Secret Invasion recap: All plot and no play makes this a dull show
Heading into the finale, Secret Invasion blandly sheds more light on Gravik's Super Skrull plan and Nick Fury's attempt to stop it
TV Reviews Secret Invasion
The only major praise Secret Invasion is getting is its consistency. The show has remained frightfully dull to almost the end; it’s an achievement you just can’t take away, even in its penultimate episode. “Harvest” covers a lot of ground. There’s the aftermath of Talos’ death (he is, apparently, actually gone after episode four’s cliffhanger), G’iah’s emotional reckoning with her father’s burial, and her team-up with Priscilla against Gravik’s assassins. Fury isn’t around for it because he’s, um, buried himself in work. That includes making a plan to fight Gravik and Skrull Rhodey by aligning with Sonya. (Okay, fine, Olivia Colman’s performance is also making the cut when it comes to Secret Invasion’s pros.)
I haven’t even run through the remaining plot points “Harvest” unpacks in less than 40 minutes because they seem…pointless? Vacuous? Silly? Take your pick. The drama has the tiniest bits of suspense, but the execution is so poor that slotting it into a political spy genre feels wrong. Secret Invasion’s other big promise, to focus on Samuel L. Jackson’s longtime and fan-favorite Marvel character, also rings false. Yes, we learn more about his backstory and feelings, but they’re crammed in without real emotional value. At one point, he tells Sonya that being raised by a single mom and being with Priscilla are his superpowers. Sure. Priscilla also tells G’iah earlier in the episode that, essentially, it wasn’t easy to build and sustain a marriage with an alien-chasing Fury. But it seemed worth it when she would stare at him for hours as he sat in their beautiful home, reading by the window with sunlight soaking his skin.
First of all, who believes Fury’s had the free time to enjoy a book? Second of all, it’s hard to get emotionally invested in a relationship barely depicted onscreen. Who cares if Fury and Priscilla were married for 15 years when we just found out about it, with Secret Invasion doing nothing to build up their bond? Don’t blame me for not feeling about their marriage ending, despite the love they seemingly share. Sorry to them, but they could be one of the worst Marvel couples. And it sucks because Jackson and Charlayne Woodard are terrific performers. Their episode-four shootout scene proves there is a ton of potential and chemistry, but the SI creators chose to focus on bland nonsense instead.
Another example of Secret Invasion’s wasted potential—and five episodes in, I can confidently say it’s a waste—lies in G’iah. Emilia Clarke is remarkable with the right material. She sold several seasons of Daenerys’ Game Of Thrones tribulations, including her heel turn. After a slew of romantic comedies as the bubbly lead, SI offers her a similar break. G’iah is meant to be sullen and goth, but also driven because she feels abandoned by Talos, only to secretly rejoin him against Gravik. But where’s the thrill or sentimental value of this plot? Clarke’s characterization is depressingly one-note. Even the way she stands—a straight back, hands in the pockets of her black leather jacket, creased eyebrows—feels boxed in, not authentic.
SI didn’t examine the fraught father-daughter bond between her and Talos, so Gi’ah’s mourning feels empty. On paper, it might appear complex. But onscreen? Yeah, it’s a dud, much like Fury and Priscilla. It tells me no one in front of or behind the camera wanted to flesh these characters out. The endeavor is superficial from start to end. All the performances are stoic, barring Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn’s fantastic banter—which this episode obviously lacks—and Colman making the most of her one-liners like the queen she is.
G’iah’s only contribution to “Harvest” is finally enlightening the audience on why the episode has that title. She tells Fury that Gravik is after something called The Harvest, which is basically the DNA of all the Avengers, including Carol Danvers. Gravik wants to use it to turn his army into the Super Skrulls. He didn’t find those vials, but he found the ones obtained from Thanos’ lackey, Cull Obsidian (Jesse Burch), and Flora Colossal, a.k.a. Groot’s species. Gravik displayed his flora colossi invoked abilities (stretching the body, healing quickly) while attacking President Ritson last week. He does it again here when some of his army members strike up a brief rebellion. (Chalk that subplot up as another futile diversion not worth expanding on.)
Later in the episode, Fury further explains to Sonya that he’s the one who wanted to collect the Avengers’ DNA after the Battle for Earth. I love Fury, but can he not do some of the most insane things in the MCU? So what if the blood of these superheroes was spilled? Did he really have to go and bottle them up, collecting their samples like Thanos collecting Infinity Stones? Of course, it would come back to bite him in the ass. What’s worse is he sent Gravik and other Skrulls to do his bidding, and that’s how the villain knows precisely what he’s after. Sonya is quick to call Fury out. “So all this is your fault?” she asks. Fury knows. It’s why he finally returned to the planet instead of soaring in space. Mysterio wasn’t worthy; the Skrulls are.
So what’s next? Gravik has told Skrull Rhodey to basically convince Ritson, our beloved President Mulroney, that he has to attack the Russian base housing the Skrulls. This abandoned, nondescript location being used by the Skrull Council is dubbed “New Skrullos” (taking inspiration from New Asgard, I guess?). And Rhodes, a.k.a. Raava, does exactly that. If the U.S.A. fires first, Russia will retaliate, and war will kick off. The only way to avoid millions of people dying is for Fury to hand over the Avengers’ DNA to Gravik.
Fury sets off on doing that. He collects “The Harvest” vials from his gravestone in Finland, where he honeymooned with Priscilla because Skrulls like the cold. Again, this detail is meant to add warmth to their dynamic, but it’s dropped like a sterile fact. All it does is alert Sonya that Fury married one of the aliens she’s hunting down. How will that affect their alliance? To be determined. And with that, Fury dons his trademark eyepatch, fires up his gun, and lets loose with an “It’s time. Let’s finish this.” Yes, let’s, please.
Stray observations
- Obviously, I will continue Sam Barsanti’s (who’ll be back to recap SI’s finale next week) excellent tradition of dropping a full letter grade over the unnecessary A.I. intro. To quote him, “If we value art and culture at all, because even if something like this didn’t (or isn’t meant to) ‘replace’ the work done by a human, it’s only a matter of time before the option to do that becomes more enticing to greedy executives who hate the thing that makes them rich. I continue to be appalled that this company, by which I mean Disney, would ever insist on using a technology that is so inherently toxic to the very work that it produces, and I can only hope that sanity eventually prevails in the face of this stupid, stupid snake oil tech fad.”
- Speaking of useless technological developments, Fury escapes Russia using a fake face mask. Sonya looks at it and goes, “A billion dollars of research and development, and all the widow’s veil can do is cloak your face?” Even in the MCU, spending all that money for this shit seems dumb.
- You’ll notice I didn’t bring up a one-minute cameo in my recap, but that’s because of how ridiculous it was. Will people even remember or care that The Handmaid’s Tale O-T Fagbenle was in Black Widow? Anyway, his Rick Mason is how Fury finds a plane—sadly not a helicarrier—to get out of Russia.
- Martin Freeman and Cobie Smulders should feel good; they don’t have the worst one-episode appearance anymore.
- So, do we think Mendelsohn is done done with the MCU? If so, what a loss. I’ll miss his dynamic with Fury, and Mendelsohn’s endearing accent.
- I know Fury was earnest when he told Sonya that none of the superheroes can defend the world the way he can, but I have to just say: That’s simply not true, my dude. Like, on a literal level, it’s just not.
- Let’s turn our attention to Olivia Colman, instantly the best part of “Harvest.” She’s right when she tells the scientist Skrull, Dr. Rosa Dalton, that she’s staggeringly versatile. “I’m good at being your bestie, and devilishly good at not being your bestie.”
- Another banger is delivered by Colman when Dr. Rosa’s partner is about to kill her. “Males in my species are very similar; if they’re not busy gaslighting you, they’re threatening you with murder. That’s what all podcasts are about.”
82 Comments
Oh THAT’S who that guy was. Right.Gravik’s plan has been over-the-top stupid from the start, and he rules by fear alone. Christ what a waste.If this was supposed to be a “spy thriller,” it should have all been about finding out just how many Skrulls there are, how deeply they’ve infiltrated governments, and rescuing the replaced people. Then maybe have ONE “I’m gonna start WWIII so I can rule the ashes” desperate gambit defeated at the climax, instead of having 3 already fail to end the world by this point.
Gravik’s plan has been over-the-top stupid from the start, and he rules by fear alone. Christ what a waste.I’m sure the showrunner, as a writer on Mr. Robot, had a pretty solid, “Let’s explore the surveillance state and paranoia about minorities who have legitimate issues with authority, oppression, statelessness, and attempts to silence them.”And that’s probably why they reportedly hired someone to do some last minute rewrites. Disney+ is allergic to a good political premise that would have easily been nailed if a bigger director/writer had been courted to work on it. Ryan Coogler’s team on Secret Invasion??? Anna Boden/Ryan Fleck’s team on Secret Invasion? The Russos and Markus/McFeely on Secret Invasion?It doesn’t help that Gravik announced he’s genocidal to a building full of random Skrull bystanders and they responded with applause and cheers. Why would anyone care either way about any of this, especially when the heroes of the show are fighting specifically to keep the Skrulls oppressed indefinitely with no plan to change things other than to whine that no one is changing things.
Why would anyone care either way about any of this, especially when the
heroes of the show are fighting specifically to keep the Skrulls
oppressed indefinitely with no plan to change things other than to whine
that no one is changing things.
Are the Skrulls actually oppressed in this situation, though? We (Earth humans) are providing them with a place to live while we find them a whole ass new planet, one that would not be occupied already and happens to have a habitable climate/atmosphere, and they’re getting pissy because it’s taken 30ish years (which is not at all a long time to search for a habitable planet). This is keeping in mind that we are not a widely space traveling civilization while they are, and also Earth’s heroes saved 50% of their entire population a second time (since Thanos’ snap wiped out 50% of all life). Gravik and his band of merry men can fuck right off with their complaints.
‘ We (Earth humans) are providing them with a place to live’Earth Humans aren’t providing them a damn thing. Nick Fury says they can stay as long as they keep hidden and also do spy shit for him… exactly the kind of thing that would make Earth Humans freak out.
Taking a little advantage of them? Sure. But remember that the bad stuff that happened to them was not in any way our fault and we saved them from the people who did it. They could have chosen to go off and find their own planet, but chose to stay here and let us do the hard work for them. They were in no way entitled to live on Earth.
“let us do the hard work for them”Except again we didn’t do a damn thing.
“Didn’t do a damn thing” because we couldn’t find them an uninhabited Goldilocks planet in 30 years, when we’re just barely becoming a space-faring civilization while also dealing with (and saving the universe from) that whole Thanos thing? You don’t see how that’s a dick move to just say “well you didn’t give us what we wanted, so we’re just going to kill all of you and take your planet instead”? They’re not oppressed, they’re just assholes (Gravik’s people, not all Skrulls).
Then maybe have ONE “I’m gonna start WWIII so I can rule the ashes” desperate gambit defeated at the climax, instead of having 3 already fail to end the world by this point.Yup, and that failed plan to shoot a friggin’ nuke at UN plane would’ve started a massive military inquiry no less. The whole, turn the world to a nuclear wasteland via nuclear war is dumb to begin with. The plot is also hamstrung by the Harvest plotline being introduced so late. It’s frankly a better plan by Gravik, making any army of super skrulls, but why has he been dicking around with this “starting a nuclear war” BS instead for 4 episodes that in no way furthered that goal? It really does feel like this show was chopped to hell with all the rewrites and reshoots. Gravik’s plan in the first episode, resulting in him making it appear that Fury killed Hill, makes a lot more sense if the initial story was for Gravik to keep trying to make the walls close in on Fury, in an attempt to force him to reveal where the Harvest was. Not to mention, just the Harvest concept alone fits Fury’s character better. He’s never been shy about keeping things secret, even from his supposed allies. He didn’t tell the Avengers about the tesseract weapons, he lied to them about the cards being in Coulson’s pocket, he hid the helicarrier project from them, he never told anyone about Captain Marvel… nor that there have been fucking skrulls on earth since the ‘90s and he’s been using them as his own personal infiltration squad! Fury secretly harvesting his superhuman allies’ DNA is something he would totally do. He lies. A lot. Sticking to that aspect of Fury’s character, and making the Harvest the prime driver Gravik’s motivation, might have lead to the reveal of the Harvest actually have some heft and explain why this is so personal to both characters. It feels like that might have been the original concept but they couldn’t write it with the proper nuance and were worried that it came off as making Fury look too bad.
“Speaking of useless technological developments, Fury escapes Russia using a fake face mask. Sonya looks at it and goes, “A billion dollars of research and development, and all the widow’s veil can do is cloak your face?” Even in the MCU, spending all that money for this shit seems dumb.”Yeah, and that’s why SHIELD also developed a full body version, but unfortunately this was all Fury could get his hands on, as he explains in literally the very next line.
A billion sounds pretty reasonable for breaking all those laws of physics. So was this just to explain how he could travel or will this feature in the ending?
Also he kinda dropped that the mask he had was just V1, and V2 COULD do the whole body thing… Which opens the door to pulling a surprise double-twist infiltration on Gravik with one of his own skrulls being actually human…
It does seem like an obvious setup…I dunno if I should call it too obvious or be thankful someone finally remembered something about screenwriting 101.
Yep – Chekov’s Skrull Counter-disguise setup in a quick throwaway line.
Odds on this being the key to Talos actually being alive thanks to some poorly-set-up bullshit?
Maria Hill Returns anyone?
“She sold several seasons of Danaerys’ Game of Thrones tribulations, including her heel turn.”… about that …
I believe the polite response is “agree to disagree”.
? What’s the disagreement?
I wouldn’t cite her acting as a problem with what happened to that character though
First off, $1B to break various laws of physics to completely change your face? Like, how would this play in the real world? Also, there is a full body one he said in the very next line, but like Sam, you don’t pay attention do you?And stop crying about AI, there are still artists who worked on the intro, but instead of drawing they were storyboarding it.Yes, the 1-min cameo was awesome for those of us who not hate watching MCU but enjoying it. Can’t believe that made you mad enough to write a comment on it. FFS, can we get some writers on this site who just hate everything they do and maybe get some one who enjoys writing about TV shows again? I mean, at this rate, bring on the AI articles if we don’t have to listen to Sam and Saloni just miss plot points spelled out for them in the show and then bitch about it.
So annoyed with the writers I just found like 2 typos in that
Codega on Gizmodo isn’t better, sadly. I used to come to these sites for the reviews. Now I sit back and eat popcorn as the reviewers miss the most basic plot and character beats while simultaneously presenting themselves as Very Smart. Barsanti’s got it the worst. I was hoping for a better review when I saw the byline change for this week but it was not to be.
G’iah maybe looks uncomfortable because she just wants to be out in the open as a Skrull and doesn’t like that she ‘has’ to stay in human form?I assume Nick Fury was talking to G’iah on the phone at the end, but I’d also appreciate it if NotDead Maria Hill showed up next week for the finale. Finally… I forgot that all D+ Marvel shows have a costume change in the penultimate episode. The fact that they kept that tradition going for Nick Fury is incredible.
I’m five episodes into reading these recaps and I still have no idea who Olivia Colman is playing.
I’ll do you one better: Why is Olivia Coleman playing?
Olivia Colman has no ‘e’ in her surname which the comment you’re replying to got right but you did not, so I regret to inform you that you did not in fact do better on this occasion.
Eh. Fair enough.
Bam Sarbanti is definitely not Sam Barsanti confirmed!
Olivia Coleman is the Skrull
Maybe the real Olivia Colman is the friends we made along the way.
I’m not sure what her deal is either but she’s so good I don’t care.
She’s a bigshot SIS/MI6 agent, which she says multiple times in this episode.
She sure is having a blast playing… whomever she is!!
She’s the lady who shows up for five minutes every other episode to charmingly torture people so the plot moves along without a clever, elaborate plan.
I just don’t understand how all these Skrulls could be here, with Talos mostly in charge for a while, and no one has any idea that Hydra had basically completely infiltrated SHIELD just a few years before. It doesn’t make sense.
‘”I just don’t understand how all these Skrulls could be here, with Talos mostly in charge for a while, and no one has any idea that Hydra had basically completely infiltrated SHIELD just a few years before. It doesn’t make sense.”’Actually it would make sense if maybe some of those Skulls had also infiltrated Shield and were so worried about being found out that they shifted their concern to themselves. Unfortunately Marvel lacked the foresight to integrate that into the scene in Captain America: Winter Soldier where some of them were massacred. Also Agents Of Shield? Another missed opportunity, I mean they already had a couple alien subplots running…Also I find your name humourous as it’s obviously just Sam Barsanti slightly scrambled. But are you actually the same person?
No I’m not him, I just thought of it one time and it made me chuckle.
‘slightly scrambled’It’s a spoonerism.
If you’re going to split hairs, I’m going to piss off.
Sigh the reshoots were more apparent here. Really hope marvel gets on track and gets their scripts in order before shooting.
The most important thing, that this review overlooks, is that Oscar-Winning Actress Olivia Colman (which she must always be referred to as) drops a “cake or death” reference in the most lovably sociopathic manner possible.British Intelligence (in the MCU, at least) is clearly in the best possible hands.Also, Gravik and G’iah got their healing powers from Extremis, didn’t they?Not the biggest fan of this series, by any means, but I don’t hate it, and am looking forward to the ending hopefully (if we’re lucky) tying it all together.
So, my choice is “or death”? I’ll have the chicken then.
So hold the phone, is the show saying all you need for Carol Danvers powers is to copy her DNA, not get blasted by an Infinity Stone? I guess you could but it seems lazy, like that should not be sufficient for any and all superpowers.
They’re kind of vague on whose abilities can be copied. Most of the Avengers are guys and gals in suits or guys and gals who can fight or shoot really well. I think for the most part that would be a no on Carol though you might get a strength boost from her Kree/Human DNA. The only other heroes at the battle at the end of Endgame that I think have abilities that can be copied are Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch and maybe Cap, Banner (with an extra dose of Gamma), Valkyrie or Thor. Even some of those I’m not sure of.
Yes, and if you inject RDJ’s DNA, somehow nanobots are produced by your new immune system instead of T-cells, and you can become Iron Man… probably. smh. Unless the fact that Cap didn’t actually bleed in “Endgame” is Fury setting her up, because he thinks Colman is a Skrull?
If you try to inject Tony Stark’s DNA, but do it wrong:
Well they have known the super serum that made Steve Rogers worked for 80 years, why aren’t there more of him?
They messed up Super Soldier serum from Captain America’s blood (retrieve in Agent of Carter) that the only near copy are an always angry Hulk, a group of anarchist and edgy Captain America (both Winter Soldier and U.S. Agent).And somehow a gimmick device could gave that power to an alien.
No, the alien believes it could. That doesn’t mean it would work.
The whole point of Skrulls is that they can copy people and, with some tinkering, abilities.
You may not get all of her powers, but presumably whoever’s using it is hoping to be able to shoot energy out of their hands. Or at least to be better at karaoke.
I’m not loving this show either. It’s just… flat. It also doesn’t have the pacing and plot tightness required of a spy-thriller or show that revolves around the insidious concept of people being able to be replaced. Frankly, Gravik’s plans have all been pretty uncreative, haphazard and dumb. Dude has skrull allies in most of the world’s most powerful governments and agencies and his big idea is try to start a nuclear war? A nuclear war wouldn’t go down that way, and certainly wouldn’t create a nuclear wasteland across the earth that only skrulls could live in. At the same time he wants to make all his soldiers into super skrulls, yet that would very unlikely to happen if some of his earlier, thwarted plans actually worked. It’s just all over the place plot wise and, I agree, the emotional bonds between established and new characters haven’t been explored enough for the emotional bits to land.That said, some of the complaints in this review are silly. A billion dollars to create the widow mask tech would be cheap as hell and certainly isn’t useless. It was actually key to the plot of a couple MCU movies already.The Fury we’ve seen in the MCU sure as hell would’ve bottled up superhero’s DNA behind their backs. Have you watched the MCU? He regularly hid things from the Avengers or outright lied in the case of Coulson. Shit, he’s known skrulls have been on earth since the 90s and kept it secret so he can have his own private infiltration squad. His contingencies have contingencies. Calling the Rick Mason cameo “ridiculous” is ridiculous. Not only did it make sense plot-wise, but yes, believe it or not, people will remember and care. I actually just rewatched BW last week. I find it to be one of the better MCU films.
Frankly, Gravik’s plans have all been pretty uncreative, haphazard and dumb.
Dude has skrull allies in most of the world’s most powerful governments
and agencies and his big idea is try to start a nuclear war?
The more I think about it, he basically had everything in place to pull off Kang and Kodos’ plan from The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror. Just needed secure a couple more seats. All your leaders are aliens, what are you gonna do, vote for a third party?
Secret Invasion is basically:“Well, the fans want us to do an evil Skrull story, so time to have some evil Skrulls taking over the world in secret and sitting on all of the highest positions of power.”“You literally can’t do that. The Skrulls are Jewish people. The co-writer and director of Captain Marvel is Jewish. The original creator of the Skrulls is a Jewish guy who had the Kree try to blow up Earth just to genocide all the Skrulls. There’s literally a giant holographic blood libel screen in the first five minutes of Captain Marvel. What are you doing!?”“Um… well, Bendis turned them into evil Muslims, so what can we do with that?”“What are you even—”“Oh, I know, WMDs!!!”Marvel should never have even touched this story. It just really wasn’t worth it, especially considering what Bendis ended up doing with it.Secret Invasion in the comics is noteworthy for being fanwank spectacle that overrides really screwed up themes. And then they took out the fanwank and just focused on the screwed up themes. It was doomed.
The Skrulls were created to be bad guys. They kinda retconned their history for the MCU. Their first appearance was in Fantastic Four #2 in 1962. Here’s the promo copy…”The First Appearance of the Skrulls! THE SKRULLS ATTACK EARTH! From deep in space comes the Skrulls. A shape-changing alien race with one goal, to destroy the Fantastic Four and conquer Earth. Can Reed Richards come up with a plan to stop them in time?”
I mean, Fury definitely has a board with a nail in it.
Not only did it make sense plot-wise, but yes, believe it or not, people will remember and careSeriously? You think anyone will remember a guy that show for a couple of minute up on streaming movie last year ? You can just replace him with some other Fury’s “friend” and no one will care.
I agree pretty much with all that. The cameo was the cameo… no need to kick that dog.I too like BW. Maybe in the minority, idk. It paid off emotionally for me, anyway. Nat’s reveal that she felt like her and Yelena were sisters and it “felt real to me too…” was delivered in an understated way. It felt to me like audiences missed it because it wasn’t shoved in with a huge music swell. Anyway. It hooked me.The Skrull plan in this show feels too similar to the plan of the super-soldier kids in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which was what again exactly? Do some righteous terrorism or something? Those Euro-kids with their “Grunge” and “Army Pants and Boots” and whatnot. They mean well but they’re misguided, those kids. Shit, they should have combined the two shows. That might have been some bat-shit nuttiness, but might have been fun too.This whole phase has been “__blank old school__” retires and “__blank new school__” takes over… I think many of us are here for G’iah to become the Skrull Queen and start some super-ass kicking – so let’s get to that.
This show is so aggressively mid. Actually, it might just be bad. I’ve been keeping an open mind throughout and giving it chance after chance, but its just not there. Outside of some occasional good scene performances from people like Cheadle and Colman, there is nothing appealing about this show. Barring a miracle finale to turn the whole thing around, they wasted a ton of money on this show by going with this writing & directing team
I have a question: are there “real”, human versions of Rhodes and Everett K. Ross out there?A few episodes ago, I would have sworn the answer was yes, that both were held captive somewhere. Today, after no rescue was ever attempted – or even suggested – I am not so sure. Surely, someone would inquire about the status of two heroes, one of which used to be part of the Avengers. Surely, that’s got to be a big plot point for the show.
It’s not just Fury who lost a step. The MCU also did.
Yeah they’ve shown that apparently they’re all being held captive in one location hooked up to devices that let the Skrulls access their memories. I hope the machines also keep the captives in stasis somehow or wow keeping all those people alive must take a lot of work! A better show could have focused on THAT over a cockamamie plan to end the world.
Olivia Colman dropping that “cake or death” line put a smile on my face.
We don’t even know if Dermot Mulroney is a skrull or not but I am certain that Dylan McDermott is. This show is aggressively boring and I actually find myself zoning out during some of the pointless musings about life and love and sunning your skin more so than I zone out at the commercial breaks. I need the recaps not because it is confusing but because I stop paying attention.
Gravik displayed his flora colossi invoked abilities (stretching the
body, healing quickly) while attacking President Ritson last week.
The healing ability is from Extremis, the tech Aldrich Killian developed in Iron Man 3.
“Obviously, I will continue Sam Barsanti’s excellent tradition of dropping a full letter grade over the unnecessary A.I. intro.”
Oh Saloni Gajjar is also an insecure hack. Noted.
It’s hilarious to me that he states it as “obviously” and calls it an “excellent tradition” when there isn’t a single comment (at least that I’ve seen) on any of the recaps that supports it.
I love the “tell don’t show” approach to Fury’s marriage looool
I’d be really grateful if The Harvest is some kind of proto-version of what Professor X uses to house all the DNA of every mutant during the Krakoa era. Please please give us Krakoa era X-Men damnit.
Calling AI “useless” makes you look dumb Saloni.
Nice to finally have an actual review of the episode and not just a synopsis. Enjoyed the insights. Please write next week’s as well!
I don’t like the unethical misuse of AI either, but repeatedly docking points for the same complaint is also unethical. Barsanti has always been the worst writer on this site; “continuing his tradition” is a TERRIBLE idea.
What if we found out that Sam had actually been a Skrull AI this whole time?
I know it’s all the rage now to dump on the studios because, well, they 100% deserve it, but I can’t help wondering if the sloppiness of these scripts and indeed the scripts of many Disney + shows is the inevitable by-product of the genius move of saving money by getting rid of showrunners, shrinking writing room staffs, and having a tighter turn around time. I’m sure there are passionate hard-working writers on all these shows, but they are expected to produce quality scripts with a fraction of the resources (and pay) writing staffs once got, which is just great for the next quarterly earnings report, but kind of sucks if you care about the long-term effects on a company, quality, or audiences.
Obviously, I will continue Sam Barsanti’s (who’ll be back to recap SI’s finale next week) excellent tradition of dropping a full letter grade over the unnecessary A.I. intro. Wow. You’re a hero….you’re medal is in the mail…
I guess I’m in the minority..? I didn’t find this episode dull at all. The Skrull on Skrull fight was cool, and Olivia Coleman was a badass in her scenes. I guess I’ll agree that the show is not entirely the spy-thriller I wanted but I’m enjoying it a lot more than some people. I’m easy I suppose.Also – I thought the Rick Mason bit was good, logical, and yeah, I recognized him.
As an international affairs major, I mostly take issue with the throwaway line from Olivia Colman about being in “Scandinavia,” because Finland isn’t part of Scandinavia. Boo!Looks like this will take the usual MCU Disney+ route and waste 5/6 of the series on nonsense only to try to cram it all into a finale to make sense in the end. I hate to say it, but Falcon and Winter Solider might actually be a better show than Secret Invasion.But letting Don Cheadle play heel is at least fun.
Oh my God FATWS was not great but in retrospect it blows this out of the water. It was kinda stupid and cringey and but…at least there was a plot.
Come back, “A-list celebrity and Private Military Contractor can’t get a loan because racism!” I mean the whole plot is weirdly similar, is THIS gonna be resolved by Fury giving a speech on TV?
Man, I don’t know what y’all want from a comic book espionage show. I’m enjoying the hell out of this show, and can’t wait for next week’s finale.
Was I the only one who thought Fury’s comment to Sonya (Olivia Colman) about how “Skrulls like the cold” was played less about him revealing his marriage to a Skrull and more of a “plants doubts in Sonya’s mind about whether Fury is a Skrull or not”? I read her stare at Fury as the latter after he said that, since she just got called out in the car ride for not pegging Rhodey as a Skrull.
So out of the MILLION Skrulls on Earth, how many are actually down with this plan to wipe out all humanity? How many are even aware of it? How many are ambivalent but going along for reasons that have not remotely adequately been established? How are they all going to be defeated in 50 minutes?
Surprised they didn’t just go with the earlier argument of why not to involve the superheroes, since it’d be too easy for a skrull to imitate them. At least makes more sense than the “I can do things they can’t” bit.