Before Avengers: Endgame was released, the writers of Agents of SHIELD already knew how to use time travel in the show's final season. The Marvel TV era has finally come to an end with its inaugural series wrapping up after seven seasons. Mimicking the Joe and Anthony Russo-directed movie from 2019, the show also incorporated traveling through time in their last narrative. That doesn't mean, however, that they simply copied it as they actually thought about their rules of the concept before Endgame hit theaters.

After the heroes' devastating loss to Thanos at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, they had to travel back in time to collect all six Infinity Stones and use them to snap back those who were affected by the decimation. The film's time travel rules are a bit confusing as it states that changing something in the past doesn't undo the history that follows it. As the Ancient One explains to Smart Hulk, it instead, creates a brand new timeline.

Related: Agents of SHIELD’s Future: Season 8 & MCU Possibilities

Agents of SHIELD's time travel played by the same rules, and while season 7 rolled out after Endgame hit theaters, co-creator Jed Whedon revealed that they already had the idea prior to the Infinity Saga capper releasing. Speaking with The Wrap on the heels of the show's finale, he also explained that while subscribing to the same guideline, they didn't want it to look like they're just doing what they did on the big screen.

“When we first started talking about it, it was before ‘Endgame’ had been released. We knew that there were certain things we could not do… It’s one universe and we tried to be true to it.”

“We didn’t want to play the same game that they were going to play,”

In Agents of SHIELD's final season premiere, Phil Coulson, Quake, and the rest of their team - minus Fitz - find themselves in the middle of the Great Depression in 1931. Their mission was to stop the villainous Chronicoms' attempt to keep Dr. Abraham Erskine from acquiring a valuable ingredient for the Super Soldier serum which would've resulted in the Super Soldier project never existing. Their initial idea was that the SHIELD agents had to keep the timeline intact so as not to change the future. It was only later on that it was revealed that any significant alterations in the timeline they're existing in didn't mess up the future. Instead, it created a splintered reality - just as how things should work based on the Ancient One's explanation.

While the connection between Agents of SHIELD and the bigger MCU has become fickle through time, playing by the same time travel rules is a nice reminder that they're supposedly linked together. Now, with the concept further established in the universe, it's curious if it will continue to be a recurring theme for the franchise moving forward, or it's only saved for culminating events such as Avengers: Endgame and the final season of the ABC /Marvel show.

More: Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Ending Explained (& What Happens Next)

Source: The Wrap