Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Quake may not be the Destroyer of Worlds after all. Though Daisy was pegged as the reason Earth was destroyed in Season 5, she has never shown the power to swing such a feat. However, the show already introduced a character powerful enough for such a cataclysmic event all the way back in Season 1: Franklin Hall, aka Graviton.
Hall debuted in the third episode of Season 1, where he put his life on the line to destroy an element called gravitonium. Even a small amount of gravitonium is enough to toss a launch a tractor-trailer, so Hall decided to destabilize the element after his nemesis Ian Quinn found a large quantity of it.
"We can't let anyone have control of this. That's why I'm here: to bury it at the bottom of the ocean," he told Coulson when the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent showed up to rescue him. According to Fitz and Simmons, Hall was in control of enough gravitonium to "sink the place" -- the place being an entire island. So, when Hall described it as "far too powerful for you, for him, for anyone," he may have been right.
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As Hall got into the reasons behind his decision to destroy the gravitonium (and himself), his word choice took an interesting turn. Describing Quinn, he said, "He never gives a thought to the friends, ecosystems, future generations left ruined in his wake." Of course, the enemy of his enemy was not his friend either: "S.H.I.E.L.D. is just as guilty of the same thing! Experimentation without thought of consequence! Your search for an unlimited power source brought an alien invasion."
Here, Hall's words almost seem predictive of what's to come. Hall refers to "future generations left ruined," which is just what Coulson and his team discover when they arrive in the year 2091. The Lighthouse's society, as they see it, is humanity decayed; the handful of survivors from Earth's destruction are forced to fight and kill one another just to stay alive on dead rock floating through space.
What's more, Hall references the "alien invasion" from Avengers, where Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. inadvertently brought the Chitauri to Earth by experimenting on the Tesseract. He infers that S.H.I.E.L.D. could do something similar if they come into possession of the gravitonium or any other powerful force they obtain -- which is the conceit of Season 5, where Daisy "destroyed the world" and brought in the rule of the tyrannical Kree.
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Of course, his most damning line of dialogue seems as though it could describe what we've seen of Season 5 so far: "I see the future, Mr. Coulson, and it's a catastrophe."
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In order to diffuse the situation with Hall, Coulson ultimately shot through the glass barrier between them and the gravitonium; Hall was subsequently sucked into the element, which consumed him. S.H.I.E.L.D. then hid the gravitonium -- with Hall still inside it -- in "the deepest level of the Fridge, unmarked vault, no access granted" with "no recorded entry," completely unlisted. The stinger at the end of the episode showed a hand emerge from the gravitonium, which suggested Hall would then go on to become Graviton, a Marvel Comics supervillain.
Unfortunately for S.H.I.E.L.D., Hall and the gravitonium were not destined to stay in the Fridge. After the Hydra takeover and Ward's betrayal, Quinn was able take the gravitonium and run. It was last seen in his possession in "Beginning of the End," the Season 1 finale.
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Hall, Quinn and the gravitonium have not been seen since Season 1, which means they've been unaccounted for a whopping three seasons and six episodes. However, that doesn't mean executive producer Jed Wheon -- or the fans -- have forgotten about them. Last February, Whedon teased that this gravitonium cliffhanger could still be resolved in an interview with IGN: "We would not be doing our jobs as well as we could if we left that unanswered. We move so fast and we move past stuff, but when you get that thing that you care about called back to, there's a reward there that you deserve. For us, it's fun to play in that world. These were conversations that we were obsessed with and that we bent our minds into pretzels over two years ago."
As far back as a year ago, then, Whedon had gravitonium on the mind. Since it did not appear and was not referenced in Season 4, he may have been looking further ahead -- to Season 5, perhaps?
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Should the showrunners make good on this tease and bring Graviton back, he'd make one hell of a villain for S.H.I.E.L.D. Per gravitonium's introduction in "The Asset," Hall was bonded to enough of the element to sink an island. What's more, there's no telling what Quinn has done with the gravitonium since he was left alone with it three years ago. After all, according to Hall, "You can't reason with an addict, and he's addicted to exploiting opportunities." In all of this time left to his own devices, Quinn may have experimented with the gravitonium to make it stronger -- or perhaps the gravitonium grew stronger thanks to its new bond with its host, Franklin Hall.
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If and when Graviton reemerges, he'll have one hell of an ax to grind. For one, Quinn put him in this situation in the first place. He has also been stuck inside the gravitonium field while in Quinn's possession. Then, of course, there's Coulson, who sent Hall into the gravitonium to stop him from sinking the island. Both characters are responsible for turning Hall from a scientist to a gravitonium-infused freak. With the powers granted to him by the gravitonium, Hall may tear the very world apart in his quest to get revenge.
In the comics, Graviton manipulates gravitational fields just like gravitonium does. His power has grown over the years, so much so that he has been able to dominate superheroes like Thor and Hulk. He once even tried to reshape the very Earth, an act that may very well serve as the precursor to his potential destruction of the planet in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
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Of course, if anyone were to see this coming, it would be Quinn. After all, he is in possession of the gravitonium, per the Season 1 finale. In fact, thanks to his wealth and resources, he may have had time to prepare for the inevitability of Graviton's emergence. If Earth's destruction is tied to Hall and Quinn, the bunker that becomes the Lighthouse may even belong to Quinn himself.
When the bunker was introduced in the Season 5 episode "Rewind," Enoch did not know who built it. He could only answer "Unknown" when Fitz asked about it. As such, the person behind the Lighthouse is still a mystery. However, should he be involved, Graviton may indicate that Quinn is somehow linked to the Lighthouse.
If Graviton is indeed responsible for the cataclysmic event, he would tie up loose ends from Season 1 and provide a lot of answers for questions raised in Season 5. Even though Daisy may not be responsible for Earth's destruction, this answer would still hit close to home for Coulson and his team. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. could very well bring the show full circle by making Graviton the big bad of its fifth -- and perhaps final -- season.
Airing Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5 stars Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Henry Simmons, Ian De Caestecker, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Elizabeth Henstridge, Nick Blood, Jeff Ward and Coy Stewart.