushed after Will and Simmons hooked up. There's obviously a longer cut of the episode somewhere, but I think they really needed the extra air time to flesh out those last 10 minutes.

I really enjoyed Will and Simmons' dynamic, the chemistry was there and the relationship evolved understandably and it didn't feel forced to me. Sure it was predictable, but it was written so well it didn't bother me.

I do, however, agree with those thinking it's a bit jarring to see her somewhat happy and at peace with Will, then thinking to her state when she was back on Earth - even though I'm sure most of it was from the shock of being back on Earth and guilt over leaving Will behind. It's also difficult to justify why she didn't tell anyone about Will, other than it serving the purpose of stretching out the mystery as long as possible.

ETA: Reading through this reddit discussion. Some interesting explanations on her state in the previous episodes!

That was my first thought - that a scene or dialogue had been cut along the way. They had made such a point of her setting it down and putting it on later in the episode.

There is a point in the episode where you see him trimming his beard with scissors (I think), actually. And I'm sure he managed to fit some working out time into those 14 years. ^_^

franklin200

The age thing seems strange to me too.

I agree that I think not everything is at it seems. My first thought was that he could be like Jiaying who doesn't age but fed off others, that's why everyone else that came through the portal is dead.

Jiaying also seemed to be a good person at first before she was revealed to be a villain. Will could turn out to be a bad guy.

Jaimegirl

All right, y'all have logic-ed away my objections to the neatly trimmed beard and overall muscle tone.

I do hope the non-aging is addressed in some way as well. Something as simple as "time passes differently on this planet" would be fine with me, though I do like the theory that ALL IS NOT NECESSARILY WHAT IT SEEMS.

KeepThisaSecret

I think it'll be that the aging process is different on that planet. It seems the only logical explanation. I don't want to think there's something shady going on with him. After all they'll probably end up saving him, and what if he's a bad guy NOPE!

Raonaild

Despite a whole ep spent on the planet, we were left with more questions than answers about the malevolent evil that was the big threat there. At some point, those questions will be answered. I suspect that when they go back to rescue Will, they'll end up bringing that evil back through the portal to earth. Whether it comes through the portal in Will's form (and whether the evil has been using Will's form all along, or whether Will lost his fight with it when Simmons went back with Fitz), or whether it tags along when they rescue Will, I don't know, but you don't create a mysterious all-powerful evil force like that and not use it.

Fogh

An observation.

About 3600 hours into Jemma's time on the planet she lost hope when the hole closed. That is about 5 months.

Was it about 5 months in Fitz is banging on the monolith?

If so we assume that it wasn't because of Daisy but part of it's "schedule" then that could have been the same wormhole Gemma saw.

Right when she lost hope, he still had and chose not to give up. So heartbreaking!

Raonaild

Fitz hitting the monolith at the end of ep 1 led straight into ep 2, and triggered a chain of events that lead to them bringing her back by the end of the ep. Everything happened pretty fast through the ep, between flying between continents and tracking the Professor down, maybe at most a few days passed.

But it was also implied in ep 3x01 that the portal hadn't opened since Jemma was taken. I thought that was why Fitz was yelling at it to 'do something'. So maybe they meant for that opening to be the same one that almost sucked Fitz through, but if they did I don't think it really matches with how things played out.

Wild Pikachu

Okay, I've read Elizabeth's interview with EW, but still, here's an idea: what if there is no Will? What if she imagined the whole thing? Maybe she stumbled across the cave full of old NASA equipment and just dreamed up a living companion. Or maybe whatever force is on the planet manipulated her mind for some reason.

Raonaild

I'm not convinced the writers will do this, but I think it's a valid theory. I actually kind of expected something like that would happen in this ep before ever seeing it, that whatever that something was that was hunting Jemma was messing with her mind. And I think it may still happen, there were some things about the ep that support that theory. But if that is what happened, it seems it will be a while before that particular plot twist is revealed.

And I'd take anything one of the actors says about the show with a grain of salt - the writers purposely do not tell the actors what's happening next, all they usually know about is everything up to the ep that they're currently shooting. If such a twist is in the works, it might be far enough out that Elizabeth has no idea because she hasn't seen the script yet. That way, she can play Simmons totally convinced that everything about her time with Will was real.

I mean, that could be the creature's plan, right? Convince Simmons that there's this guy Will back on the planet that she has to save, so that she will be motivated to reopen the portal quickly and let the creature through.

JJM_7

Excellent episode, Elizabeth was amazing. I love Jemma and I'm so glad we got to see much more of her personality than we've seen before.

I thought her relationship with Will was really well written, despite being a little clichéd. And Elizabeth and Dillon Casey (the actor playing Will) had some really good romantic chemistry, IMO. Iain and Elizabeth have amazing chemistry as BFFs, but I've never felt any romantic/sexual chemistry between them. Well, I definitely felt it between Jemma and Will. So kudos to the actors.

Their connection felt very organic to me, which is why I'm hoping Will is exactly what we saw: A poor guy that got stranded on an alien planet and ended up fighting for his survival, only to come across an angel in the form of an adorable british scientist who gave him hope while he helped her as well during a very tough situation.

Jemma's been through so much already, that I really don't want the guy she formed such a strong connection with and who she wants to go back for to end up being "evil" or a product of her imagination or anything crazy like that. She deserves better than that.

Last but not least, what I liked the most about this episode is that it was ALL Jemma. Even though they gave her a love interest, he was there to serve HER storyline, not the other way around. That to me is important, cause Jemma has been relegated as a character many times before. Not in this episode, though. Thank God. And like I said, Elizabeth killed it.