SECRET INVASION (SPOILER TALK)

[JonnyLaw]

Accepting that not all heroes are going to show up to help other heroes out in their solo on-going is just standard suspension of disbelief for comic books.  Personally, I think it complicates things when they try to explain why other heroes can’t help.  Like Fury saying he doesn’t want the Avengers to help because then the Skrulls might try to impersonate them is fucking stupid, because Gravik is obviously smart enough to think of that on his own (see, War Machine).  Fury is just lucky his plan calls for impersonating Russians and not Groot.  Given the scope of the show, it’d be 100x more believable to just say “I don’t know who I can trust.”

[Eivion]

Never really had an issue with heroes not showing up. I just think the explanations they went with could have been better. In general this is spycraft which most of them have no real idea how to deal with it a. Beyond that who knows when any of them were last in contact with Fury, and that isn't even going into the ones who don't know him at all beyond rep. There is basically little reason for Fury to trust them and vice versa.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Eivion

[Casey]

That’s actually a good point I didn’t think about. All of the remaining heroes are either former sidekicks or had little to no interaction with Fury over the years. And we don’t know yet, but it’s entirely possible that this takes place at the same time as Ms. Marvel/The Marvels, so Carol is either away on super important space business or just got yanked back to Earth unwillingly.

No reason for Fury to trust Sam Wilson, since another sidekick of a former Avenger just turned out to be a Skrull. The other Cap sidekick has a history of turning into an unstoppable killing machine. Hulk is spending time with his son. All of the newly introduced characters don’t know who the fuck Fury is. And Peter Parker is an unknown to everyone now, but also kind of makes me wonder how Far From Home works in Fury’s memory now because of the finale of No Way Home.

The only person Fury can trust now is obviously Quake!

[JonnyLaw]

Is “meh” still filtered here, because this show is the definition of that.  

Olivia Colman is great, and I’d love to see her and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s characters interact in the future.  

[Raziel]

It really doesn't feel like it's about to be over but yeah, there's one part yet and a whole lot to wrap.

Knowing everything Fury now knows, his reasons for not calling in ANY other people is BS.  Yeah, he's got skin in the game, and I can kinda buy the "supers wouldn't understand", but shit, really, not gonna call Sam or Clint or Okoye or any other non-powered person that might have an interest in WW3 *not* breaking out?

[keith_h]

At this rate Episode 6 will have to be 2 hours to wrap everything up... Especially since we know Fury ends up back on S.A.B.E.R in time for the Marvels.

[Contentious C]

Not that I'm a fan of superhero bloat, but this feels like a series where they needed/still need an "oh shit" moment of someone unexpected showing up.  It would never happen for all sorts of reasons, but a kickoff to a big, climactic ending where Wolverine strolls out of the background to assist and says, "I bleed, every time I pop my claws.  Come take it from me" to Gravik would be the kind of emotional high point this would need to feel like it matters.

Otherwise, it's just been...ugh.  Sorry, but I'm going to be the species-ist here and say the Nick/Priscilla thing squicks me out.  No.  A thousand times no.  Too much time dicking around with that.  Too much time dicking around with Talos and everyone's guilt.  Too much time spent making it look like Gravik doesn't actually know what he's doing besides, "We could be anyone!"  Anyone incompetent, for the most part.  Regular humans blow up markets all the time.  They assassinate world leaders.  What the fuck are you really adding to this mix, dude: Groot's arm?  GTFOH with that.

This would be bottom-end-of-Marvel content if not for Olivia Colman being her usual awesome self, but even then this feels like a waste of her talents.  Though considering the cast, it wastes most of them.  I really expected her to turn out to be one of the Skrulls.  Maybe she still will, but I think at this point, it will feel like one dumb 'a-ha!' twist too many.

Edited July 20, 2023 by Contentious C

[odessasteps]

People love swerves, bro. 
 

I gave up on this one after episode 1.

[JonnyLaw]

15 hours ago, keith_h said:

At this rate Episode 6 will have to be 2 hours to wrap everything up... Especially since we know Fury ends up back on S.A.B.E.R in time for the Marvels.

I feel like that’s been the case for most of the MCU shows, and then they don’t actually wrap everything up because certain stuff ends up being left for other shows/movies or maybe gets a reference.

I think my biggest problem with SI is that they have all these big moments but they don’t give them any time to breathe.  Everett Ross is a Skrull! Never mentioned again.  Maria Hill gets fridged, you at least get her mom (who we’ve never met before) reacting, but otherwise it’s barely even used as motivation for Fury, only as leverage against him. One of the Avengers is revealed as a Skrull and Fury keeps it to himself? Even though Fury is shown almost having a heart attack right after. Like that revelation should be be huge with massive repercussions!  Talos dies and Fury just leaves him.

[JonnyLaw]

I forgot about my favorite thing about this last episode.  Skrhodey tells Fury that he’ll have to kill him to out him, AND IN THE VERY NEXT SCENE Sonia just shoots a hidden Skrull in the hand to out him.  

Edited July 20, 2023 by JonnyLaw

[Raziel]

So, did it ever get mentioned exactly *when* Rhodey got made Chief of Staff?  

And you'd think it'd be pretty easy to out Skrhodey without shooting him, like, is Skrhodey wearing the leg braces?  Endgame established he still needed either the braces or the suit to walk, and I'm guessing that Raava isn't exactly putting all those things on every day,

[Casey]

Rhodey was wearing them in Falcon & Winter Soldier, but they clearly aren’t as bulky and awkward as before. They were basically blink and you miss it and the tell was the lights coming out of the bottom of his pants leg.

[Eivion]

Pretty sure the people surrounding Skrhodey's guards are also skrulls. Colman seemingly studied everything around her infiltrator and knew she could out her government's skrull with ease. 

Not sure why any would mention Ross being a skrull. He hasn't been said to be missing so it seems safe to assume he wasn't replaced so much as his identity was used for the night.

Right now the stakes just don't feel strong with how they have been built up. The big reveals don't feel too big either. Character wise there are probably just far too many new ones with little time to really go into depth with them to care when they die. Feels like that is the only reason Hill died. We didn't know her, but she had been around long enough to at least draw interest.

I like Colman. I liked Talos and the relationship with Fury. I also liked delving more in depth into Fury. Just feels like the plot and writing outside of those things needed to be stronger. 

[JonnyLaw]

I think this is the first show I’ve seen Kingsley Ben-Adir in anything, so it was a little weird seeing him as Ken in Barbie today.

Edited July 24, 2023 by JonnyLaw

[Travis Sheldon]

5 hours ago, JonnyLaw said:

I think this is the first show I’ve seen Kingsley Ben-Adir in anything, so it was a little weird seeing him as Ken in Barbie today.

Spoilers, jeez. 

[Eivion]

Looks like I was wrong in my assumptions about Skrodey and Ross.

The finale was rushed and kind of so-so overall. Didn't feel super exciting or interesting with what built into it. There is a lot about this series I liked, but the writing really wasn't there which is sad because I think the general plot was a decent idea despite the piss poor execution. Its probably at the bottom of the MCU shows overall. Moon Knight was probably more of mess, but it was also more interesting.

I am curious when Rhodey was kidnapped. Seen theories it might have been as far back as Civil War. It will definitely make Armor Wars interesting at least as he has clearly been gone for at least a year.

[J.T.]

1 hour ago, Eivion said:

Its probably at the bottom of the MCU shows overall. Moon Knight was probably more of mess, but it was also more interesting.

Yeah, I am not sure how Marvel totally blundered the introduction of the Super-Skull.  They had me hooked on Extremis and the Harvest and then totally fumbled at the goal line.

[JonnyLaw]

1 hour ago, J.T. said:

Yeah, I am not sure how Marvel totally blundered the introduction of the Super-Skull.

I agree, which is crazy because Gaia is now the most powerful being in the universe.

[The Natural]

Sounds like I did right by missing Secret Invasion (2023). Sounds like the worst final episode as well. As noted my apathy for the MCU is the most it's ever been. The only MCU post Avengers: Endgame (2019) and the end of the Infinity Saga I'd say was truly great was Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). Did like Loki (2021), WandaVision (2021) and What...If? (2021). That's it.

Edited July 26, 2023 by The Natural

[JonnyLaw]

This show falling flat and failing to live up to its premise is pretty fitting homage to the Bendis series it’s based on.

[The Natural]

3 hours ago, JonnyLaw said:

I agree, which is crazy because Gaia is now the most powerful being in the universe.

Who did Gaia topple as most overpowered? Captain Marvel was the first name that came to mind.

[keith_h]

7 minutes ago, The Natural said:

Who did Gaia topple as most overpowered? Captain Marvel was the first name that came to mind.

Hopefully it's more like Gaia has all their powers but isn't on the same level as them. Like, she has Carol's powers but if Gaia and Carol were to fight (and she could only use Carol's powers), she'd lose just because her Captain Marvel powers aren't as strong.

Cause if not... yeah they just made a WAY overpowered character. Who needs the Avengers now, just send Gaia.

Edited July 26, 2023 by keith_h

[Craig H]

This was...yeah, meh describes this perfectly.

Intergalactic Marvel is the best (enter Natural's disagreement here), but this went a long way towards making it shit. Also, Dermot Mulroney sucks. He's the hammiest actor. That worked in something like Scream 6. He's practically playing the same character here and everyone going on for months not noticing that Rhodey was obviously a Skrull is fucking dumb. And Emilia Clarke sucks too.

Whatever. I didn't expect much from this anyway. It's just a waste of Samuel L. Jackson when he probably doesn't have a whole lot of time left in the MCU.

The big winner in all of this is Olivia Colman. Put her in EVERYTHING from this point going forward. She's the only person from this that I want to see more of because 1) Olivia Colman rocks and 2) Her character in this rocks.

[TheVileOne]

FYI, her name is G'iah. Would it have killed them to name her Lyja or Anelle? 

So much of the show didn't work for me, and there isn't a proper explanation of the Skrulls working for the government, character motivations, the abundant amount of Skrulls working for SABER, and wasting Emilia Clarke in a throwaway role.  

I realize this series was a pandemic-era series but nothing about it screams that it was a $212 million series. At least the production values for Andor look much higher and not every episode is packed with action, but they do at least build to some major setpieces, which this show did not have much of either.

[JonnyLaw]

1 hour ago, The Natural said:

Who did Gaia topple as most overpowered? Captain Marvel was the first name that came to mind.

She has all the powers, heroes and villains and cosmic demi-gods alike.  There were a bunch of names flashing on the screen, but presumably that wasn’t intended to be an exclusive list.

It’d be one thing if they had established super-Skrulls could only use one (or four, if you’d prefer) powers at a time, but they did not.  
 

This is first show I haven’t liked, and it’s because the writing is just completely wasting some good performances.  I feel like this show leaves us back around Age of Ultron, except instead of being anti-superpowers, it’s anti-Skrulls.