Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Starring Samual L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Ben Mendelsohn (Talos), Kingsley Ben-Adir (Gravik / Super Skrull), Emilia Clarke (G’iah / Super Skrull), Olivia Colam (Sonya Falsworth), Don Cheadle (Raava / Colonel James Rhodes), Dermot Mulroney (President Ritson), and Charlayne Woodard (Varra / Priscilla Fury) with Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill) and Martin Freeman (as Everett Ross and as a Skrull Impersonating Everett Ross)
SECRET INVASION
Showrunner: Kyle Bradstreet
A Kevin Feige Production
Produced by Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Brad Winderbaum, Jonathan Schwartz, Ali Serum, and Samuel L. Jackson
Music By Amie Doherty
Distributed by Disney Platform Distribution
Number of Episodes: 6
Initial Streaming: June 21, 2023 – July 26, 2023
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Fun Secret Invasion Facts
Marvel Studios first announced Secret Invasion on December 10, 2020, during the special Investor’s Day presentation on Disney+, announcing that Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn would star in the series.
In the Spring of 2021, Marvel Studios cast Emilia Clarke to star in Secret Invasion.
Secret Invasion is very loosely based on the Marvel Comics Event Series of the same which was published in the Summer of 2008 and written by Brian Michael Bendis. The comic book series revolved around a complex Skrull infiltration of the human race and revealed several longstanding Marvel Comics characters as Skrulls, including Elektra, Jessica Drew, Hank Pym, Tony Stark’s butler Edwin Jarvis, Black Bolt, and Dum Dum Dugan. However, Director Ali Selim has stated in interviews that he was specifically discouraged by the Marvel Studios team from reading the comic book series for inspiration.
The shape shifting Skrull race was introduced in the Marvel Comics in Fantastic Four # 2 in January 1962, and they were formally introduced into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2019’s Marvel Studios film Captain Marvel. In the Marvel Comics, the Skrulls are a predominantly villainous extraterrestrial race, but Marvel Studios presented them as a much more benevolent species that had fallen victim to extreme persecution and attempted eradication from the extraterrestrial Kree, who destroyed the Skrull’s home world: Skrullos. Captain Marvel saw both Carol Danvers and Nick Fury befriend the Skrull General Talos and defend his people against the malicious Kree after which Fury promised to assist the Skrulls in finding a new planet to call home.
Since the release of Captain Marvel and prior to Secret Invasion, The Skrulls were seen in 2019’s Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures film Spider-Man: Far From Home and Marvel Studios’ WandaVision series on Disney+. In Far From Home, we learned that Talos and his wife Soren had been covertly portraying Nick Fury and Maria Hill on Earth in the post-Blip world and that Fury had relocated to Space where he resided aboard the S.A.B.E.R. space station to work alongside the Skrulls and oversee the development of an advanced aerospace defense system on behalf of the United States Government. In WandaVision, we saw a Skrull reach out to Monica Rambeau in Westview, presumably in an effort to arrange a meeting between Monica and Fury. Monica was previously seen befriending The Skrulls in Captain Marvel when she was a child. Her mother Maria founded the S.W.O.R.D. agency, which was launched in an effort to protect the Earth against extraterrestrial threats. Maria presumably worked closely with S.H.I.E.L.D. during her time with S.W.O.R.D. and her daughter Monica began working for S.W.O.R.D. as well after she grew up. After the Hydra Uprising and the Fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., S.W.O.R.D. rose in prominence and Nick Fury and Maria Hill both appear to be working with the agency in Avengers: Infinity War. When Thanos wielded the combined power of the Infinity Stones to erase half of all life throughout the Universe, Monica Rambeau, Nick Fury, and Maria Hill were amongst the Vanished. While they were gone, Maria Rambeau succumbed to illness and died (as seen in WandaVision). With Maria gone, Tyler Hayward became the Director of S.W.O.R.D., and he moved the agency in a direction that focused more so on robotics, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, while being specifically obsessed with finding a way to resurrect The VISION (who was destroyed by Thanos). Hayward ultimately succeeded but lost his position and his freedom in the process.
The Promotional material for Secret Invasion teased that the show would revolve around a rebellious and hostile Skrull faction and Nick Fury’s personal war with this faction, making the Skrulls the predominant villains of the Disney+ series. This was confirmed in the first episode of the series as we learn that Talos has been removed from the Skrull Council and has lost his position as Skrull General. A militant Skrull named Gravik has risen up in Talos’ place and is covertly fueling conflict between Earth’s Nations, specifically plotting to spark a war between the United States and Russia that he hopes will spawn World War 3 and leave humanity in ruin, which would leave the Earth for the Skrulls’ taking.
In Secret Invasion, Tony Curran portrays a Skrull that has replaced the Director of MI6 Derrik Weatherby. Curran previously portrayed Bor in Thor: The Dark World for Marvel Studios and furthermore portrayed Finn Cooley in Marvel Television’s Daredevil.
In Secret Invasion, the concept of the Super Skrull is introduced into the MCU. The original Super Skrull first appeared in Fantastic Four # 18 and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. He boasted the combined powers of The Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Human Torch, and The Thing). With The Fantastic Four having yet to be formally introduced on Earth-616 in the MCU, the decision was made to give the Super Skrull(s) seen in Secret Invasion powers pertaining to The Avengers, The Guardians of the Galaxy, and other various adversaries that they have opposed.
In Marvel Studios’ She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, the titular character confronts the entity known as K.E.V.I.N. (based on Marvel CCO Kevin Feige) and lambasts the entity over Marvel Studios’ willingness to center their story around a villain that seeks the blood of a hero so that he can obtain superpowers as well as their tendency to end their stories with spectacular CGI fights between two super-powered beings. In that series, K.E.V.I.N. acknowledges Jennifer Walters’ concerns and changes the narrative of the finale in a way that Jen will find satisfying. Secret Invasion was Marvel Studios’ next show released on Disney+ following She-Hulk, and ironically, the show was everything that Jen lashed out at Marvel Studios for being, complete with a plot that centered around a villain trying to obtain the blood (DNA) of heroes so that he could receive superpowers, AND a finale that featured a CGI fight between two super-powered beings.
Secret Invasion takes place on the MCU (Sacred) Timeline sometime in the year 2026, presumably after Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume Three, and before The Marvels.
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
My Secret Invasion Review
The following episode-by-episode review was be written in real-time immediately after I watched each single episode, with my thoughts on that episode.
Resurrection – Directed by Ali Selim
First Aired on June 21, 2023, on Disney+.
Secret Invasion is Marvel Studios’ first television streaming series since She-Hulk: Attorney at Law last Summer and judging by the trailers, the promotional material, and now, the first episode of the series, this is going to be a very, very different series than She-Hulk was. Secret Invasion is going to be suspenseful, thrilling, political, emotional, and surprising! It’s going to lean heavily into existing MCU mythology and explore the more serious side of this shared world while boasting some very high stakes.
The first five minutes of the first episode of this show set the tone perfectly! Drama, paranoia, violence, aliens … it all came together in a big way as we saw that a murderous Skrull was impersonating Everett Ross and this ruse cost this Skrull his life after he encountered Talos and Maria Hill. Seeing that Ross was not who – or what – he claimed to be prompted Hill to call Nick Fury home to help deal with the situation. As it stands, a dangerous faction of Skrulls have risen up and are actively infiltrating Earth while inciting war through carefully arranged terror attacks that they deviously carry out in the name of other Nations. This Skrull faction is led by the villainous Gravik and the faction includes Talos’ daughter G’iah (introduced in Captain Marvel).
We furthermore learn that Nick Fury was greatly traumatized by the Blip and that he is still working for the United States Government. Fury spent the better part of 20-years trying to protect the planet by any means necessary, and Fury interpreted Thanos’ success erasing half of all life throughout the Universe as a personal failure. After returning to the land of the living following a five-year absence, Fury happily took a job aboard the S.A.B.E.R. space station. This was Fury essentially running away to Space. However, Fury isn’t about to turn down a cry for help from his dear friend and confidant Maria Hill, so he begrudgingly returns to Earth.
There, Fury learns the gravity of the current situation: Talos has been exiled from the Skrull Council and Gravik has quickly amassed a huge following and with it a great deal of power. Gravik sees the Skrulls’ longstanding partnership with Fury (which dates back to the 1990’s) as a failure and he wants the Earth for his people. Humans are simply in the way. From here, we meet Sonya Falsworth (brilliantly portrayed by Olivia Colman) of MI6 after which Fury and Talos locate a prominent Skrull rebel that is killed by Fury when an altercation with Talos ensues. This is a very intense and interesting scene, not only because of the fight itself, but due to the fact that Talos is visibly frustrated by Fury’s decision to kill the Skrull, something Talos had insisted Fury not do. The underlying tension between Fury and Talos despite their close friendship throughout this episode is one of its greatest strengths. Talos soon reunites with his estranged daughter and informs G’iah that her mother Soren has died. G’iah then lets Talos in on the details of the next planned terror attack … set to take place in Vossoyedineniye Square in Russia … in the name of the United States. This is part of Gravik’s master plan: to provoke a nuclear war between America and Russia. Gravik believes that such a war will eradicate the human race while posing no real threat to his people due to the reveal in this episode that the Skrulls are immune to the effects of radiation. G’iah promises to make the dirty bombs that are set to go off identifiable so that they can be confiscated from rebel forces by Fury and his team. Fury, Hill, and Talos then set out to prevent this Unity Day attack, but the Intel that G’iah gave them doesn’t benefit them to the degree that they hoped it would, as the bombs they acquire are decoys. Fury then realizes first-hand just how dangerous Gravik is, and this culminates in Gravik taking on the guise of Fury and shooting Maria Hill.
Hill does not survive the attack and the episode ends with the death of Maria Hill in the streets of Russia.
When a Skrull dies, they revert back to their true form (as we learned in Captain Marvel). I personally kept waiting and waiting for Maria to “turn green” and mutate … but she never did. It looks like Maria Hill really is dead and that is crazy and shocking and a wild way to start off this series! My initial thoughts on Secret Invasion are … I really enjoyed everything about this episode. The tone, the pacing, the dialogue, the action sequences, the music, the acting … everything was very well done, and it was all top-notch. There was a lot to like and I’m really looking forward to seeing where this series takes us. I’m also wondering if the Everett Ross that we saw die in this episode as a Skrull was the same Everett Ross whose journey we’ve followed since 2016’s Captain America: Civil War and whether he was a Skrull all along? I’m also wondering of course, just who else is going to be revealed to be a Skrull in this series, and how deep this infiltration really goes?
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Promises – Directed by Ali Selim
First Aired on June 28, 2023, on Disney+.
The second episode of Secret Invasion was a perfect follow-up to the premier as more groundwork was laid and more blanks were filled-in pertaining to select characters and their MCU chronology. This episode began with a look back to 1997 and we learned that two-years after his vow to find the Skrulls a new home world, a young Nick Fury invited a select few Skrulls to live on Earth and work for and with him while the search continued. In exchange for having a place to reside, the Skrulls would take on a human appearance and work for S.H.I.E.L.D. on behalf of humanity. The Skrulls agreed, under the advisement of Talos. One of these Skrulls was a young Gravik, who’d lost both of his parents during the conflict with the Kree. Gravik’s ambition and brilliance are both highlighted here, and we meet a particular Skrull that we will later learn is of great import.
Back in present day, we revisit the death of Maria Hill, and we see Talos whisk Fury away from the Unity Day bombing. Aboard a train, a rattled and in-mourning Fury confronts Talos over some truths that Fury believes have obviously slipped by him. This is a wonderful scene in which both Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn really shine and there is a lot of information to unpack here. We learn that since the Blip, the Earth has been infiltrated by one million Skrulls! Talos chastises Fury for his absence in recent years – both literally (from 2018-2023) and figuratively (2023-2026) – while stressing the desperation of his people and the significance of the predicament they find themselves in. Talos feels there is no reason that the Skrulls should not be welcomed to Earth with open arms by its governments and citizens, but Fury reasons that such a thing is a fool’s dream, noting that humans can’t even co-exist with themselves. I really enjoyed this intense exchange and it made for great food for thought. Indeed, as a species, mankind has found reasons to hate, hurt, and wage war against each other for endless reasons, including but certainly not limited to the colors of our own skins. Throwing a species with green skin and pointy ears into the mix would be a recipe for disaster, it would seem!
Fury next meets with Maria Hill’s mother Elizabeth and this scene, complete with Hill’s flag-draped coffin once again drives home the notion that Maria Hill really is dead. This is another great sequence that ends with Hill’s mother begging Fury to not let her daughter’s death be in vain. We then see some of the fallout from the Unity Day bombing as the United States finds itself on a collision course with Russia. Tensions are high and the political climate is thick, and we learn that some of the key government and media personalities that are feeding the frenzy are in fact members of the Skrull Council. We see Gravik meet with the Council and appoint himself the new Skrull General, declaring that the Skrulls are at war with the Earth at stake and that he will do everything in his power to win said war. Again, it is reiterated here that Gravik’s campaign is fueled by a personal vendetta against Fury over Fury’s failure to deliver on his promise to find the Skrulls a new home world. After this meeting, Talos demands a meeting with Gravik.
Meanwhile, Colonel James Rhodes stands before leaders of other Nations in an effort to deescalate some of the rising tensions. The subject of this meeting is Nick Fury himself, whom the European leaders want to be held accountable for his alleged involvement in the bombing. Publicly, Rhodey refuses to sell Fury out, but Fury meets privately with Rhodes and the Colonel lambasts Fury. Rhodes – who seems to be some sort of liaison to President Ritson, perhaps his own personal superhero in fact as War Machine – outright chastises and even FIRES Fury from all of his government duties! The United States wants no part of anything that has to do with Nick Fury anymore and Rhodes even ignores Fury’s warnings about the Skrulls, going so far as to admit that he’s known about Skrulls for some 15-years and that there are far greater concerns to be consumed with … such as war with Russia and potentially World War 3. This is yet another fantastic scene and Don Cheadle and Samuel L. Jackson are both outstanding with fantastic dialogue and a lot of passion between them. Fury also emphasizes during this scene the fact that his personal war with the Skrulls is one he needs to fight alone due to the threat of the shape shifters duplicating – and framing – any of Earth’s superheroes. The scene ends with Fury fighting his way out of captivity despite his discharge.
Next, we see a torture scene at a butcher shop, and we learn that the person being tortured for information is a Skrull. This scene is stollen by Oliva Colman as Sonya Falsworth (a distant relative of James Montgomery Falsworth, it would seem, whom we saw in Captain America: The First Avenger). With her confident and calm demeanor and constant smile, Colman is wickedly delightful as she successfully retrieves the information that she is seeking … that Gravik is building a machine that will bestow the Skrulls with powerful physical enhancements. In the meantime, G’iah is discovering details pertaining to this as well and we learn that amongst the biological samples being used to create these enhancements are extractions from Groot II, a Jotunheim Frost Beast, and Cull Obsidian. Extremis (a focal point of Iron Man 3) is also referenced. This is obviously going to lead to Super Skrulls, and I have to admit that this would have been a much cooler reveal had we not already seen the Skrulls boasting enhancements in the trailers for this series.
Moving on, Gravik has the previously tortured Skrull executed (which bothers G’iah) and Fury returns home to his wife … who is a Skrull!?! … whom we met at the beginning of the episode portrayed by Charlayne Woodard. I believe Fury knows she is a Skrull, as back in ’97, he was already greeting her with the affectionate forehead-to-forehead Skrull greeting. That being said, it’s pretty crazy that Fury was married all along, and to a Skrull no less! Obviously, there are lots of questions coming out of this episode. Chief among them is whether or not Rhodey is a Skrull and if he is, how long has he been? He’s been my top Skrull prospect going into this series all along, and it will be interesting to see where things with him go. Also, is G’iah truly a villain? It certainly looked like she betrayed her father Talos in Russia, but we saw her having obvious reservations about Gravik throughout this episode. What is her true agenda … and, I guess you have to wonder if she really is G’iah and if her mother Soren really is dead? On top of all of that, can we really trust Talos? For a lot of effort has been made to play up the tension between he and Fury! Two episodes in, I’m loving the acting performances from Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Olivia Colman, and Don Cheadle, and I’m enjoying the dialogue-heavy scenes and the overall suspense of the series. It’s a slow-burn deal for sure, and that may not be for everybody, but so far, so good in my book.
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Betrayed – Directed by Ali Selim
First Aired on July 5, 2023, on Disney+.
The third episode of Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion revealed Gravik’s next scheme to push the human world into a third World War following the Unity Day bombing in Russia: the bombing of a United Nations airplane via covert Skrull infiltration of the Royal Navy. Much of this episode revolves around Gravik’s attempt to have his people pull this off and the attempt of Talos and Nick Fury to prevent it via help from G’iah. In the meantime, Gravik informs the Skrull Council of his plans to create Super Skrulls (complete with a name drop) and slowly pieces together the fact that G’iah has betrayed him and is feeding her father information. Gravik also meets with Talos in what is a very unsettling scene that serves to both boast Gravik’s power (revealing his Extremis abilities) and Talos’ love for his daughter, and Talos and Fury get back on the same page.
All of this leads to Talos and Fury interrogating the Skrull that has been impersonating Commodore Robert Fairbanks, who boasts the authorization code for calling off the missile strike from the submarine that Gravik’s people have triggered. The Fairbanks Skrull provokes Talos into killing him, forcing Fury and Talos to rely upon G’iah to retrieve the information. She does so successfully, and the tragedy is averted, but as she attempts to flee, she is intercepted by Gravik, who informs her that he knows she has betrayed him and then shoots her! G’iah sheds her human disguise as she bleeds out and reverts to her Skrull form, signaling her apparent death.
We also saw more of Nick Fury and his wife Priscilla; a Skrull named Varra. We saw a nice little flashback scene between Fury and Varra, showing them work together on a case involving the notorious General Dreykov of Black Widow fame. We also learned that Varra mourned the loss of Fury following the Snap and begrudged Fury for taking his sabbatical to Space following the Blip. There is a lot of tension between the husband and wife and the show makes a point to stress uncertainty when it comes to exactly where Varra’s loyalties lie. She obviously loved Fury at some point, even if she no longer does, and she was the one to first introduce Fury to Gravik. We see Varra take a mysterious phone call during the episode and later see her retrieve a gun from a security deposit box en route to taking a call from … James Rhodes, who demands to meet with her after she expresses her interest to speak to Gravik.
So, Rhodey is a Skrull it would seem! Two primary things are surely at the forefront of fans’ minds coming out of Betrayed. One, how long has Rhodey been a Skrull, and two is G’iah really dead? Personally, I do not believe that G’iah is really dead. Emilia Clarke is too big a star to throw away this soon and this casually in my opinion, and we saw G’iah snooping around the Super Skrull machine, so I figure she landed herself some superpowers that will allow her to heal from her wounds and that she reverted back to Skrull form in order to deceive Gravik into thinking that she was dead.
As for Rhodey, who knows! I kind of like the idea of him having been a Skrull for a long time; like, a Skrull replaced the actual Rhodey years ago in an effort to infiltrate the United States Military and Stark Industries. I think Rhodey’s actions in Captain America: Civil War for instance, a movie where he seemed way too comfortable with arresting Captain America and urging The VISION to blast Sam Wilson out of the sky (an order that backfired and resulted in his paralysis), make much more sense if he was a Skrull (a lot of Sharon Carter’s do too, by the way), but it’s more likely that Rhodey will be revealed to have been replaced post-Endgame as he settled into his role as a liaison to the President of the United States. Either way, War Machine being a Skrull is a big deal, and the task of Fury rescuing heroes like the real Rhodey and the real Everett Ross from Skrull captivity will add to the suspense of this series.
Overall, another solid episode of Secret Invasion this week. This show has plenty of twists and suspense, but its greatest strength continues to be the stellar performances of Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn, and their remarkable chemistry with one another. I’m looking forward to the next episode.
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Beloved – Directed by Ali Selim
First Aired on July 12, 2023, on Disney+.
In episode four of Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion, we learn right out the gate that Emilia Clarke’s G’iah was not killed last week after all (as a lot of us assumed) and that she in fact had previously transformed herself into a Super Skrull (as a lot of us also assumed). After recovering from Gravik’s attack, G’iah shares a somber meeting with her father Talos where she pleads to hear his plans for Skrull relocation once the fight with Gravik is won, only to be disappointed with Talos’ plan to have the one million Skrulls currently residing on Earth be welcomed with open arms by the human race after the war with Gravik is over.
We also quickly learn that yes, Colonel James Rhodes is in fact a Skrull imposter. We see his meeting with Varra (which was teased last week) in which he orders her to kill Nick Fury, who listens in on this meeting. Fury then meets with Varra and this scene was complimented well by a 2012 flashback sequence between the two earlier in the episode. The husband-and-wife exchange various words but ultimately decide not to kill one another because they each truly love each other in their own way. Fury then forces a meeting with Rhodes (who is actually a female Skrull, by the way) and after they share a drink and exchange threats, the Skrull impersonating Rhodes informs Fury of just how easily it would be to frame Fury for the death of Maria Hill. Fury leaves bitterly, but he accomplished his mission of having the Rhodes Skrull consume a liquid tracking device.
All the while, Gravik is in the midst of executing the next move in his efforts to usher in World War III – the assassination of President Ritson in the name of Russia. The Rhodes Skrull is all-in on helping this happen and the President’s car is successfully bombed, but Fury and Talos make sure that Ritson lives. Talos in fact dies (presumably) during the mission, shot and killed by Gravik (who also wields his Groot powers during the altercation). Fury flees with the President.
This was a fast-moving and explosive episode of Secret Invasion. A lot of this was stuff that we previously saw in the trailers. Lots of helicopter crashes and gunfire and the President’s car crashing, and Talos being unable to retain his human guise. I understand showing some of it, because a lot of this show’s budget probably went to this sequence and it did have a big-budget, feature film feel, which I liked and which appeals to a large portion of the audience, but again, I don’t think it was necessary to show so much! it really does kill the suspense, which is supposed to be one of this show’s greatest strengths.
Is Talos dead? Maybe. Maybe not. I assume that he is, as his sacrifice in protecting the President will probably gain his people the providence that they are seeking from the United States Government at the end of this series, while giving G’iah even more motivation to align with Fury and take Gravik down. That being said, I hate to see the Talos character get killed-off. Ben Mendelsohn has been a delight in that role, and I have really enjoyed his contributions to the MCU.
Beyond that, we didn’t get any answers pertaining to how long Rhodey has been a Skrull. Hopefully, that’s coming … Overall, this was a solid episode for what it was, but sadly, it just felt way too predictable for me, the blame for which mostly falls on the trailers giving too much away. Hopefully, the last two episodes will boast some things that we haven’t already seen.
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Harvest – Directed by Ali Selim
First Aired on July 19, 2023, on Disney+.
Episode five of Secret Invasion picked up with Nick Fury rushing President Ritson to the hospital where he soon encountered the Skrull version of Rhodey (Raava), who informed Fury that she was about to leak the footage of “Fury” (Gravik) killing Maria Hill, which she did, making Fury the most wanted man in the world. Fury still has friends though – namely G’iah and Sonya Falsworth – and Falsworth joins up with Fury after exposing her boss as a Skrull in what was a fun little sequence.
Meanwhile, the Rhodey Skrull plans to provoke President Ritson into bombing the Skrull Compound in Russia and consequently prompting World War III while Gravik has revealed his true agenda – the confiscation of “The Harvest” from Fury. “The Harvest” is the DNA of select Avengers, which was gathered following the Battle of Earth by a team overseen by Fury, with which Gravik can of course bestow upon Skrulls (and most notably himself) the enhancements of The Avengers. That would be bad news for the humans of course.
As all of this is going on, Gravik (who has gone crazy and has turned to blatantly killing his own people) orders a hit on the life of Priscilla Fury (Varra), who helps G’iah bury Talos (looks like he really is dead) after Fury points G’iah her way. G’iah and Varra survive the Skrull attack and Fury and Falsworth venture to Finland to retrieve a “Harvest” Vile from one of Fury’s many faux graves scattered across the globe.
This should lead to Fury vs Gravik next week.
Pretty paint-by-the-numbers episode of Secret Invasion this week in my opinion. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t particularly good either. Again, the acting from Jackson was solid and I really enjoyed Olivia Colman this week – she reminds me of a demented Mary Poppins! However, Earth is pretty much hanging in the balance here, but it doesn’t really feel like it is, if that makes any sense. Dialogue was written yet again to explain why Fury doesn’t call-in Carol Danvers or Clint Barton or Bruce Banner or anyone else he’s worked with over the years, but it doesn’t really make any sense that he wouldn’t, and this is the kind of stuff that plagued those early television series produced by Marvel Television that were supposed to be MCU canon all those years ago … from a narrative standpoint, it just doesn’t make sense that Fury wouldn’t call in for some help unless you’re just going with the “he’s stubborn” thing, and maybe that’s fair considering he didn’t page Captain Marvel for help until Thanos invaded Earth, but even then, it feels like a stretch. Then, the whole Harvest thing? Not a fan of that at all! Why would Fury take part in something like that? That’s a major strike against his “heroic character”, and again, I get that he has done some shady things in the past, but we’re supposed to be cheering for this guy, aren’t we?
Beyond that, Gravik slipped down into generic villain category this week, turning on his followers for daring to doubt his failures and outright setting his people up for extermination. Whatever efforts Marvel Studios could have made to make him a sympathetic character, even if only from his own point of view were thrown out the window this week. He’s turned out to be one in a long line of arrogant, power-hungry, hypocrites with evil agendas that have permeated the MCU over the years, and that’s disappointing. I’m looking nonetheless forward to seeing Gravik get taken down next week, but heading into the finale, Secret Invasion feels like a show that Marvel Studios wanted to have very high stakes … but is a show that just feels too small … and severely disjointed from the wider MCU, and that is significantly hindering my overall enjoyment. Let’s see how they stick the landing next week.
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Home – Directed by Ali Selim
First Aired on July 26, 2023, on Disney+.
The sixth and final episode of Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion was … underwhelming. I really hate to admit that, because I generally love the MCU and mostly enjoyed the first couple of episodes of this series, but the quality dipped dramatically for me last week in episode five, and it didn’t recover at all this week with episode six. I had concerns right from the start when I saw a 37-minute run time for this finale when I loaded it on Disney+. Episodes One and two were nearly an hour long and episode three was 45-minutes. The final three episode however have been 37-minutes, 38-minutes, and 37-minutes respectively, and seeing that run time caused me to fear that this would feel rushed and anticlimactic, and in the end, that’s exactly how it felt to me.
The bulk of this episode revolved around two separate things: Sonya Falsworth getting to President Ritson and exposing Raava’s ruse and Nick Fury venturing to Russia to confront Gravik at the Skrull Compound. Both of these missions are being carried out in an attempt to prevent World War III. Most of the time is spent on Fury confronting Gravik. A physically sickened Fury (due to radiation) converses with an overbearing Gravik and ultimately offers up the Harvest Vile in exchange for Gravik agreeing to flee Earth and leave humanity alone. Gravik mocks this truce and instead exposes himself to the Harvest and becomes a Super-Duper Super Skrull. When he attacks Fury however, Fury is able to stand toe-to-toe with Gravik, because Fury isn’t Fury … he’s G’iah, and she too has been exposed to the Harvest Vile and is now a Super-Duper Super Skrull as well. Amongst the additional powers that they have obtained are those belonging to The Abomination, Ghost, Captain America (Steve Rogers), Corvus Glaive, Thanos, an Outrider, Proxima Midnight, Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers), Mantis, Drax, Korg, The Ebony Maw, The Hulk, a Chitauri, Black Panther, Valkyrie, Thor, Gamora, and The Winter Soldier. Overkill, anyone?
This leads to a show-down pitting G’iah vs Gravik that looked at times, sort of goofy, and at others, sort of awesome, depending on what powers were being wielded. G’iah ultimately wins the fight and kills Gravik, leaving her now as the MCU’s most powerful hero … by far! Meanwhile, Fury is of course with Falsworth and their situation ends with Falsworth and Fury pointing a gun at Raava while Ritson points a gun at them. Eventually, Fury shoots Raava in the head, killing her and President Ritson calls off the missile strike of the Skrull Compound. This was a standoff that rationally went way too long, as for the life of me, I don’t know why Fallsworth or Fury wouldn’t have simply shot Raava in the hand to prove she was a Skrull, but whatever, it was what it was.
From there, we see the humans that were being held at the Skrull Compound get freed, including the real Everett Ross and the real James Rhodes. Do we get to learn how long Rhodey has actually been a Skrull? No. Of course not! G’iah simply states that he has been there for a “long time.” The only clue we (maybe) get is that Rhodes is wearing the same hospital gown that we see him wearing in Captain America: Civil War, which could mean he was replaced when he was administered to the hospital after being blasted by The VISION and paralyzed in that film. Rhodey also needs assistance walking away from the containment pod, while other captives clearly do not, which suggests he was indeed replaced after being paralyzed. This would of course mean that the Rhodey that we saw in Captain Marvel, Infinity War, Endgame, and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier was not the real Rhodey. Of course, this is merely speculation until someone from Marvel Studios or another character confirms it, but I have to think it would have been pretty easy to both give an answer and create some wonderful suspense by having Rhodey audibly ask for a phone so he could call Tony. But we got no such thing.
What we did get was President Ritson declaring war on the Skrull race and we saw quick sequences of Skrulls (and some humans that were mislabeled as Skrulls) being murdered in public. Ritson in fact labeled all extraterrestrial races enemies of humanity and he was lambasted by Fury for this, but Fury’s pleas for reason fell on deaf ears. In the meantime, Sonya Falsworth recruits G’iah to join with her in a mission to protect the Skrulls on Earth. As for Fury, he reconciles with Varra, kisses her in her Skrull form, and the two of them return to Space. I assume we will follow his journey forward in The Marvels.
There was no post-credit scene of any kind.
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Overall Thoughts
Sadly, there was a lot of disappointment for me with this show. This was our first Marvel Studios Disney+ series since She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and as an overall series, I think Secret Invasion was comparable to She-Hulk in all the wrong ways. While I appreciated that Secret Invasion didn’t try to be funny or campy or silly, or any of those things that I think we’ve gotten a bit too much of in the MCU of late, I felt it failed to deliver the kind of high stakes that it tried to sell in its first couple of episodes. I am not going to go so far as to call this series “boring”, but a lot of people are … it’s difficult to find the exact word I would use to criticize it, but I think underwhelming about sums it up.
For a spy thriller, there really weren’t all that many twists and turns in terms of the grand scheme of things, and the mysteries that were teased were never explored in any meaningful way that would bring closure to them. Does it really matter that Fury was married to a Skrull all along? No. How long had Rhodey been a Skrull? We don’t know and they didn’t tell us. Why couldn’t Fury find the Skrulls a home planet? We can speculate, but they never really told us. How long had Everett Ross been a Skrull? We don’t know and they didn’t tell us. Did Talos – who sacrificed his life to save the President – die in vain? Yeah. Looks like he did! On top of all of that, this moved in a very slow pace that was WAY too predictable. Even in the finale, anyone paying attention should have known all along that G’iah had taken on Fury’s guise to confront Gravik, just like we knew she wasn’t really dead at the end of episode three and had already become a Super Skrull, and just like we knew before that, that she was working against Gravik. Again, just too predictable to be suspenseful, and suspense seemed to be what they were going for in producing this show.
As is the case for most things Marvel with me, there were things I liked about Secret Invasion. I thought Kingsley Ben-Adir was really good in select scenes, and I really liked how he looked as the Super Super Skrull in the finale. I thought Olivia Colman was a delight, and anytime Samul L. Jackson and Ben Mendehlson were on the screen together, it was an easy and entertaining watch. Beyond that, this show does seem like required MCU viewing, even without any of the bigger cameos and the somewhat anticlimactic ending. I mean, Maria Hill died and that was a big deal, and Talos died and that’s a big deal, and Soren was killed off-screen and that’s a big deal, and Rhodey was a Skrull for a while and we now have the most superpowered person in the history of superpowered people in G’iah. We furthermore learned a lot about Nick Fury that we never knew. At the same time, the show started with Fury in Space and ended with Fury in Space, so … not a lot of forward movement for his character, really.
In the end, Secret Invasion felt to me like another mediocre Marvel Studios production with a reported budget of over $200 million (which I find staggering) and very low viewership numbers (second only to Ms. Marvel at the bottom of the Marvel Studios Disney+ ladder). Unlike Ms. Marvel (the highest-rated Marvel Studios Disney+ series, critically speaking) however, Secret Invasion is the lowest-rated Marvel Studios Disney+ show on Rotten Tomatoes with a mere 53% Approval Rating. So, not many people watched it, and of those who did, not many of them enjoyed it.
As I write this, we are now as fans, in the middle of a writer’s strike and an actor’s strike. All Marvel Studios productions have shut down along with the rest of Hollywood as what has been a very challenging year for Marvel Studios in particular, continues to become more challenging. Looking ahead, Loki: Season Two is scheduled for release for October 6, 2023, followed by The Marvels on November 10, 2023, and then Echo on November 29, 2023. Those are the only remaining productions that have been finalized. And after a San Diego Comic Con last week with no news, no trailers, no cast announcements, no interviews, and no presentations, 2024 is starting to look more and more dire on the MCU front with each passing day that these strikes continue to linger without a resolution. It’s probably only a matter of time before more release delays are announced.
I think it is important to remember that Marvel Studios has made some major changes behind the scenes since the return of Bob Iger late last year and that we really won’t begin to see those changes manifest themselves until 2024 and beyond. As fans, we need to be patient and hope for a return to excellence for the MCU, but as we strive to do that, I sure am missing the glory days of The Infinity Saga.
Highlights of Secret Invasion:
Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
Ben Mendelsohn as Talos
Chemistry between Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn
Olivia Colman as Sonya Falsworth
Extended Dialogue Sequences Between Select Characters
Tell Me Something I Don’t Know About …
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Notable MCU Concepts and Characters Introduced:
Gravik. Varra. Raava. United States President Ritson. Sonya Falsworth. Rhodey revealed to be a Skrull. Everett Ross revealed to be a Skrull.
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