Agents of SHIELD will officially end after season 7

Agents of SHIELD is coming to an end, for real this time.

It’s official – Agents of SHIELD season 7 will be the final chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first foray into television.

This news comes from Deadline in an interview with the head of Marvel TV, Jeph Loeb.

“The bitter side is nobody ever wants anything to end, but it’s going to be amazing,” Loeb said of the upcoming seventh season, which will likely air sometime in summer 2020.

Agents of SHIELD debuted in the fall of 2013, following the adventures of the newly-resurrected Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his hand-picked team of agents Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) and Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), plus the hacker Skye (Chloe Bennet).

As the series has gone on, the Inhumans were discovered, HYDRA has been defeated several times, new recruits Alphonso “Mack” MacKenzie (Henry Simmons) and Elena “Yo-Yo” Rodriguez (Natalia Cordova-Buckley) have proven valuable members of the team, and many friends have also died along the way.

Skye met her birth parents (and learned her name is Daisy Johnson), and FitzSimmons have met their adult grandson thanks to time travel. There have been many kidnapping episodes and several alternate realities thrown in, as well.

Agents of SHIELD has always been on shaky ground when it comes to renewal time but, thanks to a “small but devoted fanbase” online, especially on Twitter, the show kept rallying until season 5, which Loeb and everyone else thought was surely “The End,” even titling the episode that.

But ABC stepped in and renewed it for a sixth season, and then a surprise seventh, though the format shifted into 13 episodes during the summer instead of 22 episodes over the full show calendar.

Season 7 was agreed to only on the condition that this would be the show’s final, as Loeb explains:

"“When you know that’s what you’re doing, you can take greater risks, of life and death. Those kinds of decisions suddenly now are real on the table because you’re not playing how do we undo this when we get to the next season. You’re playing that this is going to be the end of the story.”"

Gregg has teased that he thought the seventh season would be the end, though it hadn’t been confirmed until now.

While “It’s all connected” in the MCU, this might not be the last time we see the show’s characters, as movie characters Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson), Maria Hill (Cobie Smoulders), Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and Lady Sif (Jaime Alexander) have all popped in from time to time.

“It will conclude in a way that is incredibly emotional and in the best ways,” Loeb promises. “It’s funny, it’s heartbreaking, it’s a classic.”

Agents of SHIELD spawned the rest of the TV side of the MCU, with ABC’s Agent Carter and Inhumans, Freeform’s Cloak and Dagger, Hulu’s Runaways, and Netflix’s Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders and The Punisher all following suit.

Upcoming MCU shows premiering over the next year include Hulu’s Ghost Rider and Helstrom, and Disney Plus’ WandaVision, The Falcon and Winter Soldier, Loki, and What If…?

Agents of SHIELD’s sixth season is soon to come to a close, as the team deals with an alternate timeline and the familiar face of a new foe. It airs on Friday nights at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.