Agents of SHIELD Rejects All The Simmons Season 7 Theories
The truth behind Simmons' strange behavior in Agents of SHIELD has been revealed - and it's not necessarily what people were expecting. With season 7 marking the final mission for Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, it's no surprise to see so many mysteries on the boil at once. Why did Agent May lose her emotions? Can SHIELD fix the timeline and stop the Chronicom invasion? Where is Leopold Fitz? But one of the more immediate questions Agents of SHIELD has asked since returning concerns Jemma Simmons' weird behavior.
Ever since Simmons and Enoch arrived in a time-traveling Zephyr in last season's finale, there has been something not quite right about SHIELD's resident British biochemist. Aside from a generally dissonant attitude at times, Simmons has been reluctant to explain what's really going on with the time travel plan cooked up by herself, Fitz and Enoch off-screen. In last week's episode, she also forgot Deke's nickname for Fitz altogether, and has sometimes struggled to provide the scientific explanations her position in the team demands. Many viewers were predicting that Simmons could be an LMD, a Chronicom, or a mixture of both like the new Coulson. Turns out all of those guesses were wide of the mark.
In "A Trout In The Milk," Simmons was shown clutching at a glowing implant on the back of her neck, which only added fuel to those aforementioned theories. In reality, this device is a memory inhibitor chip inserted into Simmons willingly. Deke discovers Enoch fixing the contraption and Simmons implores him not to tell the rest of the team. The chip's purpose is to ensure Fitz's whereabouts remain a secret from the Chronicons, who made extensive scans of the pair's brains back in season 6. Unfortunately, the EMP blast back in the 1950s caused Simmons' chip to malfunction, and she's been forgetting information she shouldn't, such as nicknames and scientific knowledge.
This explanation accounts for the strange red light on Simmons' neck, the random gaps in her knowledge, and possibly even her generally altered demeanor. A brain-meddling implant will inevitably take its toll, after all. At the same time, the reveal disproves the ideas that Simmons could be an LMD or a Chronicom. If either of these were true, the memory inhibitor would surely be built into the body's design, or Simmons' consciousness would simply be transferred sans the offending snippets of memory.
At this point, the existence of cyborgs among the SHIELD contingent is no big deal, so if Simmons had been unveiled as an LMD or Chronicom, viewers might've been entitled to feel a little underwhelmed. By contrast, the memory chip explanation could potentially burrow down some fascinating story paths. The implant was apparently designed to obscure Fitz's location, but what else could it force Simmons to forget? Agents of SHIELD still hasn't fully explored what happened when Enoch first rescued Fitz and Simmons from the besieged Lighthouse base in season 6, and any number of traumatic events could've occurred during that time. Perhaps Fitz has already died (again) and the chip was created to prevent Simmons going back in time to save him?
Could Simmons also have an ulterior motive for keeping the chip a secret? Jemma explains that the more people know about the chip, the more chance the Chronicoms find out about it, remove it, and then finally uncover Fitz's location. That's certainly a plausible excuse, but if Chronicoms got close enough to abduct SHIELD members, they'd surely find Gemma's device themselves before too long. It seems a little strange that Simmons would keep this from her allies when each of them already has a treasure trove of vital information the Chronicoms could harvest.
Agents of SHIELD season 7 continues with "The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and The D" July 8th on ABC.