Secret Invasion on Disney+

[CharlesPhipps]

And then... they had a cat take his eye out. Not a battle. Not an alien invader. Not being tortured. A fucking cat.

I mean an alien demon cat but yes, that was silly.

[CharlesPhipps]

SECRET INVASION 1x05 "HARVEST" is probably the best episode of the series because it may not do much to fix the series' many flaws, but it does at least have a bunch of things happening. These things may not be the best decisions they could have made with the show and yet another important character is confirmed dead for seemingly no real reason (the stakes are already sky high) but the episode is at least entertaining.

The premise is Gravik's failure to assassinate President Ritson has resulted in the Skrulls under his command starting to lose faith in his leadership. Unfortunately, they severely overestimate how much that Gravik is willing to listen to their complaints and executes one of his men as an example to the others. This soon results in more rebellion from the men and an attempted assassination attempt that Gravik's superpowers swiftly crushes. It does highlight that he's lost all confidence of his people.

Nick Fury finds himself trying to protect the President against Rhodey (who is secretly a Skrull). Nick Fury doesn't think to just tell the President, "Rhodey is a Skrull." He does tell him not to trust Rhodey but it seems like this is something that would be far more useful in the long run. However, not only is Rhodey a Skrull but also the Secret Service so it seems silly they can't just finish off the President now.

In fact, part of the problem is that we only now find out why Gravik hasn't killed Nick Fury. Previous episodes suggested that Gravik just didn't think Nick was a threat but now we're having "The Harvest" introduced that is apparently a bunch of DNA of all the various superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Presumably, so Gravik could gain all of the various superpowers that his machine is able to graft onto Skrull biology. This is fine but Gravik had plenty of opportunities to go after Fury, kidnap him, and force him to give that up so it just seems inconsistent.

Really, the show seems torn between the fact that it wants to be a common superhero show with good versus evil, big theatrical bad guys, and saving the world versus a spy show that usually depends on using your wits versus cosmic powers. Captain America: The Winter Soldier managed to thread this needle by using Hydra vs. Shield but still had the latter morally compromised by their involvement in the military industrial complex.

The waste of Talos as a character is something that does get a decent coda in Gi’ah and Varra giving him a proper funeral. Still, I can’t help but think it’s another character being killed off for the sake of cheap drama. Talos was much more interesting when he was the sole voice of peace and believing in peaceful coexistence with humanity. A Skrull Charles Xavier if you will.

With only one episode left to wrap up the series, I'm afraid that the only way Secret Invasion is going to be able to wrap itself up is a pointless punch-out between superpowered CGI monsters. Which is something that She-Hulk: Attorney at Law already made fun of.

[CharlesPhipps]

SECRET INVASION 1x06 "Home" ends with an attempt at a bang instead of a whimper but sadly ends up falling flat on its face. I had high hopes for Secret Invasion when it first happened but the start of the show disappointed me by wasting Colbie Smulder's Maria Hill and the show never quite recovered, especially since it had so many questionable decisions by our protagonists as well as plot holes. I really wanted to like this show but, unfortunately, I'm going to have to give it a D+ and that's only because Samuel L. Jackson, Emilia Clarke, Olivia Coleman, and Ben Mendelson are doing their best to elevate the material.

Basically, like I predicted in my last review, the big climax of the show is a big CGI punch out between Gi'ah and Gravik. This is easily the laziest way you can resolve the conflict between two competing ideologies. Except, as far as I'm concerned, there's no idealogies on display. Gi'ah seemed pretty okay with Gravik's insane plan until she found out that he murdered her mother (then murdered her father). Fury never even gets to speak with Gravik before he's killed, though they to have it both ways by having Gi'ah impersonate Fury. That doesn't work, though, since anything she says can't be taken as gospel of what Fury would have said.

The show never explains why Fury never found a homeworld for the Skrulls and the explanation that Gi'ah Fury gives is that Nick hoped that they would eventually adopt Earth. Which is ridiculous as Nick clearly didn't think Skrulls would ever be accepted on Terra Firma. More likely, Gi'ah is repeating her father's opinions. If they'd bothered to state this, then I might have actually been interested in the emotional developments of the final fight.

The rest of the episode has Nick Fury attempting to prevent President Bixton from starting World War 3 by bombing Russia to get rid of the Skrulls. There's so many plot holes in this that it is difficult to deal with. Not the least being that Fury could have assembled at least some Avengers or soldiers to take down the Skrulls guarding the President or just shot Rhodey. Rhodey would have turned into a Skrull and the problem would have been solved.

But the ending's coda is the nastiest part of all of this as all the efforts to show Skrulls are not all genocidal monsters by Talos, including saving the President's life, amount to nothing. He makes a big hate filled speech and starts mass murder of Skrulls (as well as innocents mistaken for Skrulls). I think this is supposed to be related to January 6th but whatever message the show is trying to tell is completely muddled. "Yeah, he's racist against Skrulls but a bunch of Skrulls really are genocidal madmen."

There's so many questions raised by the finale that I don't know where to begin. So, Gi'ah just has all the powers of the Avengers now and is the Super-Duper Skrull? She can just beat up Carol Danvers and Thor with one hand? Fury's plan amounted to giving Gravik this exact same power and hope that Gi'ah won? When did Rhodey disappear? Was it before Endgame? Why in the world would Gi'ah agree to work with Sonya Falsworth? What was the whole point of this? Did the producers how many Anti-Semitic/Anti-Refugee conspiracy theories this played into or was that the point?

Most of all, though, the show just feels lazy and boring. It wastes two well-liked characters and never shows Nick Fury as the cunning mastermind he is. Here's just a few suggestions they could have made to make the story better:

* Gravik is a leader of a rogue faction.
* Don't kill Talos and Maria Hill.
* Gravik has a motive better than Fury not finding them a home planet.
* Fury poisons the Harvest and Gravik kills himself fighting a much weaker G'iah.
* Fury is there.
* Hill and Talos stop the President being forced to bomb Russia.
* Don't use Russia, use Latveria or Symkeria. We'd buy it.
* Keep Fury's monologues because they're the best part of the show.
* Make this a movie and 2 hours long so you don't have to focus on all the boring parts.

Except, here's the thing, it still wouldn't be that good. It would be a perfectly passable movie and maybe a C+ or B- if it's done exceptionally well. It wouldn't be a boring slog, though, that trades in offensive conspiracy theory as well as badly done plotting. This supposedly cost $200,000,000 and I have no idea where the money is supposed to have been spent. Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel weren't fantastic but they were miles better than this. Loki and Wandavision were shows I outright didn't like it but at least I respected them as an attempt to do something artistic. This is The Phantom Menace level bad.

[clearspira]

Emilia Clarke's ridiculous massive arm lol.

Disney just did not realise why Clarke was so popular in Game of Thrones. The whole point is that she's a waif who is also the Queen of Dragons and a general. She herself isn't meant to be an asskicker because A) she's like 5ft tall and B) Clarke just seems too nice to pull that off. I Just Do Not Believe It whenever she is going hand-to-hand.

Terminator was the same. Clarke could have played an excellent T1 Sarah Connor. But T2 Sarah Connor? Not a friggin' chance. When you watch T2 you genuinely believe that Hamilton!Connor could rip your head off. In fact, it shows just how lucky Cameron was when it came to casting Linda Hamilton because T2 is NOT the role that she originally auditioned for and yet it fitted her like a glove.

[stryke]

I'm going to have to give it a D+ and that's only because Samuel L. Jackson, Emilia Clarke, Olivia Coleman, and Ben Mendelson are doing their best to elevate the material.

I disagree on Emilia Clarke. I don't think it's because she's a bad actress, far from it, she's just given absolutely nothing to work with all series. She just stands there in each scene, looking sad or grumpy or resolute, with much the same expression for all three, and never giving her anything to actually really do. There's not much discernable difference to her telling her dad he's an idiot, at his funeral, to standing there with the highly amusing Drax arm, and given I know she can do better than that I've got to blame the writing and direction.

[clearspira]

If I'm following this correctly, Rhodey has been a skrull since Civil War given the lack of leg braces? A FEMALE skrull at that ffs. I'm amazed Don Cheadle read that script and was OK with that. Did he need the money? Was he obligated to return? Does he just not care? I would if I was essentially retconned out of Infinity War and Endgame.

And here's a link to all the ways that doesn't make sense in-universe. https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/8-r ... k's%20base.

This is the worst asspull ''replaced by a shape-shifter'' since Bashir over on DS9.

[Madner Kami]

I'm amazed Don Cheadle read that script and was OK with that. Did he need the money? Was he obligated to return? Does he just not care? I would if I was essentially retconned out of Infinity War and Endgame.

The actor was still there and got paid. You really think he cares about being the character? I have my doubts.

[TGLS]

I'm amazed Don Cheadle read that script and was OK with that. Did he need the money? Was he obligated to return? Does he just not care? I would if I was essentially retconned out of Infinity War and Endgame.

The actor was still there and got paid. You really think he cares about being the character? I have my doubts.

Or heck, even if he does, he might not be miffed that he was surprise playing a different character.

[CharlesPhipps]

If I'm following this correctly, Rhodey has been a skrull since Civil War given the lack of leg braces? A FEMALE skrull at that ffs. I'm amazed Don Cheadle read that script and was OK with that. Did he need the money? Was he obligated to return? Does he just not care? I would if I was essentially retconned out of Infinity War and Endgame.

I mean it gives him a massive amount to play with in ARMOR WARS. He now gets to roleplay losing Tony, his life, and the whole SNAP business.

But please explain what would be a good character to replace that would retcon a bunch of what we've seen on camera?

[CharlesPhipps]

The show's political bias is shown multiple times in the show even with the edits:

* The Refugees are the bad guys
* Fury says the Tucker Carlson guy is right some of the time
* Russia is being framed for evil
* The chief Skrull baddie is a man of color
* America is the put upon victim of Europe who questions its warmongering
* TortureAlwaysWorks
* The evil refugees' leaders are actually incredibly rich secret Zionist...Skrullos cabal. They just don't help their poor relatives.

I'd say this show is slightly to the right of 24.