Secret Invasion – Beloved Review

“Beloved” made clear two glaring issues with Secret Invasion that its writers (and Marvel) appear perfectly content to simply ignore. First, the narrative structure of the series is a complete mess. In order to have a cliffhanger last week, the writers were keen to ignore a key plot point (and a really cool, important one!) only to shoehorn it in this week as a deus ex machina*. And second, this is a story that wants to feel massive – we’re dealing with the replacement of major players in all major arenas of Earth – yet it continues to feel shockingly small and inconsequential. Is this really a major international issue? And only Nick Fury can save us? We can’t have any superheroes involved? For something this incredibly insane and dangerous? It’s getting more and more impossible to accept that reality every episode – in fact, at this stage of the game, with the US President under attack, I cannot believe that there wouldn’t be at least one additional Avenger-level character trying to figure out what was going on.

*Since the use of the deus ex machina trope has become relatively prevalent over the last thirty or so years, it’s easy to take it as normal and continue on. But magical saves – the phrase refers to the Ancient Greek dramatic tradition of plays ending with the gods coming down from the sky on a pulley system to set the action right again – aren’t good writing and shouldn’t be used as such. Here, sure, there was a reason for G’iah to survive that makes sense within the bounds of the narrative we’ve been given, but the execution of that reveal was sloppy at best, wholly unbelievable at worst. And it was withheld from the audience solely to make people think she died at the end of the previous episode, which is just lazy writing. But, as I’ll discuss, lazy writing is all over Secret Invasion, which is just a shame.

I’ll tackle the G’iah reveal first, because it’s such a clear example of what is wrong with the series on a base level that it will help illustrate my larger issues with the series. So, G’iah managed to gain the necessary information regarding the Super Skrull Serum, break into a shockingly completely empty lab, steal the correct dose, load up the magic Super Skrull Machine, and gain powers with zero negative side effects in just enough time to run into Gravik and get “killed.” Seriously? We’re expected to believe that all of this happened without her running into any interference? Unless we get another reveal in these final two episodes that Gravik knew and wanted her to become a Super Skrull for reasons, this sequence required an insane level of suspension of disbelief. But aside from asking us to accept that G’iah could run the gauntlet and make it through that whole process in one piece with no lingering effects, it was also incredibly sloppy writing.

One of the big narrative issues with the series is that we’ve spent next to no time with any of the Skrull characters not named Talos (we did get two excellent scenes with Priscilla this week, and I’ll touch on those a bit later). So, we also know very little about this Super Skrull process. We know the powers it gives – thanks to that quick look at a computer screen, so good luck if you missed that moment or forgot some of the deep-cut powers referenced there – but we don’t know all that much about the science behind it. How did it get developed? Why implement it now? Who gets to use it? How many doses are there? Does it ever wear off? Big reveals – storyline or character – need to be grounded in something within the writing leading up to them. Here, the reveal that G’iah turned herself into a Super Skrull lacked the necessary grounding for the reveal to hit the way it needed to. We needed to see some evidence that G’iah took the time to go through this process before she was revealed to be ok. Hell, they could have had her go through the process at the end of last episode, show us in real time how hard it was to pull off, and then still make us think she died and that it didn’t work to give us that cliffhanger. That would have grounded the eventual reveal and taught us something about the Extremis power within the Serum. You shouldn’t need to play cloak and dagger with crucial plot points like this one, even in a spy thriller, because the story should be strong enough to make us want to come back without continual cliffhangers. Trust the story and you don’t need bells and whistles to keep us engaged.

But unfortunately, the story is the problem here as well. Remember how I said we’ve spent next to no time with the key rebel Skrulls? That’s the big issue with the narrative. A great villain is charismatic, smart, and has a clear reason for their villainy. Here, Gravik has that clear reason – and it’s a pretty sympathetic one, too – but we’ve seen no indication that he’s either smart or charismatic. And that’s because we’ve only seen him in fits and starts. This isn’t a Killmonger situation where you fully understand him, his wants, and why he could be a true threat. Gravik is just super-powered and managed to get a bunch of people to listen to him (how he did that is still confusing because, again, no charisma). And he’s not smart – the Skrull he has portraying Rhodey is an idiot (you’d think the person close to the US President would be one of your top agents). And Gravik also simply leaves G’iah’s body, assuming she’s dead (you’d think he would at least try to take it back to the compound so it’s not just sitting in the middle of the road for anyone to find). He’s making these idiotic moves and there are, as of yet, no consequences. I guess maybe Fury and a super-power G’iah could take him down?

Because that’s what the series is heading toward at this point, a showdown between Fury, Super G’iah, and Super Gravik. Which would be cool, if we had spent enough time with those final two characters to genuinely care what happens to them. Character development is essential, particularly in television where you have more time than in a film or a play, to get the audience to empathize with your characters. We’ve gotten some lovely Fury moments over the past four episodes – the scenes with his wife this week were sensational and did a lot of work toward making that kitchen table showdown feel actually suspenseful – but we’ve been short-changed out of any real character work for our Skrull characters. Talos, who appeared to give his life this week to save Fury and President Ritson, has been coasting on the development provided back in Captain Marvel. G’iah remains a complete blank slate. The biggest disservice the writing did to both those characters was having Soren die off-screen and simply telling us (and G’iah) about it. You know a great way to show us how evil a villain is? Showing him killing the family member of a character everyone loves while that character watches. Sure, Gravik killed Maria Hill (and I’m still salty about that one), but if we saw him kill Soren while a distraught Talos watched? Well, that would go a long way to making us all root against him. But alas, we don’t get that key piece of character development and the show is all the more disappointing because of it.

And that comes back to my other major gripe with the series: It wants to feel big but only feels small. Think back to the non-Thanos Avengers films. Our heroes teamed up to save cities from major alien issues. What we have here is a major alien issue impacting the entire world. And yet, the only hope humanity has is Nick Fury. Which is just asinine. While I can understand a fear about a Skrull duplicating Hulk or Captain Marvel, but thus far we have no indication that the Skrulls can currently mimic superpowers outside of those provided by the Super Skrull Serum. But if that’s the worry, call up Hawkeye – they won’t be able to shoot arrows at his skill. Call up Captain America or Bucky – again, you won’t have those skill sets. Get other fighters in here, because this should not just be one guy against an army. You can still keep this under wraps by limiting the people you inform this is happening – and that way, we’d also potentially see that some of our heroes were replaced by Skrulls which would also increase the threat of the series as a whole. Because I love Rhodey and Don Cheadle as much as the next guy, but War Machine as a Skrull isn’t all that terrifying when it could be Black Panther as one.

I want this story to feel epic. I want to genuinely worry that anyone in the MCU could be a Skrull – and the potentially devastating consequences that could stem from that. But right now, there’s no threat of that. It’s just a bunch of new characters I know next to nothing about and only should be worried about because they are key governmental officials. That’s scary, sure, but character development matters and if I don’t care about the characters involved at all because I just met them and know nothing about them as people, well, I really can’t care all that much about what happens to them. I rarely want more episodes of a series, but this series absolutely needs more runway to launch this particularly complex story. And if it isn’t going to take the time to flesh out its characters with greater depth, it needs to provide us with characters we know and care about to heighten the stakes. As it’s done neither 2/3 of the way through the series, I’m not all that hopeful the final installments can right the ship.