Simmons May Have Found Ego On 'S.H.I.E.L.D.'

Last week, we were finally caught up on the six months Simmons spent trapped on an alien planet on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — and her "4,722 Hours" marooned on that far-off world sure covered a lot of ground. In that time, she managed to fend of death multiple times, use a souped up iPhone and broken NASA equipment to (almost) find her way home, and eventually escape with the help of Fitz — oh, and she just so happened to fall for a ruggedly handsome astronaut along the way. Though we now know all of that happened while she was gone, there is still one huge question facing this storyline: Where was Simmons?

After roughing it in the mysterious place on her lonesome, Simmons eventually met Will Daniels, and he caught her up on everything she needed to know about the planet they were trapped on together. Namely, the fact that there was a mysterious figure out on the prowl. According to Will, the unknown adversary (who he referred to as "Death") had killed off his whole crew, one by one. Simmons also found something of a graveyard, leading her to believe that "Death" had been at work for centuries (which fits in nicely with the research Fitz did on the monolith). So, just who (or what) is this "Death" character on 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? There's one particular theory that addresses the identities of both Death and the planet itself: Could Simmons and Will have been stuck on Ego the Living Planet, as suggested by The AV Club's Oliver Sava?

It sounds crazy, sure, but it does make a special kind of sense. When Will was first describing "Death" and its accompanying sandstorms to Simmons, he anthropomorphized the planet — in fact, he told her, "This planet does not have rules, it has moods." That statement's actually pretty characteristic of Marvel Comics' Ego the Living Planet, who, as pointed out by Comic Book Resources, "is a bit moody and tends to absorb unsuspecting travelers." There's also the fact that he can produce "antibodies" to fight off infection, which might be part of the explanation behind the shapeshifting hooded figure terrorizing and thwarting Will and Simmons throughout the episode.

Plus, if the planet itself was sentient, it would help explain phenomena like the widening chasm, which even Simmons struggled to find a scientific explanation for — as Will put it, "It doesn't want us to leave." After all, Ego is capable of changing his structure (he can even shape his terrain into a face, if the mood strikes him), so it's entirely possible that he purposefully changed a 30-meter canyon into a 100-meter one. This transformative ability also helps explain Will's geologist colleague's belief that the now-barren planet was once a Garden of Eden-like paradise, since Ego's been known to flip-flop between both extremes.

I could see this story going a lot of ways, but it would be so exciting if Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. brought a giant, angry, talking planet to TV. Ego is one threat that could leave even FitzSimmons stumped.

Image: Tyler Golden/ABC