Blog

Aug 09, 2023

‘Secret Invasion’ Finale Recap: Sound and Nick Fury, Signifying Nothing

Filed under: “Home” is neither an effective tease for ‘The Marvels’ nor a satisfying conclusion to a stand-alone MCU story Secret Invasion had the potential to be a unique and exciting offering in

Filed under:

“Home” is neither an effective tease for ‘The Marvels’ nor a satisfying conclusion to a stand-alone MCU story

Secret Invasion had the potential to be a unique and exciting offering in Marvel Studios’ growing catalog of Disney+ series. The show boasted a terrific cast of returning actors, including Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Cobie Smulders, and Don Cheadle, along with MCU newcomers Emilia Clarke, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Olivia Colman. With a story focused on the shape-shifting Skrulls infiltrating positions of power across the world, and an embattled Nick Fury taking center stage for the first time, the ingredients seemed to be in place for a Marvel-style spy thriller reminiscent of 2014’s Captain America: Winter Soldier. And yet, much like Fury after he promised to find the Skrulls a new home, Secret Invasion never came close to delivering during its six-episode run.

There’s a lot of TV out there. We want to help: Every week, we’ll tell you the best and most urgent shows to stream so you can stay on top of the ever-expanding heap of Peak TV.

On Wednesday, Secret Invasion followed a fairly strong penultimate episode with one of the MCU’s worst TV finales—which is saying something, considering Marvel Studios’ small-screen efforts haven’t been known for finishing strong. Over its 30-ish-minute running time, Secret Invasion sticks to the MCU finale playbook at nearly every turn. The result is the sort of predictable and messy CGI spectacle that She-Hulk: Attorney at Law poked fun at in its own fourth-wall-breaking finale. Despite the recent confirmation that The Marvels will serve as a sequel to Secret Invasion (as well as to Avengers: Endgame and Captain Marvel), the series leaves viewers with more questions and unsatisfying answers than reasons to be hyped for the film’s arrival in November.

Before looking ahead to The Marvels, let’s discuss the Secret Invasion finale’s Super-Skrull heavyweight fight between Gravik and G’iah in New Skrullos. For all of Gravik’s menacing monologues and careful scheming throughout the season, he falls prey to shortsightedness in “Home.” G’iah manages to fool him into believing that she’s Fury, and before he realizes her deceit, Gravik makes the very questionable decision to allow her to remain in the Super-Skrull machine as he adds the Harvest—which contains the DNA of the Avengers, among others—to his smorgasbord of superpowers. Whether he was hoping the transformation process would instantly kill Fury is unclear, though he didn’t seem all that surprised when it failed to do so. Perhaps the bigger question is: What happened to Gravik’s shirt?

The two square off with just about any and every noteworthy ability in the history of the MCU at their disposal. Although the buildup to the confrontation is rather uninspired, the explosive battle makes for a fun spectator experience of spotting the source of every power put to use. The combatants whale on each other while flying through the air as Captain Marvel’s trademark glow emanates from their bodies. They punch with literal Hulk-like strength. Gravik uses Ebony Maw’s telekinetic powers to toss G’iah around by simply waving his hand as if he were using the Force, while G’iah borrows Mantis’s ability to put her foes to sleep instantaneously. My personal favorite: tiny Drax arms.

(If Secret Invasion is remembered for nothing else, I truly hope it’s this image. Somebody needs to Photoshop a little dumbbell into the one below.)

G’iah ultimately kills Gravik with a fitting usage of Captain Marvel’s powers, shooting a beam of energy through his chest. Thanks to his Extremis DNA, Gravik may be able to survive a shot to the face, but the body blow apparently proves to be too much.

A byproduct of G’iah’s title fight with Gravik is that Fury—the real Fury—is relegated to more of a backseat role at the climax of his own solo series. Unless Fury had somehow gained superpowers himself, this turn of events was perhaps inevitable, given what little chance he would have had in a fight against Gravik even before the big bad gained the powers of every hero and villain who spilled blood during Endgame’s so-called Battle of Earth. As G’iah handles the heavy lifting in New Skrullos, Fury teams up with his MI6 buddy Sonya Falsworth to save the hapless American president (again) and expose the Skrull pretending to be James Rhodes once and for all.

If nothing else, it’s clear that President Ritson needs to reconsider whom he’s trusting with his life. After the president is almost assassinated by Gravik and his followers in the fourth episode, Falsworth and Fury dispatch the unit assigned to protect him at the hospital without breaking a sweat. Ritson has been confused at every turn of Secret Invasion, and he stays true to form to the bitter end. Although Rhodey’s asking an American admiral if she had taken a “stupid pill with [her] breakfast this morning” serves as yet another sign that something is very wrong with this man (and much of the writing in this series), it isn’t until Fury shoots the Skrull in the head that Ritson finally realizes that he’s been duped by aliens. (Just as baffling is the fact that neither Fury nor Falsworth elects to simply shoot the phony Rhodey in the leg to reveal her natural green form, like Falsworth did to her old boss without hesitation in last week’s episode.)

In the aftermath of Fury and Falsworth’s confrontation and Super-Skrull smackdown, Ritson wastes little time in declaring war against all off-worlders in an address to the nation: “We know who you are. We know how to find you. And we will kill every last one of you.” His statement stirs something of a global panic that inspires humans to play the role of vigilante against any suspected Skrulls. Poor Shooter McGavin never stood a chance:

G’iah frees the remaining humans being held hostage beneath New Skrullos, including a confused Everett K. Ross and Rhodey, the latter of whom Secret Invasion places a particular focus on. Unlike everyone else in the room, the colonel is wearing blue scrubs, and he needs help walking out of his pod. G’iah tells him, “You’ve been held hostage for a long time,” while Ross asks Rhodes, “How long have you been in here?” (Shouldn’t Ross be wondering the same about himself?) The implication seems to be that Rhodey has been held by the Skrulls since his near-fatal injury in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, suggesting that every one of his subsequent MCU appearances, including his presence at the funeral of his best friend Tony Stark in Endgame, was a hoax.

This possibility would have a significant effect on how we view Rhodey as a character, especially in light of his upcoming solo film, Armor Wars. Yet like so many other major twists in Secret Invasion, the moment doesn’t land with any emotional weight because of the show’s clumsy storytelling. It isn’t clear whether this apparent Rhodey revelation is legit or just bait for fan theorizing, but if it’s the former, it feels like an attempt to retcon Rhodey’s journey in the MCU to add some belated, unearned intrigue to one of the franchise’s major characters.

Related

After setting off on her own, G’iah cuts a deal with Falsworth to help “make this planet safe for both [their] people.” As Falsworth sees it, G’iah stands as the next in line to lead Earth’s Skrulls, and MI6 can help provide the resources they’ll need in this war that Ritson has waged against them. Fury, meanwhile, patches up his relationship with his wife, Varra, and they leave the planet to return to the S.A.B.E.R. Space Station and try to help the Skrulls another way. According to Fury, the Kree are finally interested in peace talks with the Skrulls, so he recruits his wife to help with the negotiations that will hopefully secure a new home for the shape-shifting aliens after all these years.

Despite being described from the start as a limited series, Secret Invasion leaves behind a trail of loose ends—and in contrast to most MCU series, there isn’t a post-credits scene to set up how the finale fits into what lies ahead. The Marvels will feature a returning Fury in a supporting role, and by the looks of the trailer and promos, the film will also include the Skrulls and the Kree. The Kree-Skrull conflict was at the heart of the 1990s-set Captain Marvel, and Secret Invasion has now established that there will be a peace summit between the long-warring alien races. But the finale does little to tease The Marvels beyond that. There isn’t much indication of what actually happened to the other Skrulls who weren’t killed at New Skrullos and are now being hunted across the world. Nor is there a tacked-on clip from The Marvels, along the lines of the stinger from the finale of Ms. Marvel. If Secret Invasion had concluded in a way that made it feel like a true stand-alone series, its lack of a better tease for Marvel’s next movie wouldn’t seem so strange. As it is, though, the finale neither justifies Secret Invasion’s existence as a self-contained show nor establishes the series’ centrality to the MCU.

One of the biggest lingering questions spurred by Secret Invasion is what role G’iah will play in the MCU now that she has become far and away the most powerful being around. (In addition to the powers mentioned above, G’iah has also gained the abilities of the Black Panther, Valkyrie, Thor, and Thanos, just to name a few.) For whatever reason, she seemingly hasn’t been included in Fury’s plans to convene with the Kree to hash out their issues with the Skrulls, and Fury doesn’t seem to be that bothered by the virtually unlimited power that he’s gifted her. Marvel has long had issues with the consistency of its scale of power across stories, and Secret Invasion has just unleashed a new character that could break that scale entirely. For now, G’iah has aligned herself with Falsworth, who has introduced her to a whole new group of humans whom the Skrulls have been mining for information.

In The Marvels, Fury will be back in space as if he’d never left, so Secret Invasion will go down as a massive (and oddly expensive) missed opportunity in what will likely be his one and only solo project. Characters who could have had significant roles, such as Maria Hill and Talos, were sacrificed in anticlimactic, unemotional deaths that did little more than push the plot forward. Now that the world has become aware of the Skrulls’ existence (in an episode that aired on a day when alleged real-life aliens made the news), Secret Invasion may continue to have ripple effects in the MCU. But like many of Marvel Studios’ TV shows before it, the way it ties into the larger narrative feels flimsy at best, furthering the perception of Phase 5’s narrative inertia. Worse, the series failed to tell a stand-alone, Fury-centric story worth remembering.

Check your inbox for a welcome email.

Oops. Something went wrong. Please enter a valid email and try again.

Check your inbox for a welcome email.

Oops. Something went wrong. Please enter a valid email and try again.

Sheil and Ben also discuss how the Eagles trimmed the roster to 53, and Jason reacts to the moves by White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf

Musa and Ryan also talk about Flo Balogun’s move to Monaco and some other interesting moves from this week

James and Fuad Cadini ask the pressing deadline day questions: Why did the Everton Dildo change everything for? Did the Ozil signing mean the end for Unai Emery?

Jonathan also discusses working with ’Humans of New York’ and the ways in which being a father have shaped and changed his life

Bill Belichick might have fixed one problem by giving Mac Jones a real offensive coordinator, but serious questions remain in year four of New England’s post–Tom Brady era

Petesy and Chuck also discuss Jon Jones’s "nightmares" of Stipe Miocic and the Korean Zombie’s incredible lasting legacy