Season 5 of ABC’s Marvel TV spinoff Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has focused on Phil Coulson and his team attempting to avert the prophesied destruction of the Earth. The exact reason why this happens at some point in the future has been a mystery all season, but the latest installment finally revealed the full story. And it turns out it all ties into Avengers: Infinity War.
Episode 20, titled “The One To Save Us All,” featured a scene in which the villainous Glenn Talbot, who Marvel fans will know as comic book antagonist Graviton, learned exactly who’s behind the Earth’s doom from the Kree warrior Taryan. In case you missed it, it’s Thanos, the purple alien overlord who’s currently tearing his way through the MCU on the big screen.
Here’s how the illuminating dialogue exchange played out:
Taryan: Thanos, and his forces, have begun an assault on your world even as we speak.
Talbot: Well then, I’ve got to get down there with the Avengers and take on this Thanos.
Taryan: Thanos’ strength is unrivaled you will lose even with your powerful friends fighting alongside you. Though perhaps there might still be a way.
Of course, this isn’t the first time that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has referenced Infinity War this season. Last episode featured an oblique nod to the movie with a line that mentioned some “weird stuff” going down in New York, AKA Thanos’ Q-Ship landing in the Big Apple. That reference was so vague though that we didn’t expect something as major as the Mad Titan’s attack to be revealed as the show’s own apocalypse. World-ending events are pretty common in the MCU, after all.
Seeing as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has gone this far, we wonder whether it’ll tackle what happens during the shocking conclusion of Infinity War, too. This reference has confirmed that the movie’s climactic showdown in Wakanda, which ended up having universal ramifications, is about to happen soon, so it’ll be interesting to see if any surprising character exits occur in the season finale in a couple of weeks’ time.