The following contains major SPOILERS for Thor: Ragnarok‘s ending. Please be cautious going forward. We advise you see the movie first before proceeding, or if you’re just a glutton for spoiling.

For reals, we’re gonna spoil this thing.

Are you ready?

Okay. So Thor: Ragnarok, despite being a joyous action adventure romp from beginning to end creates a new status quo for Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Heimdall (Idris Elba), and the rest of the Asgardians; after allowing Surtur to destroy Asgard, thus fulfilling the prophesied Ragnarok and stopping Hela (Cate Blanchett) from keeping it for herself, they all set out on a massive spaceship to bring Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) back to Earth, and then find themselves a new home. A very Battlestar Galactica kind of hopeful yet sad ending. (The movie DID kill off all of the Warriors Three and presumably most of the Asgardian army, too, so they aren’t as superpowered as they once were.)

Then during the mid-credits sequence, we see Thor and Loki on the bridge of the ship talking about where they might go, and Thor assures Loki that everything will be fine. Unfortunately, they that instant encounter a massive ship and they (and the audience) go “Ohhh…who’s this now?”

Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige was asked what in the universe this ship could be and, as reported by The Wrap, he told them “We call it the Sanctuary II.” Okay, cool, so what? It’s called the Sanctuary II. BUT, wouldn’t you know it, that’s the name of a ship belonging to one Mr. Glove-Loving Thanos (Josh Brolin), the long-awaited main antagonist of the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War.

We’ve seen the original Sanctuary a couple of times in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as it happens; it’s that rocky oasis we saw in both The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, the planetoid where Thanos kept his big ol’ throne and held court with Ronan the Accuser, flanked by Nebula and Gamora.

And, even though it hasn’t been released officially yet, the Comic-Con 2017 teaser piece for Infinity War began with Thor floating in deep space and picked up by the Guardians after what seemed like something pretty bad happened to him. We can assume, then, that Loki took the Tesseract (you know, one of the Infinity Stones) when he was getting Surtur’s helmet from the Asgardian relic room—since he shared a longing gaze with it as he passed—and Thanos has tracked it to the Asgardian’s ship. It seems fairly likely Thanos will take it by force and leave Thor for dead in deep space, which will lead to his and the Guardians’ heading to Earth.

This is all just extrapolation based on context clues, of course, but it seems like a pretty dynamic way to start the story, and one that will once again put the MCU’s cosmic characters at the forefront of the action.

Thor: Ragnarok didn’t just set up Avengers: Infinity War, it seems like it’s going to lead immediately into it.

Images: Marvel

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!

More Thor for your to enjor…or enjoy!

• Be sure to check out our full review of Thor: Ragnarok!
• How Chris Hemsworth makes Thor the true hero of the MCU!
• Thor: Ragnarok‘s cast surprised an audience at a movie screening!