Secret Invasion Sucked the Fun Out of the MCU
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The post Secret Invasion Sucked the Fun Out of the MCU appeared first on Consequence.
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the season finale of Secret Invasion, “Home.”]
So, as one of many critics, I gave Marvel’s latest TV event Secret Invasion a pretty positive review based on the first two episodes provided. Two of the biggest reasons were the cast (Olivia Colman doing spy shit! Kingsley Ben-Adir doing bad guy shit! Ben Mendelsohn doing literally anything!), as well as how it embraced one of my favorite facets of the franchise: Its ability to tell stories in genres outside of the blockbuster action realm, in this case a good ol’ fashioned spy thriller á la John LeCarré.
MCU, but make it Le Carré, is a grand slam idea. A backboard-shattering concept. Especially if you have a character like Samuel L. Jackson’s iconic Nick Fury to anchor it, a character who has seemingly been waiting for this opportunity since his original film introduction in 2008.
Le Carré, however, would probably have some notes about the Drax Arm.
Secret Invasion (Disney+)
It’s not just that the writing of Secret Invasion failed to deliver on the promise of its early episodes by the end — in the process of petering towards its conclusion, the season also delivered a finale that throws around massive developments that somehow manage to feel like they don’t matter.
There were plenty of red flags throughout the Disney+ season, despite its strong beginning. The fact that the writing leaned too hard towards ending many episodes with a “shocking” death, for one thing: The word “shocking” is in quotes because Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders)’s Episode 1 death is a little expected, G’iah (Emilia Clarke)’s Episode 3 death is a fakeout, and Talos (Mendelsohn)’s Episode 4 death… hits like a limp noodle, coming towards the end of an already lackluster action sequence. (Nick Fury blows up a helicopter and it’s boring. That’s pretty unforgivable.)
Yet it’s one of many emotional beats that fail to make an impact by the end. On paper, it’s nice to think about Nick Fury getting to blast off into space with his Skrull wife — and frankly, given the problems he’s leaving behind on Earth, it might be the smartest choice a single character makes over the course of the series.
The messiness of the finale’s reveals is another huge issue, because Secret Invasion should feel like a massive deal in the canon, and yet its impact feels relatively trivial. There’s President Ritson (Dermot Mulroney)’s bold declaration that all “off-world-born species” are now “enemy combatants,” with vigilantes now running around empowered to shoot suspected Skrulls on sight. (Hopefully, the Guardians of the Galaxy aren’t planning to pay any visits to Hollywood in the future, and the residents of New Valhalla know better than to vacation at Disney World.) Ritson, as fictional Presidents go, is kind of a messy bitch in terms of his politics and his reactions — maybe he’s also secretly a Skrull? What an exhausting thought.
There’s also the Harvest, which brings to mind the events of Star Trek Into Darkness, the second J.J. Abrams Trek adventure which ends with Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban)… like, curing death? Potentially forever? This 2013 Awl piece does a great job of satirizing not just the silliness of that plot choice, but how the film actively ignores how big a development that is. In the third Abrams Trek film, no mention is made of this mysterious death cure; it’s like it never happened.
The potential mess created by the introduction of the Harvest, Nick Fury’s super-chill “let’s collect the DNA of Earth’s mightiest heroes so we can use their powers” project, may end up playing out in future MCU installments — it certainly seems like it might be an important beat in The Marvels, if Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) finds out about it.
However, it’s also not hard to foresee a situation where future MCU installments completely forget that it happened, and that G’iah is just wandering around in the world with potentially dozens of superpowers at her literal fingertips. Also unlikely? A Season 2 of She-Hulk in which Jennifer Walters and Matt Murdock file a class-action lawsuit against S.H.I.E.L.D., on behalf of the Avengers whose DNA was harvested. (Though Marvel, I officially give you permission to use that idea if you want it.)
This is the sort of speculation that used to be fun, because once upon a time, part of the joy that came from a new MCU project was figuring out how it fit into the large-scale narrative being told. Trying to sort that out with Secret Invasion, though, is… depressing. First off, consider poor Colonel Rhodes (Don Cheadle), who has apparently been a Skrull for a while, but for how long? Marvel HBIC Kevin Feige told Marvel.com that there is no official answer at this time, though, “We like the idea of fans going back and watching some of the other appearances of Rhodey and realizing that that wasn’t him.”
The ultimate answer, based on context clues like hospital gowns and legs that aren’t working well, may be that Rhodey was Skrull-swapped around the time of Captain America: Civil War — a theory director Ali Selim confirmed to Comicbook.com.
Civil War is ostensibly set around 2016, which is nine years earlier than Secret Invasion (supposedly set mid-2025), meaning that every appearance of Rhodey since, including Infinity War, Endgame, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, was the Skrull imposter. This is a revelation that honestly makes TFATWS worse, as one of that show’s most powerful moments came from Cheadle’s Emmy-nominated cameo.
Secret Invasion (Disney+)
Yes, there’s the upcoming Armor Wars, an announced MCU film which will be centered around Rhodey while incorporating the events of both Secret Invasion and Ironheart. I’m not exactly looking forward to it, though, because that’s the kind of bad Secret Invasion is — the kind where its badness can spread like a virus to other things it touches. The kind of bad where it makes even its best qualities worse; it’s going to take a thorough rewatching of The Night Manager to reawaken my love for Olivia Colman doing spy shit.
It took me a while to figure out why so much about the Skrulls plotline felt tired to me: The concept of shapeshifters good enough to take over a person’s entire identity is a sci-fi staple, but one property that did it thoroughly and well was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which devoted a good portion of its seven-season run to an ongoing conflict with a race called the Changelings. It’s a great example of long-form episodic storytelling from an era that was just figuring this sort of thing out, and the ways in which it explored the trope with nuance make Secret Invasion even more of a disappointment by comparison.
It’s far from a joy to have to reevaluate a show like this, but when reviewing a show based only on a few episodes, one has to review both what’s on the screen as well as whether it indicates promise for the future. The latter quality doesn’t just speak to the reviewer’s idle hopes about what’s to come — TV shows, at least by the classic model, are defined in part by their ability to keep going, to generate potentially infinite stories featuring beloved characters in familiar surroundings.
Limited series don’t typically have to worry about this aspect of TV making as increasingly, shows with deliberately short runs are becoming the norm. However, Secret Invasion isn’t just a limited series — it’s the latest episode of the MCU, which has become essentially a giant sprawling interconnected mega-show of its own. Based on the significance of the events being chronicled, this series is theoretically a major narrative turning point, on the level of a big epic season finale.
And that should be exciting! We should be dying to know, right now, what’s going to happen next! (The Marvels, only in theaters on November 10th!)
Right now, though… I’m looking forward to changing the channel.
Secret Invasion is streaming now on Disney+.
Secret Invasion Sucked the Fun Out of the MCU
Liz Shannon Miller
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