TV Review: ‘Secret Invasion’ Season 1, Episode 4
by Frank Martin
Marvel fans finally got to see some action in Secret Invasion with this week’s episode. It even had a lot more science fiction elements than previous episodes. However, it’s still not rising to the level of greatness that it could have. It’s become perfectly clear that it’s not going to use its source material as any sort of inspiration or jumping off point, which is a real shame. The Secret Invasion comic would have been so incredible to see adapted in the MCU. The show is trying more or less to be similar thematically, but it’s not quite there as it focuses on generic spy thriller tropes rather than MCU mythology.
This installment opens by revealing G’iah (Emilia Clarke) wasn’t killed at the end of the last episode. Instead, she used the Super Skrull process to give herself near invulnerability. Meanwhile, Nick Fury (Sam Jackson) does a little espionage of his own to discover that his wife, Varra (Charlayne Woodard) is working with the Skrull rebellion. In a very tense standoff, the married couple are poised to kill each other rather than be killed, but they both ultimately decide against it and go their separate ways. As the episode reaches a climax, Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) attacks the president’s (Dermot Mulroney) convoy in an attempt to kidnap him. Fury intervenes and manages to save the president, but Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) is killed in the process.
The episode definitely had some great moments, one of which being Fury finally confronting Rhodey (Don Cheadle) about being a Skrull insurgent. Also, the final action scene provided some much needed suspense for the series. Seeing the Skrulls in action in this scene was awesome. Gravik unleashed some of his Super Skrull powers and the image of Talos struggling to hold his human form while trying to save the president was an incredibly powerful one. But the series needs a lot more of this. Overall, the action scene was very reminiscent of the standard sort of gun fight audiences see all the time. As the show nears its endgame, there needs to be a lot more Skrull action to elevate its place in MCU lore.
Secret Invasion streams Wednesdays on Disney+.
