Agents of SHIELD provided Marvel fans with 7 engaging seasons. Which seasons rank as the show’s best and which fall to the undesirable lower spots?
Agents of SHIELD started as an extension of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, although Marvel Television developed the television series for ABC, while the films were produced by the separate Marvel Studios. It was the first TV content to spawn from the incredibly popular movie franchise and was also watched by millions of fans, yet viewership eventually declined as the years went on.
Audiences were definitely interested in seeing Agents of SHIELD tie into the corresponding movies, however, that was not a sustainable practice for the show. After the initial seasons, the production crews between the two mediums were no longer synchronizing, leaving SHIELD to react to the events on the big screen. Ultimately, the series fully embraced its own characters and storytelling, and almost completely detached from the universe it was born out of.
Unfortunately, like most long-running comic book adaptation television series, Agents of SHIELD’s quality drops off toward the later years, but in contrast to some of its DC counterparts over in the Arrowverse, Agents of SHIELD does remain entertainingly watchable through to the last episode. The core cast sticks around for the majority of the show’s airing and the showrunners are able to map out a proper ending for the series.
Analyzing all seven years, our ranking starts from Agents of SHIELD’s lowest point and works up to the series’ best seasons.
7. Agents of SHIELD Season 6
At the bottom of Agents of SHIELD’s barrel is the penultimate season. It is when the show felt least like itself while attempting to hold together some semblance of the great content it has delivered in previous years.
The deaths of Fitz and Coulson are undervalued by bringing them back in a different capacity. The group rescues a Fitz that was cryogenically frozen, which is a time-traveling plot curveball that is simultaneously messy, yet not too difficult to follow. Its foremost fault is that it lessens the emotional fallout of Fitz’s passing.
Then an antagonist from a different dimension takes possession of a Coulson duplicate, allowing Clark Gregg to remain as a series regular. Sarge’s backstory is even more confusing than the show’s time-travel elements. Once Sarge is no longer a threat, a Life Model Decoy of Coulson is conveniently brought in to round out the SHIELD lineup.
Overall, Season 6 is the least memorable of all the Agents of SHIELD seasons. The primary villain is the mythological Izel, who lords over zombie alien creatures; her convoluted mission is often simplified as her quest to reclaim the monoliths. It is easy to forget that the Chronicoms were also involved and had their own reasons for setting their sights on Earth. A few redeeming Season 6 components are Joel Stoffer’s pleasantly oblivious Enoch and a hilarious guest spot by showrunner Maurissa Tancharoen as Deke’s girlfriend.
6. Agents of SHIELD Season 7
The last season of Agents of SHIELDchanges pace from the prior by going all-in on its time-traveling gimmick. The final outing had recollections of the series’ opening season by setting up more episodic adventures.
One can even claim SHIELD’s seventh season is a Legends of Tomorrow impersonation since the agents visit various time periods throughout the year. This exercise makes it possible to bring back some long-gone characters, such as Gideon Malick, Jiaying, and a young John Garrett, played by the late Bill Paxton’s son, James Paxton.
The most exciting addition to the final season is SHIELD picking up Agent Sousa in the 1950s. Enver Gjokaj portrayed Peggy’s most trusted ally on the show Agent Carter, which took place in the 1940s. This development permitted one of that series’ main characters to continue his story, while also placing him in unusual comedy-provoking scenarios. Another highlight of the season is the time-loop bottle episode, where Daisy and Coulson must race against time to escape their Groundhog’s Day situation.
And of course, with this season being the show’s last, there is a touching farewell with every major player receiving as happy an ending as possible while acknowledging their appreciation for the time that they have spent on the SHIELD team. After all the season’s plot points are neatly wrapped up, it is impossible to have watched all 136 Agents of SHIELD chapters and not be moved by Coulson and Daisy’s final exchange.
5. Agents of SHIELD Season 5
The fifth season starts out by practically renaming the show to Agents of SHIELD in Space! The team was abducted in the final seconds of the previous storyline, but not only did they wake up on a massive space station, but they also find themselves transported 70 years in the future.
It turns out the reason why they are no longer on Earth is because the planet has been destroyed. Learning that Daisy, a.k.a. Quake, a.k.a. the Destroyer of Worlds, could have been responsible is part of the fun of the Season 5 mystery.
Deke is recruited to SHIELD this season and remains on the show till the end of its run. His Star-Lord-esque, unsophisticated confidence makes him the best newcomer in years. And Sinara is one of the more ominous antagonists – she even comes with her own villainous musical score. The second half of the season grounds the members back to reality (Earth in the present-day), which can prove less stimulating, but does include Talbot’s transformation into Graviton, paying off a Gravitonium tease five years in the making.
This year also features some of the more shocking death scenes of the entire series. One of the more compelling feuds is Quake versus Sinara, which ends with the former impaling the latter with a steel pole. Jennifer Lynch directs the episode where Ruby infuses her body with Gravitonium and accidentally uses her new powers on Werner von Strucker, crushing his skull. To prevent any further damage, Yo-Yo then slices Ruby’s neck, which doubly serves as payback for Ruby violently cutting off Yo-Yo’s arms in an earlier chapter.
In the season finale, Talbot is blasted away and Fitz is mortally injured. Just moments after Fitz’s death, Coulson walks off into the sunset, preparing to succumb to his failing heart.
4. Agents of SHIELD Season 4
The fourth season of Agents of SHIELD was split into three sections, which kept viewers entertained even as the show began its descent into complacency.
The year started out on fire with the Ghost Rider arc – a major Marvel superhero that the series was lucky to land. The storyline with the Darkhold and several scientists running around as ghosts was a bit stale, but there is plenty of great Ghost Rider action, along with impressive sequences featuring Quake and May, which fans have grown accustomed to.
The middle plot details Life Model Decoys – specifically a scientist named Radcliffe’s recreation of his love, Aida. The multiple versions of Aida are scintillatingly played by Mallory Janson. All the while, the SHIELD team starts to suspect that some of their roster have been replaced by L.M.D.’s. This angle does make for suspenseful and engrossing television, while the interactions between Coulson and May progress from subtle to overt.
The rear segment temporarily re-titles the series Agents of Hydra. The agents are mentally placed in a computer “framework”, which is basically a Matrix rip-off, down to the ultimate rule of death in the Framework carries over to the real world.
Despite the derivative setup, Agents of Hydra offered some intriguing character predicaments, as well as a chance for Ward, Triplett, and Lincoln to greet dedicated fans of the show one last time. Mack grappling with losing a daughter, who died as a baby in real life, is as heartbreaking as Agents of SHIELD gets.
3. Agents of SHIELD Season 3
Season 4’s successful three-arc structure almost broke into the Top 3, but Simmons mysteriously vanishing pushes Agents of SHIELD’s third season into the upper echelons.
The plot that carries over from the Season 2 finale is a fascinating enigma. Simmons is inexplicably sucked into a monolith, leaving Fitz desperate to solve a mystifying puzzle. She is thrillingly brought back through the portal early on in the season, however, the standalone installment entitled “4,722 Hours” depicts her time on an abandoned planet, and it is one of the best Agents of SHIELD episodes in its seven-year run.
When Fitz attempts to rescue the astronaut who was stranded with Simmons on the other end of the gateway, the powerful Inhuman Hive had already taken over his body. Ward leads a Hydra unit to the planet to recruit Hive to their side. A final showdown between Coulson and Ward ends with the SHIELD leader killing the double agent that caused so much pain to Coulson’s team. But even with Ward dead, Hive possesses his body, forcing SHIELD to continue to confront a familiar face of evil.
Meanwhile, an Inhuman serial killer is on the loose back on Earth, which unexpectedly turns out to be Agent May’s ex-husband. He was accidentally exposed to a Terrigen mist causing a Jekyll and Hyde scenario, where his beastly form, Lash, is an Inhuman hunter. The dual storylines collide when Hive and Lash face off, with the latter actually saving Daisy before being killed himself. Then some flashforward misdirection caps off the season – it was foreshadowed that Daisy would be in the quinjet that blows up, but it was surprisingly Lincoln who sacrifices himself to end Hive once and for all.
2. Agents of SHIELD Season 1
The arrival of Agents of SHIELD marked the first Marvel Cinematic Universe venture into television. The series is not created by the same studio that develops the movies, although, at the time, showrunners Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen kept fans on the edge of their seat with fun connections and cool cameos, such as Maria Hill, Lady Sif, and, most importantly, Nick Fury (ten years before Samuel L. Jackson would headline his own MCU series, Secret Invasion).
If the entire Agents of SHIELD’s rookie year was as good as its latter third section, it would likely be on top of the list. But the catch-22 is that the end of the season would not have been as effective without the earlier portion playing its part.
Agents of SHIELD began as an episodic, mission-of-the-week program, that vaguely connected with the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Then Captain America: The Winter Soldier flipped the entire series on its head with perhaps the most amazing parallel narrative link between a movie and a show ever concocted.
In the movie, Hydra is shown to have been covertly working its way up the SHIELD ranks for decades. This directly impacts the agents in the series that now have to scramble out of this situation, while looking over their shoulders in case a supposed partner is actually an enemy.
Fans nervously witness their suspicions about certain characters get confirmed or contradicted. Having Ward as a Hydra spy all along was hard to see coming and he even kills Eric Koenig, ensuring there is no turning back for the daring agent who once jumped out of a plane to save Simmons. Ward was working with a “clairvoyant” overlord, who is really just another Hydra spy that uses clever methods to gather information – the smug John Garrett is sharply conveyed by Bill Paxton.
Even if the showrunners knew that Agents of SHIELD would need to distance itself from the film productions and take more of its own shape, the first season was a great experience for Marvel enthusiasts. This was the beginning of MCU-adjacent TV content and was an early taste of the high-quality series that Marvel Studios would eventually excavate on the Disney Plus platform.
1. Agents of SHIELD Season 2
There is so much mouthwatering meat to chew on in Agents of SHIELD’s sophomore outing. There is the tie-in with the Agent Carter series, with a Hayley Atwell cameo opening the season. A comic book supervillain, Absorbing Man, is adapted with both style and substance. Agents Triplett, Mack, Hunter, and Morse join the ranks; the latter is the super skillful Mockingbird, played by a stellar Adrianne Palicki. Mockingbird reverse-infiltrates Hydra, along with Simmons, carrying over the tense atmosphere from Season 1. And we can’t leave out the central mystery of Coulson unconsciously writing an alien language on walls.
Those are just the details; details that tremendously branch out from the focal Inhuman storyline. The Inhuman build-up pays off immensely in the exhilarating mid-season finale as Daisy, Raina, and Triplett enter the Terrigen chamber. Daisy’s emergence is spectacular (as the superpowered Quake), while Raina’s mutation is forebodingly presented. Meanwhile, Triplett doesn’t carry the Inhuman gene and tragically crumbles away – the entire sequence is stunning and invigoratingly sets the stage for the second half of the season.
This second season is where Skye/Daisy/Quake blooms into a full-blown superhero. There is a superbly choreographed long-take fight where Daisy takes down adversaries using all the tools in her repertoire. Chloe Bennet reportedly broke her arm filming the shot and kept working until they got the scene down perfectly. We also meet Daisy’s parents, her mother is an Inhuman leader with suspicious intentions, while her father is a mad scientist, performed by a zany Kyle MacLachlan.
The Bahrain flashback is also unveiled in a later Season 2 episode. The tale exposes how Agent May’s Calvary nickname is earned under false assumptions. Since she was solely responsible for saving many SHIELD agents, she was dubbed the Calvary, however, she regrettably had to kill an uncontrollable Inhuman girl to prevent more death.
The year ends just as eventfully as it began. Ward excruciatingly tortures Mockingbird and sets a trap for Hunter to get shot when he comes looking for her. Morse heroically moves in front of the bullet just as Hunter opens the door.
Then, the riveting fight on the ship involves two separate SHIELD divisions and various Inhumans with visually striking powers, from Gordon’s teleportation to Alisha’s duplication. And the craziest scene, by far, is when Coulson catches a Terrigen crystal, which quickly corrodes his hand, and within seconds Mack startlingly chops it off with an axe to save his life. Before we can even catch our breaths, Simmons is hauntingly dragged into the monolith.
Which Agents of SHIELD seasons or episodes are your favorite? Let us know your thoughts!