Agents of SHIELD Season Five Will Premiere Sooner Than Expected

08/06/2017 05:59 pm EDT

The long wait for Marvel's Agents of SHIELD to return won't be so long after all.

Speaking at the Television Critics Association's summer event, ABC head Channing Dungey revealed that Agents of SHIELD's fifth season will premiere late this fall.

"It's going to come on right after Inhumans," Dungey said at the Television Critics Association's press tour (via EW). "As soon as the eight episodes of Inhumans is done, then S.H.I.E.L.D. will begin."

Marvel's Inhumans will make its television premiere on Sept. 29, which means that Agents of SHIELD should return sometime in mid-November. That's later than usual, but weeks earlier than the previously announced January 2018 premiere date.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD will return with a full-size, 22-episode which should air with little or no interruption, according to ABC.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD left fans with plenty of questions in its third season finale. The episode saw SHIELD once again outlawed after an LMD impersonating Daisy Johnson tried to kill Brigadier General Glenn Talbot. While Phil Coulson and his team fully expected to be taken in, they probably weren't expecting to be placed in some kind of suspended animation and carted off by an even shadier organization.

The episode further confounded things by ending with a scene of Coulson waking up somewhere in outer space, apparently ready for a new day of work, which seems to suggest that Agents of SHIELD will go cosmic in its fifth season. A Kree sighting on the Agents of SHIELD set seems to back up that theory.

Agents of SHIELD will reach its milestone 100th episode during its fifth season. That, combined with the cosmic threat of Thanos coming to Avengers: Infinity War, could lead to a truly epic tie-in moment. Agents of SHIELD previously tied into Avengers: Age of Ultron.

In the aftermath of their journey to another planet, Director Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and the rest of the team were driven more than ever to put an end to the Hydra organization. Little did they know that they were up against the deadliest threat they've ever faced – an extremely powerful Inhuman, Hive, who was transported back from Maveth in the body of their worst enemy, Grant Ward. The team was able to thwart and kill Hive and take down Hydra, but they are all still mourning the death of fellow agent and Inhuman, Lincoln Campbell.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD was created for ABC by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen. The series is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and inspired by the global peacekeeping organization from the Marvel Comics universe created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

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