Secret Invasion Director Talks Harvest Powers Shopping List, Finale’s Rhodey Reveal, Post-Credits Scenes and More
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The following contains spoilers from all six episodes of Secret Invasion, now streaming on Disney+.
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On the heels of Secret Invasion wrapping its run, TVLine hopped on a Zoom call with Ali Selim, who directed all six episodes of Disney+’s eighth live-action Marvel series.
Here is what Selim had to share about that supersized list of Harvest’d DNA, dropping a major bomb about James “Rhodey” Rhodes, post-credits teasers (or a lack thereof), deleted scenes and more.
WHO DECIDED TO GIVE GRAVIK AND G’IAH ALLLLL THE POWERS?
Midway through the finale, after Gravik took from “Fury” the Harvest vial and added it to his existing stockpile of Avengers and other collected DNA samples, the computer readout scrolled through a surprisingly long list that named Abomination, Black Panther, Captain America, Captain Marvel, the Chitauri… Corvus Glaive, Cull Obsidian, Drax, Ebony Maw, Extremis, Frost Beast… Gamora, Ghost, Groot, Hulk, Korg, Mantis, the Outriders… Proxima Midnight, Thanos, Thor, Valkyrie and the Winter Soldier. (Put some respect on Bucky’s name!)
But whew! And many of those power sets were glimpsed as Gravik proceeded to slug it out with G’iah, who whilst posting as Fury had gotten Super Skrull’d alongside the off-kilter rebel Skrull leader.
“All I can say is that [Marvel Studios chief] Kevin Feige said that ‘all the powers are fair game, use them where you see fit,’” Secret Invasion director Ali Selim told TVLine. “The biggest clue [to that] is when Gravik takes the vial from Fury and puts it in the machine and we see the list of the DNA that’s in there. It’s all fair game.”
WAS THE DIRECTOR HIMSELF SHOCKED BY THE FINALE’S RHODEY REVEAL?
After G’iah bested Gravik, she dashed into the New Skrullos facility to free the people who had been strapped into fracking pods for the purpose of being “duplicated” by rebel Skrulls. This is where Everett Ross, after being himself “awakened,” turned to Rhodey on his right and marveled, “Colonel Rhodes…? How long have you been here?”
Rhodey — still wearing the hospital gown from, presumably, when he sustained his injury in Captain America: Civil War — tried to step out of his pod but teetered.
“Whoa! Colonel Rhodes, I’ve got you,” said G’iah, rushing to catch him. “You’ve been held hostage, for a long time.”
What was it like for Secret Invasion director Ali Selim to play a role in delivering a reveal with such significant MCU repercussions?
“I’m shocked by little in the MCU, because anything is possible in the MCU,” Selim told TVLine. “I thought it was fun, and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun for the core audience to go back and unpack that — meaning, Rhodey’s been a Skrull for a long, long time. And I think there are scenes throughout shows and movies that are going to need to be reinterpreted now.”
Selim was mum on who specified that Rhodey would be wearing a hospital gown, and not his high-tech walking brace — two major clues pointing to for how long he had been replaced.
“I rarely think of my job as, ‘What did I bring and what did you bring?’” he said. “It’s more a great collaboration with the Marvel visionaries who know every detail of where this came from, and where it’s going.”
OH! WHAT WAS THE DEAL WITH GRAVIK’S CONSPICUOUS SUGAR HABIT?
Though many (…or, at least TVLine) speculated that Gravik’s oft-demonstrated preference for “a little coffee with my sugar” would eventually prove to be a “tell” when he is shapeshifted into someone else, that did not prove to be the case.
“I hope it’s not too much of a dangling thread!” director Ali Selim told TVLine when presented with that theory. “But I also don’t know that it was ever intended to lead anywhere. It was just a character choice that felt a little ‘off.’”
WERE ANY POST-CREDITS SCENES CONSIDERED?
“That’s a good question for Kevin Feige and the MCU at large,” Secret Invasion director Ali Selim told TVLine during a July 26 Zoom call. “I know that they use these movies and series to launch things, or to wrap things up, and post-credit sequences serve to do that.
“I don’t know what they’re launching with this show,” Selim said. “I do know what they’re wrapping up, which is Nick Fury’s internal struggle with aging and with his sense of purpose and his sense of ‘other,’ which I think gets wrapped up really well. And there’s not much else to say about that, so I don’t know that a post-credits sequence would help. But I also am certain they’re launching some things with what’s going on at the end of this series, and I guess they didn’t feel that any of those things warranted a post-credits sequence.”
Along those same lines, Selim suggested that there are no substantial “deleted” scenes or footage to keep an eye out for down the road.
“My job is to tell the story that lives within the walls of these six episodes and to tell it the best way that I possibly can,” he explained. “There is a ton of stuff on the cutting room floor that doesn’t help tell this particular story. As for how it might show up in the future…? My guess is as good as yours.”
Want more scoop on Secret Invasion, or for any other Marvel show ? Email your question to InsideLine@tvline.com, and it may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
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