Thor: The Dark World will reach theaters on November 8. On November 19, Marvel’s TV show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D will show its cast dealing with the fallout. The show, produced by Avengers director Joss Whedon, follows the operations of the S.H.I.E.L.D. organization as they continue to investigate superhumans outside of the film series.
Marvel’s official synopsis for the episode, The Well, reads, “In the aftermath of the events chronicled in the feature film Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World, Coulson and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pick up the pieces – one of which threatens to destroy a member of the team.”
This announcement confirms what many have suspected; Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be more than just a spin off for Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson. The show will pick up where new movies leave off to tell stories too small for the big screen but still relevant to the build up for Avengers: Age of Ultron. Given the movie series’ habit of teasing and referencing the other films to fuel speculation, it stands to reason that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would do the same.
Still, viewers without the time to watch a weekly TV show can probably rest easy. The Marvel movies have, so far, used mostly stand alone plots that do not rely too much on explanations from other movies. For example, while the Red Skull referenced Asgard and used the Tesseract (in Captain America), audiences did not have to watch Thor (2011) in order to understand the events of Captain America. On the other hand, fans who enjoy catching all the connections should definitely tune in to stay on top of new developments in the movie-verse.
Jonathan Frakes, who previously directed episodes for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Whedon’s Dollhouse, will direct The Well episode.