How Secret Invasion changes the Skrulls’ place in the MCU

[The following contains spoilers of Secret Invasion episodes one and two.]

Cunning, shape-changing, despotic: The Skrulls are unquestionably near the top of Marvel Comics’ most heinous galactic enemies. And in Secret Invasion, the latest Disney+ series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they’re a bit more complicated.

In 2019’s Captain Marvel, the green-skinned, wrinkled-chinned alien race was introduced as enemies of the Kree Empire, depicted as a hostile invading force with the ability to alter their appearance to look like whomever they wanted—a handy trick for intergalactic wartime. But the heroic deeds of former Kree soldier turned superhero Captain Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) and Col. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) revealed the Skrulls as refugees at the losing end of a destructive, years-long war. Danvers and Fury changed the Skrulls’ fortunes with a decisive victory over the Kree, and the Skrulls were finally free to find a new planet to call their home.

In MCU terms, that was more than 30 years ago, and much has changed since then. As the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury once dedicated his career to finding a new home for his wartime compatriot Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), his family, and his people. He failed. It’s this broken promise that unleashes the chaos of Marvel’s Secret Invasion, in which we discover that a series of Earth-shaking distractions—Loki, Ultron, the Chitauri, and, of course, Thanos—have kept Fury from making good on his word. As Talos discovers, time without a home, one where you can live freely in your own skin, engenders bitterness.

And bitterness can turn deadly, as Secret Invasion has already proven in its first two episodes. Embroiled in subterfuge, double-crosses, and some good old-fashioned spycraft, director Ali Selim’s Secret Invasion is Marvel’s moodiest outing yet, with Fury unearthing a Skrull infiltration into some rather alarming levels of Earth’s infrastructure—a high-profile conservative pundit! the NATO chief! the British Prime Minister!—in the generation since Captain Danvers liberated them from the Kree. So how have the Skrulls adapted in these changing times? How has Secret Invasion changed the Skrulls’ place in the MCU? We’ve declassified the pertinent documents to get to the bottom of this very subject.

General Talos’ losses and the heart of Secret Invasion

Thirty years is a staggering amount of time to brood over what you’ve lost. Former Skrull General Talos (Mendelsohn) and his wife Soren (Sharon Blynn) kept themselves busy with S.H.I.E.L.D. work and raising their daughter, G’iah. (More on her in a bit.) Their family’s hopes and dreams for a better life are how the MCU frames the plight of the Skrulls in Captain Marvel, but that family has since been shattered by years of war and waiting.

On that front, Soren has seemingly died. (A good rule of thumb in the MCU is that no one is truly dead unless we witness a star-studded funeral at some lakefront estate, which goes double for the purportedly fallen Maria Hill.) Talos says she was killed by a Skrull named Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir), the seethingly angry rebel leader orchestrating the Skrullduggery we witness in the series’ perennially tense opening location, Moscow.

A consequence that Talos didn’t see coming, despite his years as a S.H.I.E.L.D. double-agent, is that G’iah (Emilia Clarke) might share Gravik’s impatience for change and cross over to his side. This was precisely what happened, however, when her mother was still alive and G’iah had the emotional freedom to be impulsive and angry. So now G’iah welcomes lost Skrulls to New Skrullos, a radioactive waste that protects Gravik‘s refugee/recruitment haven from Earthlings. What happens when G’iah finds out what her revolutionary leader has done to her family? We’ll get to that.

Meet General Gravik, Earth’s new Skrull threat

Before Talos and G’iah’s place in Secret Invasion can be explored, it’s important to assess Gravik’s motives for turning his newfound planet into a warzone.

Gravik’s hate has taught Skrulls to think little of their human neighbors. Whenever G’iah brings a new recruit to the cause, they’re brought before the person they’re about to impersonate, who they’re supposed to call their “shell.” The Skrull takes their face, and once the human is incapacitated (via the same laser apparatus Danvers found herself caught by in Captain Marvel), the Skrull takes the human’s mind through psychic means. These “shells” are kept alive while their doppelgangers roam beyond New Skrullos’ imaginary borders, which bodes ill for S.H.I.E.L.D. special agent Everett Ross (Martin Freeman).

Back to Gravik. At the beginning of Secret Invasion, we see that Gravik’s carefully installed spies have infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and carry sensitive information concerning Nick Fury’s current location—he’s at S.A.B.E.R., the intergalactic installation orbiting Earth—and there’s worse news. As we soon find out, the Skrulls have clocked Agent Ross and are using his likeness to squash a conspiracy-theorist S.H.I.E.L.D. agent’s (Richard Dormer) disturbingly accurate theory about their plans for the world. It would seem tearing down what Fury built with S.H.I.E.L.D. is a part of Gravik’s plans. This mission feels personal.

Because it is. Gravik blames Nick Fury for making a promise he’s since spent a generation avoiding, for abandoning the Skrulls to Earth-bound purgatory as he took to the skies. After Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, we know Fury left Earth. As for what he’s been up to all these years, we’re not yet privy to this information. But we do know this: his absence alienated the Skrulls, particularly Gravik, who, against his better judgment, decided to trust Fury to make good on his promise when they first met back in 1997. Gravik, Talos says, took Fury’s orbital relocation badly.

How Secret Invasion sets up the Skrulls—and the MCU’s immediate future

The consequences of Gravik’s anger at Fury have already taken Soren from Talos and her daughter. But that’s not all Gravik’s taken from Talos; by fomenting the bitterness of his people—potentially one million survivors from the Kree-Skrull War are on Earth right now, a staggering number dropped in Secret Invasion episode two—Gravik ensures Talos’ exile from Skrull society. (Also, an important bit of information: Other Skrull survivors currently live off-planet on a colony led by Skrull Emperor Drogge.)

Talos has lost his peaceful influence over the secret Skrull council because of his relationship with Fury, and—because secret invasions strain friendships—that relationship is also on thin ice. The only friend Talos might have left in the world, after 30 hard years and the Kree-Skrull War, is his revolutionary daughter. Talos tells her Gravik is even more bloodthirsty than she knows—he will kill Skrulls like her mother to achieve his goal of creating a New Skrullos—and, as a result, G’iah gives her father sensitive rebel information that she knows Gravik will punish her for. A critical fissure in the Skrull rebellion has formed.

Say Gravik takes G’iah one step too far. Say she rebels once more and returns to her father. These seeds could grow into a Skrull civil war on Earth, something so destructive—remember, Gravik has a machine that can turn Skrulls super—that humanity will finally become aware of the alien strangers in their midst. It’s an Avengers-level threat that would unquestionably change life in the MCU—and not just for the Skrulls, who still struggle to find their place in it.

Maybe Gravik will have a chance for reflection if he happens across Soren’s last gift to Earth: the Santo Milliak, a Skrull sky plant, which in its time growing in Earth soil has developed a certain harmony with the planet. It thrives here, despite its alien origins. Skrull life on Earth has been chaotic since they touched terra firma. Can it be better? Can Gravik find his own peace, or will this secret invasion’s deep roots bear more bitter fruit? Maybe Fury makes too good a point regarding Skrull/human coexistence: Humans can’t even coexist with each other. (His wife may have something to say about that.) Regardless, upcoming episodes will tell. No matter the outcome—good, bad, or bittersweet—the Skrulls’ future in the MCU has changed shape. It’s changing more by the week.