ABC/Kelsey McNealHear that sound? That's the sound of a million "shippers'" hearts breaking after watching the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season two premiere.
Before the episode even aired, we all knew that Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) would have some sort of lasting physical and mental effects after drowning in the season one finale, but we were absolutely not prepared for the gut punch that came near the end of the premiere on Tuesday night.
Not only is the brilliant Fitz having trouble expressing his thoughts and talking to others, but he's also hallucinating Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), who had to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. because she feared her presence was only making Fitz worse. That's right...FitzSimmons is no more.
In between our sobs, we spoke with the Caestecker, Henstridge, and the rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. cast after watching the premiere to find out what's coming next for our favorite agents (and Hydra mole) this season.
The end of FitzSimmons? Nooo!
Even though Fitz still thinks Simmons is right beside him (and is hallucinating entire conversations and meaningful hand touches with him), since she's actually away doing her own thing, Henstridge said that means the duo formerly known as FitzSimmons will need to learn who they are as Fitz and Simmons, separate entities.
"Their relationship has to be reborn in a way now because they are emotionally and physically scarred from that life-threatening situation they were in," Henstridge told us. "They need to repair their relationship so fans are going to finally get to see how they each develop individually. Previously they have always been a duo and always have identified themselves as that, so now they have to figure out where they are in that relationship and what that brings into other relationships they might form. Fans are going to get to see them as individuals this season."
And as for Fitz's diminished mental capabilities, Caestecker did his homework to properly portray what Fitz's drowning would do to him in real life.
"I had a great chat with the writers and they did a lot of research on it," Caestecker said. "I did a little bit as well, looked up stuff on it. It's something that has really affected people in real life so there's a good deal of responsibility towards it. That spoke to me."
Marvel's head of television, Jeph Loeb, confirmed that Fitz's struggles are realistic.
"Obviously [Fitz] had a very traumatic end to last season thanks to Ward and this is not just made up," Loeb said. "The writers spent a lot of time researching what happens after you've been deprived of oxygen for a while and where that goes."
Prepare yourselves, because even if Fitz does end up getting better, it won't be for a long time. "It's really sad," Chloe Bennet added. "When I watched the episode, I cried."
Yeah, us too!
Skye's daddy issues
How amazing was it to see how badass newly-promoted Agent Skye has gotten? Bennet said she couldn't be happier to see how mature her onscreen counterpart is this season.
"It's really just the bangs," Bennet joked. "It's really weird to see the pilot and then 201 since Skye is just completely different. She's gone from this hippie living in her van going up against S.H.I.E.L.D. and everything it stands for and now she's a full-blown S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, dropping from the ceiling in the beginning of the episode. And I feel like I've grown with Skye."
But season two won't be an easy ride for Skye, since her mysterious biological father (played by Kyle MacLachlan) is about to be introduced.
"I can't tell you anything!" Bennet said with a laugh when we asked about Skye's father. "Kyle's great. I've met him. And that's about it! Honestly, I don't even know anything about it either!"
S.H.I.E.L.D. showrunner Maurissa Tancharoen was able to elaborate a bit more...but only a bit.
"Coulson is essentially Skye's father so it will be interesting to see what happens when her actual father comes into play," Tancharoen teased.
Hannibal...Ward?
Perhaps one of the most shocking scenes of the night was the big reveal that Ward is being kept in the basement of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s new homebase, a prisoner of Coulson's, being used for intel Hannibal Lecter-style because he seemingly still has feelings for Skye. The Hydra mole is not in good shape, and reveals to Skye that he's tried to kill and hurt himself in the cell on more than one occassion...but that prison beard? Yeah, we ain't mad at it.
And the great news? That extremely tense and heavy conversation between Ward and Skye through his prison bars was not a one-off occurrence.
"You'll see that continue this season whether she wants it to or not," Bennet said. "You'll see that Ward's loyalties are now really only to Skye. In a weird way, it's sweet and sick and messed up because he's so deluded in his thinking."
If you ask Brett Dalton if he thinks his character is a villain, he won't give you a straight answer...because he can't.
"Ward's a wild card," Dalton said. "I think he's in captivity and when you're there, all you have is yourself. You're forced to sit there and think about what you've done. The next step in season two is to figure out who Ward is. Is he a bad guy? Is he a good guy? Is he somewhere in between? I don't think he knows, and I've never thought of him as a villain. I think he's just more of an anti-hero."
"And hey, I don't think any cell can hold him," he said with a wink.
Um, Coulson? You might want to reinforce the walls of Ward's cell. We don't like the sound of that.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.