Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. bosses writing season finale as a SERIES finale

The end of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. may be nigh.

With the ABC superhero drama on the bubble, executive producers Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, and Jeffrey Bell says that they’re writing the final episode of the fifth season as a series finale.

“Right now, we’re writing a series end,” Bell says, “because as far as we know, this could be it.”

Though S.H.I.E.L.D. has undergone yet another creative resurgence this season — setting the show in space in a future where the earth has been destroyed, and now returning to the present to save the planet — the series is only averaging 3.6 million total viewers.

All that said, the powers that be over at S.H.I.E.L.D. say they will complete the story while also leaving possibilities open. “We’ll never end something without the potential for more story,” Tancharoen says. “That’s how we’ve ended every season, because whenever we’ve come to the end of all the season’s past, we go into that mostly not knowing until the very last minute, so we’re basically doing the same thing to close out season 5. It can fit well as a possible series finale, and it can fit well as just another season’s end.”

Whedon adds: “You always want to leave the idea that there’s more stories, it’s a question of whether or not we will tell them. We have our end, and we’ll stick to it regardless, and we think it’ll work either way.”

The move comes as the series, which will hit its landmark 100th episode on Friday, recently revealed that S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s fearless leader Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) is apparently dying, bringing the show full circle from Coulson’s resurrection following his death during Marvel’s The Avengers.

It appears the show is on track to use Coulson’s fate as a potentially series-ending arc, rather than introducing some new MacGuffin.

Culturedemandsgeeks loves that the fate of Coulson will ensure the end of the hit TV show. And it will give many a fan a sense of resolution and a reward for being on this whole journey. It’s good the show won’t–and–don’t leave us hanging with something that didn’t get paid off.