‘Agents of SHIELD’ Season Six to Take Place One Year Later

The sixth season of Agents of SHIELD might not be coming until the summer, but news about the highly-anticipated next season has been trickling in ever since the epic trailer was released last month.

In the segment "Ask Ausiello," TV Line recently shared some scoop on the Marvel Cinematic Universe's longest-running series, which revealed that the upcoming season will take place one year after the events of season five.

"Season six, premiering sometime this summer, picks up about a year after the team dropped a terminal Coulson off in Tahiti and could very aptly be subtitled 'The Search for Fitz,'" Ausiello shared.

"Jemma is 'a woman on a mission,' Elizabeth Henstridge told Matt Mitovich [Editor-in-Chief for TV Line] of her character's resolve as her cryo-frozen hubby floats around in space somewhere. But as Clark Gregg noted, 'Fitz is one elusive, sexy bastard!' Henstridge also teased — and Mitovich can confirm, having visited one of the new sets — that 'this season is a departure from other stuff we've done.'"

There could be a myriad of reasons the show has chosen to jump ahead into the future, but the most likely scenario is that they wanted to skip over The Decimation that happened in Avengers: Infinity War. There's no true way of knowing how the entire MCU will be changed after the events of Avengers: Endgame, but we suspect the series won't spend too much time on the Thanos snap since the agents have their own serious drama to tend to.

Coulson, who spent much of the fifth season as a dying man, was given a beautiful send-off in the finale. "The End" concluded with Coulson and May finally ending up together and visiting the real Tahiti at long last. Clark Gregg and the producers have confirmed that Coulson is, in fact, dead. However, the new trailer reveals that the actor is back as a "disturbing" new character.

Since we already know the season six premiere is titled "Missing Pieces," it's likely we'll start the season with Jemma's long search to find her lost husband (although, technically, the Fitz in space is not the Fitz she marries in season five). Fitz tragically died in the last season finale, but since the team broke the time loop, there is now a second Fitz, or Cryo-Fitz, who missed all of the events of season five, that is just (literally) chilling out in space.

While some fans might be stressed that certain events from season five won't be addressed with such a big time jump, most of us have faith that executive producers, Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon, know what they're doing. Time jumps have been a fun way to keep television series fresh, being used in the past by shows such as Parks and Recreation and Battlestar Galactica. The idea that this season will be a "departure" from the first five is an exciting tease that makes us ache to know what's in store for our favorite group of secret agents.

Are you excited about the Agents of SHIELD time jump? Tell us in the comments or tweet your feelings to @JamieCinematics!

Agents of SHIELD season six will air on ABC this summer.