Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Season 5 Finale Totally Ignored Avengers: Infinity War

Season 5 of ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has mostly focused on Phil Coulson and his crew trying to stop the prophesied destruction of the Earth. Which, it turned out, all tied into Avengers: Infinity War. Kind of.

Episode 20, titled “The One To Save Us All,” featured a scene in which the villainous Glenn Talbot, who fans will know as comic book antagonist Graviton, discovered who’s behind the Earth’s doom from the Kree warrior Taryan. In case you missed it, it was Thanos. Yes, the same Mad Titan who’s currently tearing his way through the MCU on the big screen.

Here’s how the illuminating dialogue exchange played out:

Taryan: Thanos, and his forces, have begun an assault on your world even as we speak.

Talbot: Well then, I’ve got to get down there with the Avengers and take on this Thanos.

Taryan: Thanos’ strength is unrivaled you will lose even with your powerful friends fighting alongside you. Though perhaps there might still be a way.

After this happened, some fans expected there to be a bit more crossover between the two in tonight’s season finale, but as it turns out, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pretty much ignored the events of Infinity War. As Screen Rant explains, the show side-stepped the fallout from Joe and Anthony Russo’s recent blockbuster, with the aforementioned exchange really being as far as the connections between the two go. Meaning that the ramifications of Thanos’ snap weren’t seen in ABC’s series.

“It seems like our finale ended pre-snap,” star Clark Gregg told IGN the other day, while executive producer Jed Whedon explained the following to EW in a separate interview:

“Given that there’s another movie coming out, and there’s gonna be constant repercussions of their universe, so what we felt was that the safe play for our story, and for the integrity of our universe, was to operate outside of it.”

Frankly, that’s not too surprising – and was probably the right decision – and given that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. won’t be returning for its next season until after Avengers 4, it likely won’t ever have to deal with what the Mad Titan did. After all, we’re assuming that everything will be put back to normal after Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ next big screen outing – whether it be via time travel or something else.