Inside Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Big Fitz/Simmons Surprise: 'I Knew They Would Break Our Hearts'

This week on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fitz — after boldly traveling 74 years into the future — reunited with Simmons, and then some.

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Upon first laying eyes on Jemma (played by Elizabeth Henstridge), who is currently indentured as Kasius’ slave, Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) discreetly approached his love from behind to announce his presence, whisper reassurances… and then segue into a marriage proposal that perhaps no one was expecting.

Jemma, it’s me. Don’t turn around. Just play it cool…. Oh, I’ve missed you so much. I spent six months locked up in an off-the-books military prison, not to mention 80 years frozen in space, all just hoping to find you. But here you are…. You know, I realized something: the universe can’t stop us, because we have crossed galaxies, we have traveled through time, we survived the bottom of the Atlantic just so we could be together. And a love like that, that is stronger than ANY curse. You and I, we are UNSTOPPABLE together. I don’t want to live another day without you. So Jemma Simmons, will you marry me?

Sigh. The thing is, Jemma didn’t hear a single word that Fitz said while standing behind her, since her hearing as a servant was muted by Kasius. But luckily, at episode’s end — after Fitz, Daisy and Jemma worked together to interrupt Quake’s “fight to the death” and kill, maim and or escape Kasius & Co. — the star-crossed couple reunited and, in the midst of much derring-do, made things official:

I’m never leaving you again.

Then marry me, Fitz.

Absolutely.

[Cue an adorable debate over who proposed to whom first, as they lug a wounded Daisy out of the fighting arena.]

Cast member Clark Gregg, who directed the episode, almost couldn’t believe the wealth of OMG moments he was allowed to deliver unto S.H.I.E.L.D. fans.

“I said, ‘Look, just give me something big to swing at with this episode. That’s all I care about,’ and they were like, ‘OK.’ And then, oh my god, I had two giant fights, and two big proposals.”

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Fitz and Simmons popping the question to each other appealed to both the director in Gregg as well as the fanboy.

“I was excited about that because as a fan of those two, they’ve just been through so much,” he notes with a chuckle. “And they’re both such amazing actors, I just knew that even given all the weird constraints put on the first proposal, they would knock it out of the park and break out hearts. And I love that that heavy, frustrating first proposal gets followed up by the role-reversing, funnier one!”

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