Agents Of SHIELD Renewed For Sixth Season

The Agents of SHIELD live on.

While Marvel's Inhumans will forever remain a one-season wonder, ABC has renewed Marvel's Agents of SHIELD for a sixth season on the network, according to a report by Variety. 

As opposed to the prior five seasons, which all received 22-episode season orders, the sixth season of the show will have 13 episodes. 

The renewal order comes as the series is preparing for its fifth season finale, titled "The End". It was previously reported by Entertainment Weekly that the series' creative team was writing the fifth season's ending episode as though it was a series finale. Clearly, even the writers weren't anticipating the renewal, which seems to have come as a surprise to just about everyone.

Agents of SHIELD has spent its fifth season pushing the storytelling boundaries of its universe, travelling through both outer space and time. Intriguingly, the ending episodes of the season have narratively dovetailed with the events of Avengers: Infinity War in a way that's become rare for Marvel's television shows. 

According to TVLine, the series will return in summer 2019, after the release of Marvel Studios' untitled fourth Avengers movie on May 3. In the meantime, series star Clark Gregg will return to the movie side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2019 with a supporting role in the 1990s-set Captain Marvel.

In addition to Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson, Agents of SHIELD stars Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons, and Natalia Cordova-Buckley. 

Agents of SHIELD's fifth season finale will air on Friday, May 18 on ABC. An exact return date has not yet been announced.