[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.]
For better or worse, and occasionally without even realizing it, the Marvel Cinematic Universe told the same story for eleven straight years. From the moment Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) emerged from a cave wearing a cobbled-together battle suit in 2008 to the second he snapped himself into a heroic death in 2019, everything the MCU did was working toward one thematic goal. Whether it was retconning prior Macguffins into Infinity Stones, having Thanos (Josh Brolin) pull the strings in the background of each film's Big Bad, or just planting storytelling seeds that wouldn't sprout for a few years, all of the introductions, credits scenes, and Easter Eggs were building the story of Earth's mightiest heroes against the Mad Titan for the sake of half the universe, the tale now being officially packaged as "The Infinity Saga." And when it all came cascading together in Avengers: Endgame, it was a conclusion worth a decade; we all wept openly during "Portals" and hugged complete strangers in movie theater aisles for 45 uninterrupted minutes of Endgame's climax, and when it was over, in that resounding, emotionally-draining silence, the question became: "Well, now what?" The answer comes at the tail end of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, arguably the most standalone Marvel movie since Phase 1. It isn't a hard ending to understand, but it's worth diving into the way it feels like a brand new start for the MCU, a remarkable thing in its own right for a franchise eleven years in with no end in sight.
Here's what happens: Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Katy (Awkwafina), having just traveled to a mystical city to save all of humanity from soul-eating demons, sit down for a casual brunch in San Francisco with disbelieving friends John (Kunal Dudheker) and Soo (Stephanie Hsu). But bonafide world-saving superheroes don't have the benefit of a boring afternoon meal; Wong (Benedict Wong), right-hand man to Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), portals his way into the restaurant. Something is majorly wonky in the world of the mystical arts, and Shang-Chi—having just inherited the uber-powerful artifacts known as the ten rings from his immortal father, Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung)—has a key part to play. Katy, having just absolutely nailed a whole-ass dragon in the head with an arrow, has earned the right to tag along. Out of their normal lives and off to the Sanctum Sanctorum they go.
We learn a little more about what Wong wants—and how hard he crushes karaoke—in the film's mid-credits scene. But it isn't the details that make Shang-Chi's ending special. It's the way it feels like the official jumping-off point for the MCU's next big overarching story, the umbrella framework we that'll carry us through an untold amount of years. The Disney+ series have been laying the groundwork, certainly, and by that I mean they have been smashing the foundations of reality itself into pieces. WandaVision was heavily involved in the mystical side of the MCU—featuring chaos magic and Sorcerer Supreme namedrops aplenty—ending with Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) embracing her Scarlet Witch moniker and meddling in dangerous forces beyond her control. Loki took it a step further, going beyond time to introduce He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), whose death officially fractures the timeline and introduces the many-branched Multiverse to the MCU.
Whatever grand plan the MCU is cooking up clearly revolves around the Multiverse, considering the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer straight-up borrowed Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus from another universe, not to mention the fact Sam Raimi's upcoming Doctor Strange sequel is quite literally titled Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Cumberbatch's Sorcerer Supreme is clearly going to play a central part in the proceedings, as is Olsen as Wanda, both of whom signal a much darker, more supernatural era of the MCU. (Even 2023's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has promised Majors as Kang the Conqueror, most likely the franchise's new Thanos-sized antagonist.) But we still don't know exactly how these disparate parts fit together. In that way, it almost feels like early-days MCU, even pre-The Avengers, where the chess pieces were clearly being shuffled into their places but the (ahem) endgame was a far-off mystery. Even Black Widow, a mostly unconnected prequel, felt like the final sendoff to that period of the MCU we'd gotten comfortable in. I can't even remember the last time I would have described the MCU as "uncharted waters." It's exciting.
And it starts with that final scene in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Shang-Chi and Katy leaving their old lives behind to hop through a portal into the unknown serve as an audience stand-in. The "Infinity Saga" is over. Ready for something new?