UPDATE: 4-5-2018 6:30 PM ET: We’ve now had the news of Agents of SHIELD being renewed for season 6 confirmed by three sources at ABC, Disney and the production team letting us know the show will go on.

Agents of SHIELD deserves a season 6. Fantastic writing in the past three episodes shouldn’t go to waste. Before we go on, for those who haven’t caught up, this is a SPOILER ALERT. You can come back later. If you are, let’s revel in how great SHIELD has been lately. It’s just sad we have to discuss life support every season since season 3. My initial view of the season’s first arc really felt dark and stifling, but ever since the team came home from the future, things seemed to perk up. I’ve been having a pretty busy life lately not having been able to discuss this show since episode 99.

Agents of SHIELD Season 6 News: Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen told TV Line that they were ready for Season 5 to be the end of the line for SHIELD, but ABC has other plans for them with a Season 6 renewal. Our friends at the network let us know that it’s not over yet, and a move back to Tuesday night might be coming.

Many have been predicting the end of the show due to its low numbers, but Agents of SHIELD is one people DVR and watch over the weekend. Like CW’s Supernatural, SHIELD has a very loyal stable audience which counts for a lot with Marvel. Plus that Marvel, Disney and ABC connection is powerful, and with the new Avengers: Infinity War film about to hit, you can bet a killer weekend box office number will help push their decision.

“Disney doesn’t want to lose another Avengers connection on network television,” out ABC source said. “With the upcoming season 5 finale coming in May, expect a season 6 announcement which should give diehard fans some good news.”

SHIELD 100, a.k.a. The Real Deal – delivered as promised and created a fantastic phase within the current arc. It’s like a pod within the second pod. The explosion of three different Kree monoliths resulted in a dimensional rift wherein the fears of the Lighthouse’s inhabitants take shape. This brings back some old characters from past seasons such as Lash, Hive, LMDs, Deathlok and the alien roaches as a sort of homage. It would have been cool if Daisy had met her father or her mom Jia-Ying. Fitz manages to temporarily contain the rift using Deke’s gravitonium. This creates a side-quest for the team to hunt for more gravitonium to fully contain the Fear Dimension. We’re also treated to the FitzSimmons nuptial everyone’s been waiting for, and that amazing reveal that Deke is their descendant.

Fear Dimension – it’s cool that the writers of SHIELD would take the fantastical route of including the more supernatural Fear Dimension which generates physical anomalies from people’s fears. Whether or not this ties into the Doctor Strange sequel where it’s rumored that the Fear Lord Nightmare would be the new villain, remains to be seen. It would be quite amazing though to see how the good doctor or any guest Avenger would deal with him or how the Fear Dimension and its anomalies would be depicted. Hopefully, they’ll tie up or someone’s going to be disappointed.

Yoyo’s Arms – Yo-yo’s character has been elevated much since season 3. That is until her arms were cut off. It felt weird at first when she was shown to have no arms during the first arc. Then I realized what many may have forgotten about the character. Her comic book counterpart also lost her arms in battle, and that the show was simply integrating that fact. Something Natalia Cordova-Buckley has apparently requested the showrunners do. In the comics, the character lost her arms in a battle against a villain named Gorgon and replaced with prosthetics. She’s now in league with Winter Soldier and Misty Knight or she’s going to be in the next episode.

Hale Hydra – another fantastic reveal in this latest episode is who exactly General Hale is working for. If you truly want to be updated, ABC released a clip of a discussion between her and Coulson who deduced that Hale’s allegiance is not with the government. Right off the bat, when Hale shot her subordinates, it’s suggested that her work is not with the government. Next is her use of LMD-like-android soldiers instead of real ones and that her daughter Ruby is an augmented human. It’s then revealed that she is working with Anton Ivanov aka The Superior aka MODOK. And lastly, she is working for a group known as The Confederacy which is a branch of HYDRA that has connections with the Kree. How’s that for interesting. What’s left now is her true motivations of serving The Confederacy that will finally turn her one-dimensional character into something more sympathetic.

Splitz – and finally, we have Fitz. Iain De Caestecker put up a good performance as the stressed-out and tortured character over the past four seasons. In this episode, his main goal is to get the gravitonium they acquired from a missing ship, into his new device as the Fear Dimension continues churning out various anomalies. His, apparently comes out in the form of The Doctor, his personality from the Framework. Fitz’ fearful behavior towards the Doctor seems strange as we thought that he finally came to terms with this brutal personality. It’s also strange that the Doctor seems adamant in helping him with his ‘goal.’ The Doctor keeps Mac, Simmons, and Yo-Yo occupied while he acquires Daisy using Hale’s reactivated robot soldiers. The goal is to bring back Daisy’s powers in order to compress the gravitonium so it can be inserted into Fitz’ device, something Fitz is not willing to do but his other personality can. This is an ingenious throwback to Season 2 where he hallucinates Simmons’ presence. The Doctor isn’t an anomaly at all but a projection of his other personality. Fitz programmed the robots to keep the others at bay as well as to force himself to remove Daisy’s inhibitor.

I know of a meek girl who actually did the same thing and created a separate strong personality to do the stuff that needed to be done. That personality would face people she’s not willing to face and take responsibility for things she’s not willing to. Totally weird but for her, it makes sense otherwise she wouldn’t be in her marketing job.

As for Fitz, his fate hangs in the air as to how his teammates will treat him. Simmons understands, and Deke can’t be anything but sympathetic. How Daisy will take this is something else. Now that she has her powers back, she’s now a genuine threat to the Earth. How can she be strong enough to do it? Will a dose of Odium help?

Also, with time running out, Coulson opted to come with General Hale so they’d know who they’re actually dealing with. Will he die this season, finally ending SHIELD’s run? Depending on what Clark Gregg’s stint on Captain Marvel is, Coulson might be out of action for a while if SHIELD does get another season. If it doesn’t, well, preventing the Earth from cracking up is noteworthy enough to end a great series.