Is Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Fitz Hiding An Even Bigger Secret Than We Thought?

agents of shield season 7 fitz abc
(Image credit: ABC)

Spoilers ahead for the Season 7 premiere of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC.

The final season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. got off to a wild start with a premiere that immersed most of the heroes in 1931 to try and stop the Chronicoms from gaining a foothold, based on information from Simmons and Enoch after they travelled through time with a mission. One of the heroes was missing, however, and I don’t just mean because Coulson was replaced by an LMD and May was out of commission for most of the hour. Fitz is nowhere to be seen to preserve the secrets of his and Simmons’ plan, but I’m left wondering if there’s an even bigger secret he’s hiding, and it’s one connected to Deke.

The arrival of Simmons in the past without Fitz was somewhat surprising considering their frequent declarations that they’d never separate again if they could help it, but viewers are also probably pretty used to FitzSimmons being torn apart by this point in the series. Simmons’ stoicism indicates that this mission is something much bigger than their love story, and she doesn’t regret that they made the decision to split, even if she does miss him. Still, her stoicism despite not being able to know anything about where he is and if he’s safe is relatively new. Could this be because she left something behind with him?

Or, to be more precise, because she left someone behind with Fitz? Simmons didn’t give Daisy a straight answer about how long she and Fitz had been away before travelling back in time, but it seems to be more than just a year or two, which is definitely long enough for FitzSimmons to make Deke’s mom. Or an aunt or an uncle. I’m not picky, and things can change now that time travel is in the mix.

It would probably be safest for everybody if Simmons didn’t tell anybody about a child she and Fitz had during their absence, and I can imagine becoming parents motivating them to go their separate ways for a mission without nearly as much inner conflict as in earlier seasons. They would have somebody very important to them to protect. Besides, could S.H.I.E.L.D. really drop the bombshell that FitzSimmons have an adult grandson without giving them a kid before the end of the series?

Sure, this could amount to Simmons discovering a pregnancy before the end of the series finale, but I’m not going to rule out a secret bundle of joy, and some comments from Elizabeth Henstridge may support the theory. Speaking with Collider about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 7, the actress said this:

They will do anything and everything to be together. Where we see Simmons, at the start of Season 7, is that she doesn’t know where Fitz is. All we know is that she can’t know. So, that at least gives some sort of hope. In typical Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fashion, it doesn’t give that much hope, but it’s something. She’s grown a lot, over the seasons, from being just the geeky comic sidekick. At the end of Season 6, we saw her extremely stoic and almost void of warmth, and that’s something that we will come to find out why. Something pretty significant has happened, in however long that gap is that she was separated.

Apparently something “pretty significant” happened for Simmons prior to travelling back in time to reunite with her S.H.I.E.L.D. pals, and I for one would count “having a baby and then leaving her child and husband to try and save Earth” as significant. As somebody who has been expecting S.H.I.E.L.D. to drop a baby bombshell going back as far as Simmons throwing up after learning about her connection to Deke, I wouldn’t be surprised if they started a family during their time away. Besides, just think how smart any child of theirs would be!

Unfortunately, we can only wait and see. There is no hint of when Fitz will return to the action or even if S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 7 will spend some time with him before reuniting him with Simmons and Co. Whatever secrets he’s keeping may well remain secret until he eventually makes his Season 7 entrance, or perhaps even beyond. Life hasn’t been easy for FitzSimmons!

See what happens next in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s final season with new episodes airing Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC in the 2020 summer TV schedule.

Laura Hurley
Senior Content Producer

Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).