Secret Invasion
Let's address the elephant in the room. It's been about a year or more since I've updated my blog. Life and all that blah, blah. I am excited to get back to it. And then I got less excited when I realized this was next in the rotation. Spoiler alert. I really hated this series. If you know anything about the comics, "Secret Invasion" was kind of a cool event that revealed Skrulls had been secretly infiltrating the world for years, taking the place of a lot of people including some of our most well known heroes. When they announced that they were going to be doing a TV series based on it, I was excited. Then, I became less excited when I realized it wasn't going to involve most of the MCU which seems to kind of defeat the point? Instead it's a showcase for Nick Fury? Umm... yeah, sure. I guess. Oof. Let's just dive in and get this over with.
"Resurrection"
Nick Fury: "Not bad for a 136-year-old"
Talos: "Well, you know, I'm not even 40 in human years. I haven't even gone on my midlife shopping spree yet. What'd you get for yours?"
Nick Fury: "The Avengers."
Talos pursues Everett K Ross who killed a CIA agent who theorized that rebel Skrulls are planning on inciting a war between the US and Russia in retaliation for Nick Fury not finding them a new home. It turns out that the Ross Talos is pursuing is actually a Skrull, so maybe there is something to this. Nick Fury comes down from space and joins up with Maria Hill to investigate with Talos. It turns out these rebel Skrulls are being led by Gravik and Talos's daughter, Gi'ah is working with him. Can this ragtag bunch prevent an attack that is being planned on Unity Day?
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| Another MCU woman down... |
Y'all, I'm going to be so for real with you. This is terrible. And it's terrible not because it is just so bad, but because it's so boring. It's boring to the point that you just keep checking the time left and it's only been like five minutes. So, I will be shitting on this for the most point. Which is sometimes fun to read, right?
Samuel L. Jackson has been a part of the MCU from the beginning. He was introduced as Nick Fury in the very first post credits scene in "Iron Man" in 2008. He definitely deserves to have a showcase, but why "Secret Invasion?" There are a million other better Nick Fury stories that they could have pulled from that would have given Jackson and Fury what he deserves. Instead we get this hodgepodge mess. If I was Samuel L. Jackson, I'd be pissed. Like seriously.
Let's say a few nice things about this episode. I do think that the beginning of the episode is exciting. We get Martin Freeman as Everett K Ross, which I love. If you're unfamiliar with the comics "Secret Invasion" then it's probably a nice surprise when Ross kills the CIA agent and is revealed to be a Skrull. So that was fun. It was exciting which is rare for this series and was OK.
The other great thing about this episode and this series in general is Olivia Colman. Olivia Colman is phenomenal in literally everything. "The Favourite." "Fleabag." "The Crown" And I hate the crown. So, it's no surprise that she excels in this as Fury's MI6 counterpart, Sonya Falsworth. Colman is great as Falsworth. She's proper but also a little unhinged. She's not impressed with Nick Fury. She's not interested in helping him take down Gravik. She is confident that she can do this on her own and you know, I believe her. Fury is sometimes treated like he is some sort of god, so it's refreshing to have someone be thoroughly unimpressed with him.
The rest of the episode is, as I said before, just kind of ho hum. There is a ton of set up. While I appreciate that we are finally getting back to the Skrull situation post "Captain Marvel" and there is a ton of potential here, it's kind of clear from the jump that the potential isn't going to be realized. Like, this should encompass the entirety of the MCU so for there to be no input or involvement from any of the Avengers or heroes that are around, is kind of crazy to me.
It's great to see Ben Mendelsohn back as Talos and the introduction of Emilia Clarke as his daughter, G'iah, but I could not care less about this Skrull family drama. Talos's wife dying off screen simply so Talos can use it to make her feel guilty and turn against Gravik just felt extremely cheap and lame. Speaking of Gravik, Kingsley Ben-Adir really deserved better than that. Gravik is extremely one dimensional. I get that he feels let down and wants his people to have a new home, but his whole plan to start a nuclear war between the US and Russia to make that happen, just feels a little too mustache twirly to me. It's not original at all. Though, I will say that the Skrulls hiding out in Chernobyl because they are immune to the radiation left over from the accident was pretty cool.
The first step in Gravik's plan is successful when the bomb he plants goes off on Unity Day. But it also leads to the absolute worst moment of the episode and maybe the worst moment of any Marvel series so far and that is the completely unnecessary death of Maria Hill. There's zero reason why Hill needed to die. It was a cheap way to set stakes. Hill has been a part of the MCU since "The Avengers" and her being in the rest of this series wouldn't have necessarily redeemed it or made it good, but it maybe could have made it a little more watchable. And it's another female MCU character that was killed for honestly no reason except to motivate a male character. It's lame and it's gross and it's just the worst.
Grade: D
"Promises"
Sonya Falsworth: "Now, shall we do this the easy way or the other way?"
Brogan: "I'm gonna break these chains. And then, I'm gonna break every bone in your body."
Sonya Falsworth: "The other way it is."
After the successful first phase of his plan, Gravik takes over the Skrull council with at least one dissenter. The rest seem on board with Gravik's plan to start a war. Fury attempts to garner support from Col. James Rhodes, but instead finds Rhodes blaming him for the death of Hill and firing him. Falsworth tortures a Skrull to learn about how the Skrulls are strengthening themselves. Meanwhile, we learn ANOTHER secret that he's been hiding for many years.
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| Love her. |
You guys, you're never going to believe this. Nick Fury let Gravik down and that is part of the reason why this is all happening. As a child, Fury recruited an orphaned Gravik in helping find a new home planet for the Skrulls and you know that never happened. So Gravik is big mad and a lot of that fury is aimed at well... Fury. What a shocking twist! Who would have ever thought that this would be part of Gravik's motivations?! Give the writer of this episode an Emmy right now for this inspired bit of plotting. Of course, I'm being sarcastic. This is, again, more lazy writing for "Secret Invasion." They didn't even try to make it worth anything. It's just a big yawn.
Don Cheadle returns to the MCU as James "Rhodey" Rhodes and his scenes with Fury really underline an issue with this series and an issue with the MCU at this point in its history in general. They have this really important conversation and you know it's very important because of the way its staged and the way that its filmed and the way that Cheadle and Jackson are delivering their lines. But, the issue is that when you listen to what they are saying it's nothing. Rhodey tells Fury, hey your recklessness got Maria Hill killed, I'm not going to listen to you about the Skrulls and you're fired. It's basically a giant exposition dump that they try to trick you into thinking is super meaningful. It's another cheap gimmick in a series that only two episodes in is already littered with them. And honestly, Fury's scene with Maria Hill's mother earlier in the episode does a better job of underlining these points and is much more succinct with it.
There's just a lot of drama here that's drummed up that doesn't necessarily feel earned. The attack in the last episode killed 2000 civilians which is bad, but honestly feels like nothing when you look at the property damage in other MCU properties and think about how many innocent folks probably died in those. Of course what Gravik planned is working. Blame is placed on a group called Americans Against Moscow (seriously, that's what it's called) and the Kremlin is ready to throw hands. Again, it all feels so recycled from other things including other MCU series and movies.
Gravik meets with the Skrull council who are Skrulls masquerading as a lot of world leaders. This is interesting because it shows how deep Skrulls have infiltrated but also it's difficult to care too much because we've never seen these characters before and we will probably never see them again. They fold to Gravik like a card table which is crazy because this man is not charismatic at all. Again, not a dig at Adir, more so at the writing.
Emilia Clarke continues to have very little to do in this series aside from wear heavy black eyeliner and put herself in multiple precarious situations where she is almost revealed to be a double agent but just kidding she isn't found out. Were you concerned? During one of these almost gotcha moments, she learns that Gravik is experimenting using super powered DNA. I wonder what he could be doing with that.
The saving grace of this series so far continues to be Sonya Falsworth. She injects a torture scene we've seen a million times before with her unhinged energy and honestly, I spent the majority of this episode's runtime just hoping she'd show up again. She does learn the identity of the scientist couple that is helping Gravik with is super powered DNA experiments and even though they go to the trouble of rescuing him, Brogan gets killed by Gravik. Sure.
The episode ends with Fury coming home and the audience learning that his wife Priscilla Davis is... you guessed it... a Skrull named Varra. Shocking... I guess.
Grade: D+
Next up, we learn more about Gravik's plans with that DNA and Fury becomes suspicious of his wife.
There you have it. Two down. Four to go. What do you all think? Does anyone like this? Think it needs to exist? I'd love to hear in the comments.
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