Agents of SHIELD's Universe Is Crazier Than The MCU Movies

Warning: SPOILERS for Marvel's Agents of SHIELD season 7

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD is in the midst of its time-twisting final season, which is proving that the ABC Network Marvel series' seven-year run is crazier overall than the Marvel Cinematic Universe's movies. Agents of SHIELD launched during MCU Phase 2 and introduced a specialized team of operatives headed by Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). Originally interlocked with the films, Agents of SHIELD gradually grew apart from the mainline MCU but this only emboldened the series to indulge in more adventurous storytelling. Now, the lone remaining Marvel TV show's events are even more insane than the MCU movies, especially since all of it has happened to the same group of Agents.

Agents of SHIELD began as a procedural show investigating the "weird corners" of the MCU but the show's original blandness was designed to distract from the mid-season 1 twist tied to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which revealed Hydra was part of SHIELD all along. Even Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) was outed as a Hydra traitor, a betrayal that stabbed the rest of Coulson's team in the heart. As the series continued, Agents of SHIELD introduced the Inhumans, and the team's youngest recruit, Skye (Chloe Bennet), learned she's a superpowered Inhuman named Daisy Johnson.

As Quake, Daisy headed a team of Inhumans called the Secret Warriors. Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) was trapped on another planet before she was rescued, and this led to SHIELD facing Life Model Decoys of themselves and being imprisoned in a virtual reality called the Framework. In Agents of SHIELD season 5, the team went intergalactic and was hurtled 90 years into the future where the Earth was destroyed. After they fixed the timeline, Phil Coulson died (again) and was replaced by an other-dimensional doppelganger named Sarge. SHIELD then had to save the Earth from being destroyed again.

Nathaniel Malick with a captured Quake in Agents of SHIELD

Agents of SHIELD season 7 has taken the show's insanity to new heights, which is perfectly encapsulated by the events of episode 6, "Adapt or Die". After chasing alien machines called the Chronicoms through the MCU's 20th century, including stops in 1931, 1955, and 1973, the Agents landed in 1976 to stop Hydra from launching Project Insight, their diabolical plot from Captain America 2 that's now happening 40 years ahead of schedule. Simmons is struggling with an alien implant designed to suppress her memories of where her love Leopold Fitz (Iain de Caestecker) has vanished to - continuing the show's eternal rule that FitzSimmons must always be kept apart. Daisy and Agent Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj) were kidnapped by Nathaniel Malick (Thomas E. Sullivan), who stole Quake's blood and spinal fluid in an attempt to turn himself into an Inhuman, echoing what would happen to Daisy's mother Jiaying (Dichen Lachman) in the future. Incidentally, Sousa should have died in 1955 but SHIELD plucked him from the timeline to join this adventure.

Meanwhile, Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie (Henry Simmons) and Yo-Yo Rodriguez (Natalia Cordova-Buckley) tried to rescue Mack's parents in 1976, who were revealed to be Chronicoms who stole the Mackenzies' faces. Mack had to kill the androids who killed his mom and dad and he now struggles with what it all means for his own existence in the timeline. During this, Coulson, who has been resurrected as an LMD/Chronicom hybrid, died for a sixth time when he destroyed the Chronicoms' ship hidden beneath their Lighthouse headquarters. By the time, "Adapt or Die" was over, SHIELD's time ship accidentally time jumped, leaving Mack and Deke Shaw (Jeff Ward) stranded in 1982.

All of that was just in one episode of Agents of SHIELD's outrageously inventive season 7. Comparatively, the 23 MCU movies have involved aliens, magic, time-travel, and all manner of superheroes battling supervillains but those two-dozen-plus films cost hundreds of millions of dollars and involved dozens of characters in a timeframe ranging from Captain Marvel's 1995 to Avengers: Endgame's 2023. Consider, in turn, what Coulson, Daisy, FitzSimmons, Mack, Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), and Yo-Yo have lived through in just seven years; their adventures are on par with the entire span of MCU movies and they did it all on their show's relatively modest budget. Creatively, Agents of SHIELD constantly goes for broke and their side of the MCU is reliably more daring and inventive than the films. Fans can only guess what else Marvel's flagship TV show has up its sleeve to give Agents of SHIELD season 7 a slam-bang finish.

Next: Agents of SHIELD Theory: Fitz Returns To Save Marvel's Timeline