Thread:Marvelus/@comment-27496405-20190519011243/@comment-3164086-20190519190805

Longtime lurker here, pretty invested into the MCU and particularly continuity and timeline stuff. I though I'd jump in on the discussion with my 2 cents about where AoS S6 is in the timeline.

So, the announcement by the showrunners that basically amounted to "haHA nope we ain't following the films anymore and we're not even gonna offer an explanation why!" honestly really infuriated me. You can't create a connected universe that's really closely woven and then just. . . not do that all of the sudden.

Then I got thinking, specifically about the end of S5. Conventional wisdom dictates that S5 takes place directly before Infinity War for two reasons, yes? Tony Caine asks Daisy "Have you seen all this weird stuff happening in New York?" and many characters discuss Thanos' impending arrival on Earth. Plus, as I recall, Word of God was that the show's ending few episodes took place more or less concurrent to the movie. However, the beginning of S6 really just drives at the idea that we're pre-Snap. As pointed out previously, the chance that EVERY character would have survived is incredibly small, and even if they ALL survived the Snap, there's no way nobody would be talking about it. I know the Agents have been through a lot, but half the world disappearing? Nobody's prepared for that emotionally.

The last direct point of contact between AoS and the main MCU timeline, as I recall, was the integration of the Sokovia Accords back in S3, so in 2016. S4 takes place a few months later after Daisy has been on the run as Quake, and then all of S5 happens after that, with S6 set a year later. Forgive me for not recalling the exact amount of time elapsed during each season, but is it possible that we truly are still pre-Snap in AoS?

Think about it - could S4 take place largely in late summer of 2016? (a few months after the Sokovia Accords) S5 picks up directly afterwards and half of it takes place in the future, so what if the Agents returned not long after they left, placing them in early 2017? The only problem with this I can think of is that Fitz was detained for a few months, but if it was only, like, 2 months, then early 2017 still works. Then S5's second half takes place in early 2017, and that bounces us to a year later in early 2018 for S6, which is still pre-Snap.

Of course, that still leaves the references to IW at the end of AoS S5 hanging, but "weird stuff in New York" could be a lot of different things, including the events of any of the Netflix shows. Thanos was a cosmically known, very dangerous entity. Given that it was established that the Confederacy was really just trying to take advantage of HYDRA, perhaps their hand-wringing of "Thanos is on his way!" was really just sensational to make the humans afraid and more likely to comply, and Thanos, in reality, was still a good ways off from coming to Earth.

I'm pretty prepared for you fine people to come back with a couple good reasons this doesn't work, so I'm partially posting this hypothetical just so that I can know why it doesn't work. In conclusion, if it's not too much trouble, let me know the ways in which I'm wrong, you all are awesome for the continuity work you do in this universe, and it's really, really disappointing and honestly a little gross that the showrunners of AoS have basically said "do the work for us.

- Master Tej -