This week’s Agents of SHIELD was a huge one, as we finally found out exactly what happened to Simmons via an entire episode focused on her six months trapped on that other planet. [I also happened to think it was a truly excellent episode - you can read my review here .]

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By the end of the hour, we’d learned about the bond, romance included, that Simmons had formed with the one person she met there – fellow earthling Will (Dillon Casey), and Fitz had agreed to help go back to the planet to rescue Will, even though his very existence was obviously a heartbreaker for Simmons’ long-smitten friend and confidant.I spoke to Henstridge about the experience of making “4,722 Hours”, what this all means for “Fitz-Simmons” fans, and how the two will be impacted by all that’s happened, as they attempt to return to the other planet.

I was incredibly flattered. When they first told me, I thought, "There's no way this is going to end up happening." I thought "Amazing idea. Super cool. I'm so honored to have been challenged with this, but somewhere along the line it's not going to get approved, because it's such a crazy thing to do." It was very different and you're asking a lot... How do you make the story interesting with just one and two characters? I kept thinking, even the day before I was thinking, "I'm going to get a phone call and they’re going to be like, 'Well, we've added these new scenes with other people in it' and I just never got the call and all of the sudden we're on set and it was... It's great!That was my first reaction and my second one was, 'Oh my gosh, how are FitzSimmons fans going to react?!" I'm still kind of worried about that. I think it makes for good drama, definitely, but it's something that, you know, I took to heart and definetely, I tried to portray that this is something that... I tried to make it as plausible [as I could] and that it's not like she's a floozy and I think that will come across, but my reaction was, "Oh my gosh, that's so cool!" And my second was, "What about Fitz?! How are we going to make this okay?" We figure it out.Right, exactly! [Laughs]I think that there are definite distractions. There's a lot going on with the ATCU, but I think the major distraction is that they're both focused on this mission but there's so much conflict between them. It's so complicated that I think that is going to be their main distraction. They’re trying to complete this task together, but Simmons is holding a lot of guilt for leaving Will behind. She doesn't even know that he's alive and the fact that she's asking Fitz to do something that is so difficult for him... So this is going to be the main focus, but I think the road to them trying to achieve it is kind of paved with distress and emotional minefields.

Agents of SHIELD: "4,722 Hours" Images Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: "4,722 Hours" Photos 11 IMAGES

Honestly, we moved so quickly that it was a lot based on instinct. You do a huge amount of work with the script before and then once we were on set, it was just, "Go, go go." We moved so quickly through the whole thing. We gave times to moments that needed it but it was a baptism of fire for him, for sure. But yeah, it was a brilliant challenge to have and I felt like we're so lucky we got to explore so many different types of scenes together.

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman , IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at Facebook.com/TheEricGoldman