WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Hawkeye Episode 6, "So This Is Christmas?," now streaming on Disney+, and Spider-Man: No Way Home, now in theaters.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. retains a passionate fandom on social media, frequently able to push ABC's successful seven-season show into Twitter trends. Transformative fandom is equally thriving, with dozens of new and updated fan fictions populating Archive of Our Own daily. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe has thus far left Agent Coulson and the rest of his team in the cold. And with Hawkeye potentially sidelining Bobbi Morse as Mockingbird, it's time to accept that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. won't return to canon.
The revelation that Laura Barton is Agent 19, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent code-named as Mockingbird, thrilled some fans but left others disappointed. It's true that Laura never claims the name Mockingbird for herself, leaving it open that the title could have been passed on to Adrianne Palicki's Bobbi Morse. But that's not the only nail in Coulson's coffin, and it's not looking great for the team's canon future.
WandaVision took the wind out of the fandom's sails early this year, revealing that the demonic book hidden inside Agatha Harkness' magical lair was a new, different vision of the Darkhold, which featured prominently in Season 4 of Agents of SHIELD. Another iteration of the book also appears in The Runaways, and until Agatha named the Darkhold in the finale, fans held out hope it could have been one of Marvel's similar grimoires. And while there's still a chance these different versions of the book could be tied into one continuity, as of now, it doesn't look good.
Still coming up, however, is Secret Invasion. Fans know Nick Fury is "vacationing" in Earth's orbit, hidden away on a Skrull observation ship or station, and has been for a while. They also know that S.W.O.R.D., S.H.I.E.L.D.'s counterpart in handling dangerous extraterrestrial threats has been established. While Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spent its fifth season exploring a future caused by Daisy Johnson's unbridled power and the authoritarian control of the Kree, it's not a future that looks possible any longer. With Fury and Danvers on the case and Chloe Bennett herself shutting down rumors of an appearance, that door seems firmly closed.
But it's not all bad news for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans. There are two chances for them to keep some hope, if not in the fullest of ways. For one, the MCU is in a new phase, fixated on the potential of the multiverse. While what's considered mainstream canon in the MCU still matters, there are all-new corners of possibility to explore, too, and not just in shows like What If. Spider-Man: No Way Home is the first film to bridge worlds, realizing the potential of the variants introduced in Loki. Even better, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. itself ended with its cast spread across multiple timelines.
There's also the fact that Hawkeye and Spider-Man both acknowledged the power of the years-long #SaveDaredevil campaign and brought recognizable versions of Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk into the MCU. It's still fuzzy if all or any of the events of their Netflix counterparts are canon, but according to Vincent D'Onofrio, these versions of the characters are intended to be the ones fans love and remember. And in the end, that familiarity is what matters most.
The events of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., overall, are nearly impossible to fit into today's MCU canon. There have been too many points of divergence since Captain America: The Winter Soldier first impacted the hit series. But that doesn't mean fans have to give up on the characters entirely. There are now clear ways for Daisy, Melinda May and all the rest to come home, so long as we're willing to let go of some history. In the MCU and in comics, history is what fans make of it. And the most important version of canon is what's in their hearts.
To see television characters debut in the MCU, Hawkeye is streaming now on Disney+ and Spider-Man: No Way Home is in theaters now.