What Avengers: Endgame Means for TV's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — As Well as One Other Marvel Series
The following contains major spoilers from the blockbuster motion picture Avengers: Endgame (as well as its Infinity War predecessor).
The events of Avengers: Endgame (in moviehouses now!) deftly reconnected the MCU with one Marvel TV series, while calling into question the film’s speculated synergy with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s imminent Season 6.
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To recap: The final four episodes of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5 aired after the release of Avengers: Infinity War, which ended with “The Snapture” aka Thanos acquiring all the Infinity Stones and using them to eliminate a full half of all life in the universe. S.H.I.E.L.D. to its credit did reference Infinity War‘s opening battle in the episode that aired April 27, when the movie came out: “Aliens, you know? Have you seen all this weird stuff happening in New York?” said Tony Caine/Candyman to Daisy.
S.H.I.E.L.D. co-showrunner Jed Whedon also confirmed for TVLine that the “last few episodes [of Season 5] take place during [Infinity War],” though by season’s end we saw on-screen no ramifications of The Snap for Coulson & Co.
When S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 was announced as a Summer 2019 premiere, many speculated that the conspicuous timing would allow Endgame to right Thanos’ epic wrong — to somehow undo the snap — before the TV series ever had to bother dealing with any of its own characters becoming dust in the wind. But as Endgame showed us, five years passed after The Snap before the Avengers were even able to attempt a fix.
As a result, even though Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 (premiering Friday, May 10) opens up “One Year Later,” that still means the characters are living in a sad, strange, post-Snap world — and, more peculiar, that none of the returning agents turned to dust. What are the odds! (Whedon did tell TVLine when we asked about Infinity War tie-ins, “It’s sort of an unspoken Marvel rule not to address time” — though he admitted to being surprised that the movies do it.)
So on the S.H.I.E.L.D. front, at least, it appears we have a disconnect from MCU continuity, even after purposely referencing Infinity War in late Season 5.
On the brighter side….
Endgame during its visit to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ circa 1970 not only showed us Hayley Atwell in new footage as Peggy Carter, it also had James D’Arcy reprising his role as Howard Stark’s manservant, Jarvis! The two-season Marvel’s Agent Carter by its very existence was a crossover from film to TV, but D’Arcy’s cameo represented a nice moment that brought things full circle (and made us miss Agent Carter all over again).
But now we can rewatch Agent Carter episodes knowing that, per Endgame‘s closing sequence, Peggy will one day meet up with an alive-and-well Steve Rogers (or at least someone who looks a lot like him).
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