Warning: spoilers ahead for Avengers: Infinity War AND Episode 20 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5, called "The One Who Will Save Us All." If you're not up on the events of the movie or the show and do not want to be spoiled, you may want to check out some of our other articles. Otherwise, proceed!
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been connected from the very beginning thanks to Coulson as the leading man, and the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier more or less blew up the show's entire premise with the reveal that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been infiltrated by Hydra. Connections between the movies and the show have been somewhat less direct in subsequent years, but the MCU pulled out all the stops for Avengers: Infinity War to the point that S.H.I.E.L.D. could have entered the fray.
The threat Thanos posed to everything meant that just about everybody had to pull together to try and protect the Infinity Stones. Naturally, Marvel fans wondered if Quake of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would have a part to play, as she would surely want to lend her formidable powers to fighting Thanos. Daisy did not appear as Quake in Infinity War, and the latest episode of S.H.I.E.L.D. revealed why.
In "The One Who Will Save Us All," Coulson and Talbot (who recently transformed into Graviton after absorbing a whole lot of gravitonium) travelled up to Qovas' ship using Talbot's new powers. It quickly became clear that gaining superpowers via gravitonium knocked Talbot thoroughly off his rocker, and he has basically become a madman drunk on his own overwhelming power. He demanded an audience with The Confederacy to tell them to leave Earth alone. One of the members just so happened to go by the name Kasius, and it was his son who nearly destroyed the agents during their time in the future. He warned that Thanos and his forces were coming to Earth while they were speaking, and Earth was doomed to fall, even if Talbot went down to join the Avengers in the fight. Meanwhile, May and Daisy were on their way into space to rescue Coulson and Talbot, and it was this rescue mission that would result in Daisy's absence from Infinity War.
General Hale, who was also on board the alien ship, turned on Coulson to try and ingratiate herself with the increasingly crazy Talbot, and Talbot decided that the arrival of the S.H.I.E.L.D. ship meant that Coulson betrayed him. Daisy and May's rescue mission failed, and the episode ended with Coulson and May as prisoners of war and Daisy knocked out in the clutches of Kasius. As if that wasn't already enough to knock Quake out of the fight against Thanos, Kasius had this to say while gazing creepily down at poor unconscious Daisy:
The Earth is no longer a hidden blue gem. It belongs to another now. And yet it still has gifts to give. I look forward to taking mine home.
Yes, Kasius has his hands on Daisy and intends to take her with him far from Earth. She has big problems of her own without worrying about trying to help in the battle against Thanos. "The One Who Will Save Us All" seemed to be taking place during the main action of Infinity War, as we saw one character commenting on what was happening "in New York" in the previous episode. Daisy was out of commission with no way to use her Quake powers to assist the Avengers. Of course, anybody who has seen Infinity War likely knows that even Daisy at full power wouldn't have been able to do what the rest of the Avengers as a team couldn't do. Still, the episode explains why she wasn't even on hand to try. If only she was just hanging out with Hawkeye and Ant-Man somewhere!
In fact, the reality that Daisy, Coulson, and May are the three members of S.H.I.E.L.D. to be captured in space may be what keeps the rest of the characters out of the larger Infinity War fight. These three are the leaders of the team, and the characters left behind have a lot on their plates in the Lighthouse without considering what might be going on outside. They have the destruction of the world to worry about; surely they wouldn't expect that the universe would simultaneously be in danger because of Thanos!
We'll have to wait and see what other ways Avengers: Infinity War will connect to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. One star recently revealed that more references to Infinity War are in store for S.H.I.E.L.D., and the end of the movie should mean that the team suffers some significant losses before the season comes to a close. Does Infinity War mean that we can probably stop worrying about the destruction of the world unless S.H.I.E.L.D. splits off into its own universe? Yes. But it also means that the stakes are as high as ever for Daisy and Co., and it's difficult to say what will happen next.
Tune in to ABC on Fridays at 9 p.m. ET to see what's in store next on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Be sure to take a look at the other important superhero TV dates in the coming months, and check out our summer TV premiere guide for what you can watch once S.H.I.E.L.D. comes to an end for the season. Finally, please join me in crossing my fingers that S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't get cancelled.
