Does ‘Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Tie Into ‘Avengers: Endgame’?

Spoilers for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s Season 6 premiere, “Missing Pieces” past this point.

No, is the answer to the question you’re looking for: the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 premiere, “Missing Pieces,” does not tie into Avengers: Endgame in any way. It also doesn’t address the events of Avengers: Infinity War, or even, I don’t know, Ant-Man and the Wasp. In fact, it goes out of its way to not tie into any established parts of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) other than the ongoing continuity of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The thing that’s confusing about the lack of movie ties is that the last season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. led right into the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War. Though the characters from the TV show never interacted with the movie characters, it supposedly took place the same time as Thanos’ (Josh Brolin) forces were invading Earth in the movie. The end of that movie featured an event called The Snap, a.k.a. The Decimation, which eliminated half the sentient life in the universe.

S.H.I.E.L.D. picks up right around the time the last season ended, before jumping ahead a year later… And everyone who was still alive on the S.H.I.E.L.D. team is still around. Half the Avengers? Gone. The world? Ruined. S.H.I.E.L.D.? Up and running and doing fine, business as usual. Half of them are in space searching for Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), who froze himself in order to travel to the future and… You know what, it doesn’t matter. Point is, he’s lost in space due to his spaceship getting cut in half as the episode opens. Meanwhile, on Earth the team is dealing with a bunch of weird anomalies traveling from (maybe) an alternate timeline, led by what looks like an evil version of Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), sadly without a classic alternate timeline villain goatee.

While the Avengers fly into space to kill Thanos, and the world falls into Snapture related chaos, there’s nary an impact on the team, now led by Mack (Henry Simmons). And you know what? That’s just fine. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has repeatedly tied itself into knots trying to link up with the Marvel movies, and it usually runs headfirst into a wall. The first season spun its wheels until Captain America: The Winter Soldier came out in theaters, and every season hence has moved further and further from the movies. Despite last season technically tying into Infinity War, it was the best season of the show so far mainly because it took half the year and thrust the team far into the future, where they couldn’t tie into anything.

This season, that separation seems to be by design. While movie maestro Kevin Feige is building his own TV empire over on Disney+ with big screen characters, Jeph Loeb’s Marvel TV has, and I mean this in the best way, sort of stopped caring.

“Someone will figure it out,” Loeb told reporters about the convoluted timeline. “For us, it really just comes from a place of just enjoy the show.”

In case you are wondering about the timeline, this mostly takes place after the beginning of Endgame (post killing 2018-era Thanos), and before the end of Endgame (the final battle, which takes place in 2023). Which means the S.H.I.E.L.D. premiere takes place roughly now-ish, in 2019. Will the series at some point reference that there are half the people on Earth, and significantly less birds and dogs? Maybe. But unless there’s a time jump, we won’t see S.H.I.E.L.D. enter a post-Endgame world (i.e., when Spider-Man: Far From Home takes place) until a hypothetical Season 10. For now, it takes place in its own bubble, without the Avengers, without any of the snapped heroes… And that’s just fine.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Fridays at 8/7c.

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