WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the latest episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,"Adapt or Die," which aired Wednesday on ABC.
The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. team is currently hopping through time in the hopes of stopping the Chronicoms from erasing the organization's history. Thanks to the Zephyr's new time travel technology, Mack and his team are able to follow the evil alien synthetic beings through the time stream. So far, they have visited the years 1931, 1955, 1973 and 1976 and have come across places or people tied directly to the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, from Hydra and the Red Skull to Peggy Carter and Project Insight.
The team's travels across time are far from over and with the second half of Season 7, there's no telling where and when the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will head to next, or the people they will meet along the way. And given the circumstances of this time travel mission, the ABC series now has the perfect opportunity to reunite Coulson with fellow time-traveler Steve Rogers.
In the last episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the team was successful in stopping the Chronicoms' latest attempt to destroy the spy organization in 1976. As the episode came to a close, Mack and Deke were left behind as the Zephyr jumped to its next destination in the 1980s. With the team moving ever closer to the present, it's possible that its following missions will take place in the '90s, and possibly in the time period of Phase 1 of the MCU. And, as fans know, Mack and his team aren't the only ones traveling through that time period.
In fact, at the end of Avengers: Endgame, Steve Rogers went back into the time stream to put all six Infinity Stones back to their proper place. In order to do that, he had to visit the years of the first Avengers movie, as well as Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: The Dark World. Steve even went further back in time to reunite with Peggy Carter and have a long and happy life with her. Therefore, Steve is technically around in every year the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. team has visited so far, and the others they will jump to next. With Coulson and Steve Rogers both running around through time, now would be the chance to bring these two back together again and finally resolve an issue that hasn't been addressed since Coulson's death in The Avengers.
In recent seasons, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. featured very little connections to the larger MCU. Outside of a few name-drops and thematic ties that involved either magic or cosmic adventures, there weren't any noticeable connections to Marvel's films. However, that all changed in the seventh and final season. Nearly every Season 7 episode has featured ties to the MCU films, from mentions of Bruce Banner and Nick Fury to a story that had a direct connection to the creation of the Red Skull.
With a renewed focus on inter-connectivity, the upcoming episodes could take things further. It's been a long time since fans have had a character from the movies appear on the television show and such an appearance would surely make for a satisfying finale. Now that the show is finally reaching an end, ABC could pull some strings in order to achieve the impossible. Sure, no one should expect Chris Evans to appear on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders and Jaimie Alexander have been on the show, so it's not entirely improbable.
If Coulson and Steve meet in the series' final season, then at least one Avenger will know that the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent is actually alive. One of the bigger questions fans of the series have had has always been if and when the Avengers would learn that one of their own had actually survived Loki's attack. While the whole team may never find out, Captain America learning the truth could be enough.
On top of that, since both characters have been through a whole lot since they last saw each other (one of them is now an LMD and the other helped stop Thanos before living a second life through time), they would certainly have a lot to catch up on.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s final season airs Wednesdays at 10 pm ET/PT on ABC. The series stars Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Henry Simmons, Iain De Caestecker, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Elizabeth Henstridge and Clark Gregg.