Note: This article contains some spoilers for Avengers: Endgame.

Marvel may seem like the king of continuity with their expertly planned Cinematic Universe, but the TV side of things are run by a totally different group of people who are doing their own thing while having to dance around the decisions made by the movie guys.

Essentially, what that means is that Marvel's Agents of SHIELD won't be addressing the events of Avengers: Endgame, because the show's writers and producers didn't know what was going on.

agents of shield
Kelsey McNeal//ABC

Related: Agents of SHIELD reveals new look at Clark Gregg's brand new character

As reported by TheWrap, season six looks like it's ignoring the Thanos Snap that wiped out half of existence, with TV boss Jeph Loeb saying: "It’s just the safest way for us to do things...

"We don't want to ever do something in our show which contradicts what's happening in the movies. The movies are the lead dog. They're setting the timeline for the MCU and what's going on. Our job is to navigate within that world.

"The only way for us to tell our story is to do them pre-snap. Whether or not you can figure out [how the timeline works], we'll let timelords figure out."

Clark Gregg in Agents of SHIELD
ABC

Fellow showrunner Jed Whedon also added that while they knew some of Endgame's plot, a lack of certainty over SHIELD's premiere date meant they couldn't have incorporated it in anyway.

"If they moved us up by two months and we based our show on [Endgame's] storyline, then all of a sudden we'd burn down a huge story point for them," Whedon explained. "So we had to dodge all of that."

The duo also admitted that while they have "a logic in our head that makes sense" with regards to their own timeline, they would prefer the audience to put the continuity threads aside and "enjoy the ride".

preview for Marvel's Agents of SHIELD – Official season 6 trailer (ABC)

"We certainly don’t want to burden the audience of telling them all that," Whedon added. “We just want them to enjoy the ride and let the couch discussions be about that."

Our first look at a post-Endgame MCU, in which half the universe popped back into existence after five years to find their friends and family had gotten older, will be in Spider-Man: Far From Home.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD will return on May 10 to ABC in the US and on E4 in the UK.


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Joe Anderton

Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer and resident Welsh person at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. 

In his time he's covered a host of live events, interviewed celebrities big and small and crowbarred a countless amount of great/awful (delete as appropriate) puns into articles. 

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