The fifth season of S.H.I.E.L.D. ended with what most fans agreed would make a fitting series finale, but ABC made the surprise decision to renew the show for two additional seasons. Thankfully, there still looks to be plenty of story left to tell in the post-Coulson era. Spoilers ahead for "Missing Pieces," the Season 6 premiere of ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which aired May 10, 2019. First up, the big question most fans are likely asking in the wake of Avengers: Endgame — no, the season premiere doesn't really acknowledge anything from the Snappening to the Unsnappening. And it's all the better for it, really. This show has always been at its best when operating on its own timetable, and this season premiere is a testament to that. We get to deal with the fallout of Season 5, and we get our own time jump (though admittedly not as long a one as we see in Endgame) to show how this team has changed and evolved. There's little to no connection to the film side of the MCU here, and that's fine. It doesn't need it. That said, there's still plenty to see here. Daisy and Simmons took a team off-Earth in search of Fitz, and they've been in deep space for quite some time tracking down leads over where Frozen Fitz ended up after his ship was damaged. Piper and Davis get a bit more screen time as part of this motley space crew, and it's a wild adventure. They're also still dealing with the Confederacy, a tenuous alien alliance that is a mid-tier player in the intergalactic corner of the MCU. The team has clearly made an enemy of the Confederacy, as Quake makes a name for herself as a power across the known galaxy. We also get to see the seams coming apart for this crew, as Simmons betrays their trust and jumps them deeper than ever into deep space against the team's wishes. But she's determined to find Fitz – no matter who she pisses off along the way. Credit: ABC/Marvel Back on Earth, Mack is finding his footing as the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D., though it's becoming clear he's isolated himself and alienated his friends in the process. He's no longer with Yo-Yo, as she's dating a new agent on the roster, played by Haven alum Lucas Bryant. Mack is also leaning on the wisdom of the dearly departed Coulson, who recorded some holographic thoughts and advice to leave behind in his absence. He's also been tracking these mysterious breaches where these new players from … somewhere are breaking through. We still don't know what they're doing, but they're loaded with some firepower that can take out a building like it's a house of cards. May and her team get knocked around, only to realize the guy calling the shots for this new team of baddies is the spitting image of a grizzled, angry Phil Coulson. They seem to be from space or another dimension, maybe? So is this Coulson lookalike a Skrull who picked up Coulson's face back in the Captain Marvel era? Or perhaps some alt-universe Coulson doppelganger who is super evil? So many questions, but one thing is clear — this guy apparently has no clue who "our" Coulson is, and this version looks to be a legit threat to Earth. It's also deliciously fun to see Clark Gregg playing such a different character, as he finally gets to show a bit more range outside of the Coulson gig. The only hint we have about these mysterious new baddies is that they're using ley lines to break into our world. Why? How does that work? We still don't know. But it stands to reason having Fitz back home and on the case will make it a lot easier to crack. Endgame may have left us hanging, but don't worry — S.H.I.E.L.D. is still all about those post-credit scenes. This week's final shot finally caught up with Fitz, fussing about some "controller" who needs to calm down, and injecting himself with something that made his eyes glow. Is he working a job on some alien planet? Is he a prisoner? Is he just biding his time, or is he working an angle? Whatever he's doing, it's great to see a Fitz still out there alive and kicking.<doc-sep>The Coulson Impostor is On The Run in Agents of Shield 6.02 Promo The long-running Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-in series Agents of SHIELD has returned and with it a new mystery to solve in the origin of the figure who looks just like deceased team member Phil Coulson, with the impostor on the run in the promo for the second episode of the sixth season, which can be viewed in the player below! RELATED: Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD Season 6 Premiere Sneak Peek Released The season five finale saw the team put a stop to Glenn Talbot, aka Graviton, but also saw longtime team leader Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) leave with Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) to return to Tahiti to live out his final days after his brief time as a Ghost Rider burned through the Kree DNA coursing through his body that healed his fatal injury from The Avengers. With Coulson finally going off to be officially dead, the agency is in need of a new director, with Mack taking over the reins. Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD stars Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson, Ming-Na Wen as Agent Melinda May, Chloe Bennet as Daisy Johnson, Iain De Caestecker as Agent Leo Fitz, Elizabeth Henstridge as Agent Jemma Simmons, Henry Simmons as Agent Alphonso “Mack” MacKenzie, Natalia Cordova-Buckley as Elena “Yo-Yo” Rodriguez, John Hannah as Holden Radcliffe, Adrianne Palicki as Bobbi Morse, Brett Dalton as Grant Ward, Luke Mitchell as Lincoln Campbell, and Nick Blood as Lance Hunter. RELATED: Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD Season 6 Character Photos Released The series was co-created by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen, who also serve as executive producers along with Jeffrey Bell and Marvel’s Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory. The sixth season will continue airing on ABC on Fridays at 8 p.m. PST.<doc-sep>Is Coulson really dead in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6? The cast and crew give us their answers. “Coulson is dead.” That’s the sentiment expressed in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 premiere, and that’s the line that showrunner and executive producer Jed Whedon is sticking to. Phil Coulson is dead. It’s a line emphatically echoed by the cast of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Speaking for Agent May, Ming-Na Wen emphasizes the finality of the event. “She buried him,” Wen says. “She saw him die, and a year has passed.” Wen knows that there may be some natural skepticism toward the permanence of Coulson’s deaths. “She’s had experiences where he’s died and come back, and died and come back,” she notes. But this time is “different” — and soon to be fraught with more emotional turmoil as Coulson’s doppelgänger Sarge storms onto the scene. “To go through that grieving process and then seeing this other entity that looks like him, you know…” Wen laughs. “She’s just pissed!” Article Continues Below Leading man Clark Gregg is no less emphatic. Though he returns as the still-mysterious Sarge (or at least, “That’s what the people on his team call him!”) Gregg makes no bones about dividing his two roles on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Regardless of his name, this man who looks so much like Coulson is “clearly not Phil Coulson,” he says. Gregg describes his new role as “q very dark, powerful force wearing the skin of someone [the team] just lost… Later in the season, we learn why this creature is wearing a familiar face.” “The things that are true of Coulson are not true of Sarge,” he adds. His team “seems to have a great deal of faith, and a fair amount of terror when it comes to Sarge” — an obvious divergence from Coulson’s firm-but-empathetic leadership. So what’s going to happen when this definitely-not-Coulson meets up with the stunned S.H.I.E.L.D. team? Gregg considers. “He seems bemused that these people, who seem to be the prime hunters of he and his team, are so freaked out by him,” he says. “And he’s curious, because as he says, he’s been to many worlds, and nobody’s ever recognized him before. But it doesn’t ripple much, because he is fanatically devoted to the reason he came here… which seems to be pretty dark.” Yes, destroying-the-world-level dark, if the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 trailer is any indication. But this is could it really be quite that simple? “I wouldn’t think so,” Gregg says, carefully. Meanwhile, Chloe Bennet put serious thought into the impact of Coulson’s death on Daisy. Related: What the heck is going on with the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. timeline in season 6? “She’s dealt with so much loss,” Bennet observes. “I wanted to make sure that the mourning of Phil Coulson is obvious, and obviously a huge impact on her.” “But,” she adds, time has wisened Daisy to the concept of loss. “This is life,” Bennet says firmly. “Loss happens. This sucks. I’m gonna go do me and do exactly what [Coulson] would probably want me to do, which is the right thing and move on, and live life, and find love, and be with the people that you care about.” So: For the time being, it definitely seems that Coulson is as dead as the cast and show runners of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. claim. But when asked if the beleaguered leader could ever return properly to the story, Jed Whedon politely demurs. After all, he muses, there’s a guy running around now who looks exactly like Coulson. No one expected that. And hey, this is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Anything is possible. Do you think Coulson is alive or dead on ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’?<doc-sep>
(Warning: This story contains spoilers from the Season 6 premiere of ABC’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) Phil Coulson may be dead (like, really dead), but Clark Gregg is alive and well, though this time he’s wreaking havoc against his former S.H.I.E.L.D. compatriots as Sarge. But just who the heck is this mysterious new character that showed up at the end of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s” Season 6 premiere? “He’s clearly not Phil Coulson,” Gregg says of his new character, the leader of a “dangerous set of humanoid creatures,” who spends the premiere episode emerging through portals from… somewhere unknown. “He finds it a little bit amusing and faintly disturbing that these people think they know him.” The show’s fifth season ended with Coulson saying goodbye, courtesy of his short-lived stint as Ghost Rider that burned through the Kree DNA that healed him after his first death in Marvel Studios’ “The Avengers.” But co-showrunner Jed Whedon explained that they never would have said OK to a surprising sixth season renewal from ABC unless they could figure out a way to bring Gregg back without cheapening the impact of his character’s death. “We didn’t believe the show exists without him,” Whedon said. “We wouldn’t have agreed to it if we didn’t think there was something to do.” Gregg also poured cold water on anyone hoping for a third resurrection of Phil Coulson, saying, “I would say that that’s never completely off the table, but it’s not what we’re doing in Season 6.” Though Gregg, who directed the Season 6 premiere, only shows up at that very end of the episode, he teased that things will quickly ramp up. After all, the first person to see his face is Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), who was with Coulson when he died. “It quickly sets up a showdown where a bunch of people have to confront a very dark, powerful force, wearing the skin of someone they just lost,” Gregg said. “There’s a very complex mystery about where these people came from, and why anybody would come through these portals looking like someone they know.” Gregg, who has played Coulson for five seasons on the ABC show, and made appearances throughout the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, said it “really threw me off balance” to be playing such a different character, and one who is so mysterious at that. “There was things I didn’t even get to know, what was going on with him, until we moved further along,” he continued, adding that Sarge has a “more ruthless way” of operating compared to Coulson. “All the things that make Phil Coulson, Phil Coulson, are not true of Sarge. Later as we move into the season, we start to go deeper levels into the mystery of why this creature is wearing a familiar face, and then things get really dark.” “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” airs Friday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC