Well, two episodes into Secret Invasion and it appears that only Olivia Colman is having any fun with the rather crazy and outlandish story we’re in the middle of. Her unrestrained glee at getting to torture the captured Skrull operative certainly brought some energy to a rather uninspired episode of television. If the series can’t manage to make this story interesting – and it should be interesting, as we have a shapeshifting race impersonating some of the most powerful people on the planet! – I’m not sure how much hope I have for the continued viability of the MCU as a concept.
Now, I know, that’s a pretty broad statement to make because a TV series can’t seem to get itself into high gear through its first third (lest you forget – this series is only set to run for six episodes total, so there’s not a lot of runway to get this story off the ground and then resolve at least some of the arcs it has set in motion). But if you look at the MCU’s track record over the past year and a half – really, the entire post-Endgame timeline – and even the biggest MCU fan has to be worried. We’ve had an uneven roll-out of the MCU’s television wing, with only a handful of the many series really connecting. We’ve had almost none of the films making a real mark, both at the box office and as creative endeavors. Sure, some of that is superhero fatigue, but the stories just don’t feel as interesting, as impressive, as necessary to be told. Secret Invasion was touted as the Nick Fury show and thus far, all we’ve really gotten to see of Fury is him pretending to have lost a step – which resulted in him losing his right-hand woman in an egregious act of fridging* – and him picking fights with Talos and Rhodey when he can’t get his way (of course, this is a spy drama, so either of those fight could have simply been for show, but the last thing this series needs with only four episodes left is misdirection of that type only to turn it around at the last minute – narratives can have twists and turns, but the audience shouldn’t be kept completely in the dark, we should be able to follow the path to get to the result without it being explicitly shown us).
*In my continuing quest to get shows and films to simply hire a person from the country they are portraying a character from, good god, could Marvel not get an American actress to play Maria Hill’s mother? Because that was one of the worst instances of a British actor mutilating an American accent I’ve ever seen. I know, it’s small potatoes in the scheme of things, but it speaks to a lack of care in a production when you can’t even bother to get an accent correct. And Juliet Stevenson, the actress playing Hill’s mother, is an exceptional actress. Just oof. That accent was atrocious.
The revelation that the British PM, the NATO Secretary General, and the Tucker Carlson/Bill O’Rielly-esque host of a Fox-like program are all Skrulls wasn’t all that shocking because, well, we expected that to be the case in a story like this. What was odd to me was how fast they all – save for the PM, who was in on the plan – jumped to support Gravik’s new world order. I’m not entirely certain why that was. Were they afraid they would lose their power? They’ve all been clearly working to maintain peace among the nations of Earth since they earned their place in the upper echelons of the world government, but why decide to acquiesce to Gravik now? Why not work to oppose him? To keep the status quo? We saw nothing to indicate that they wanted to take over the world after simply listening to one conversation with Gravik. We don’t have any idea what caused them to agree. It didn’t appear to be fear. Perhaps they suddenly remembered that Fury promised them a planet thirty years ago once Gravik mentioned it and it miraculously changed their minds. This change deserved much more time to set-up along with a greater explanation as to why these key individuals are making this choice here and now to align themselves with a terrorist whose plan for world domination is wholly new to them – they’ve been given no plans, no terms, no timeline. For such measured individuals, that doesn’t make any sense.
Also in the “Why are we deciding this?” storyline camp is Fury’s decision not to call in any of the Avengers for help. Sure, for those without any powers, having someone impersonate them would be a genuine concern. But here’s the rub: While a Skrull can impersonate someone physically and make it appear they are them – say, walk around looking like Carol Danvers – they can’t copy powers (at least we have seen zero evidence of that, as you’d think a Skrull would have tried it by now, and I’m going with that version of the Skrulls until the MCU tells me differently). So, why not call Captain Marvel? Why not call Thor? Why not call Spiderman (who Fury doesn’t know is Peter Parker, but who Fury knows exists)? Get a gang of supes together, warn them that they might get some bad press because the Skrulls can impersonate them, and then have them work to stop this invasion. I know that the real reason is money – Disney isn’t about to shell out money to pay for their A-team to come into a TV series simply as a deus ex machina (although I wouldn’t be shocked if the series ends with some sort of The Marvels tie-in cameo) – but Fury’s blanket refusal to get some actual muscle behind this danger is silly. I know he wants to keep the threat under wraps, but come on, man. Ask for help.
Fury thinks he can stop this threat on his own. And I’m sure, in the end, we’ll see that he’s able to. We know the real key to it all is G’iah – because she’s played by one of the bigger named cast members and because we know her defection to help her dad is all but written in narrative stone at this point – but I just don’t understand how the series thinks hand-waving away the superheroes that should be helping in this crisis makes sense. This is a story that should feel epic in scope. World leaders, replaced! Trust no one! Yet it feels so incredibly small thus far. Only a couple of agents working on figuring out just what’s happening, only a handful of Skrull characters as actual players in the game. For something that’s encompassing the entire world, it doesn’t feel at all like it really is. And that’s the biggest issue of all for the series – we need to feel like this is a true catastrophe. That this is something everyone on the planet is freaking out about. War between two nuclear armed superpowers is on the brink. And yet, no one on the series seems all that concerned. The Skrulls are close to getting what one guerilla arm of the race wants and no one seems concerned or is second guessing it from the inside of the Skrull population outside of Talos (and maybe G’iah). There’s no real sense of urgency at all within the series. And now there’s a subplot about scientists doing genetic experiments? Are we really trying to shoe-horn in another major subplot at this point?
The vibe of the series is off, the writing feel stilted, and we’re not getting the promised sense of paranoia over wondering just who might be a Skrull in disguise. I was hoping for a much tighter, more streamlined story than the one we have gotten thus far. Learning Fury has a secret wife is cool – although Clint Barton hid a secret family from the Avengers for years, so this story has already been done – but we need some actual narrative thrust to keep this series on the tracks. Oh, and some genuine suspense would be great, too. Especially when you’re giving us a spy thriller.
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