If you’ve seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier then you know that it has massive implications for the future of Marvel’s television show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Actually, that’s kind of an understatement. The truth is, after watching Cap 2 it’s not clear how Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. can even continue to exist as a television show.
Last week’s episode, the aptly titled “The End of the Beginning” hinted at the turmoil to come but Captain America 2 takes that turmoil to an entirely different level. So how will the show cope? Uprising! Everything's going to pieces, according to the show's next episode promo...
Chaos reigns and while it's not clear how this will play out in the format of the series, this new clip from the next Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode (titled “Turn, Turn, Turn”) offers some clues as to how this will affect Coulson's friends…
Will Bill Paxton survive? Will any of them survive? If they do, it’ll have to be as something completely different from what they were before. Here’s another clip from the upcoming Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode. This one picks up right where the last episode left off, with Coulson threatening to shoot May for what seems like an unbelievable betrayal…
That clip makes it seem like the plane is taking them for a visit to Director Fury at S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ but…
SPOILERS FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER FOLLOW…
…if you’ve seen Captain America 2 then that’s pretty likely. S.H.I.E.L.D., whether Coulson and his Agents on the bus know it or now, doesn’t exist anymore. They’re going to need new instructions, a new mission, a new mandate. Fury’s just the man to give it to them.
At the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Fury burned the remnants of his former life and set out to start anew. To do that he’ll need to reconnect with his most loyal and trusted friends. Coulson would definitely be at the top of that list. It would make sense for the TV show to give us a Nick Fury cameo now, it’s the only way to make sense of the mess created by Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Speaking of Hydra, that’s the logical enemy for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to target now. At the end of Captain America 2, S.H.I.E.L.D. is destroyed but remnants of Hydra, pockets of it, exist still all over the world. It’s easy to imagine Fury sending Coulson and his team to root out those last remaining pockets of Hydra resistance.
They may have to change the name of the show though. They aren’t Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., not anymore. Eventually Marvel may introduce a new organization to replace S.H.I.E.L.D., but that’s unlikely to happen until Avengers 2. Till then the TV show is likely to be left in a sort of limbo. Former Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t exactly the best sort of title.
Making sense of the Marvel universe in light of the absolute havoc wreaked by Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a puzzle. One which it's going to take time to solve. Maybe that explains this new Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. poster...
UPDATE: Find out what the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. creators had to say about the changes ahead HERE!
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns to television next Tuesday with “Turn, Turn, Turn” at 8pm on ABC.
