One minute closer to Midnight on the 'ol Doomsday Clock.
Last time on Secret Invasion,
we saw one of Gravik’s plans for global war. Using four Skrull infiltrators,
three at the base and one Captain making the call. The plan was to launch a
missile from the Neptune, a British submarine, to shoot down a UN plane
and kick off World War III. Fury and Talos learn about it from G’iah, whom is
the one working as a spy for her dad and go to intercept the Skrull
impersonating Commadore Robert Fairbanks. They’re able to stop the missile
launch by G’iah using the Skrull’s machine to call up the real Fairbank’s
memory of the deactivation code. Talos tells G’iah to run for it now that her
cover is blown. She runs but is intercepted by Gravik and shot. We also learned
earlier that Gravik has begun a “Super Skrull” Program to give his people an
edge against the Avengers and has at least given himself Extremis healing
powers. Fury’s wife, a Skrull named Varra, leaves their private home, and gets
orders involving getting a gun from a safety deposit box. She’s told to meet with
Rhodey at St. James Church in an hour. They don’t say or show us
it’s Rhodey, but that’s clearly Don Cheadle’s voice on the phone. So, the war
is heating up. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.
Ep 4: Beloved
We begin with G’iah laying dead on
the country road. We’re shown in parts a flashback of her scanning the captured
Dr. Dalton’s mind to figure out how to use the Superpower machine. She got the
DNA samples and powered it up, giving herself Extremis powers. In the forest
she regenerates and sits back up. Thank goodness that this was a delayed
reaction, else Gravik might have shot her again.
We slide over to Paris in 2012.
Fury enters a restaurant and meets with Varra. She compliments Fury for getting
the Avengers together and stopping Loki’s invasion. They discuss a book of
poetry by Raymond Carver. They use the poem to flirt for a minute.
Shifting to St. James Church, Varra
meets with Rhodey. She asks him why Gravik needs her to do anything if Fury has
already been fired from SHIELD, but the Skrull posing as Rhodey tells her that
what Gravik wants or needs isn’t important, that they’re the one telling her to
kill Fury. We zoom out to learn that Fury planted a bug on Varra at some point
and is overhearing the conversation. Rhodey Skrull tells Varra that one off the
two residences of that country estate is catching a bullet today, and that
Varra can flip a coin to decide who for all they care. Varra insists that Fury
is broken, that he has been since the Blip. It must hurt to hear his wife say
that. Rhodey Skrull tells her that if she keeps telling them what she’s not
going to do, they’ll show her what they’re going to do to her.
On a landing strip, Gravik meets
with his men and informs Pagon that G’iah was the mole and that she’d been
taken care of. He tells his men that they want to make their next job look like
a Russian job. They need to make it big and loud like they would.
Talos and G’iah meet at a public park.
He apologizes for putting her in that situation, but she says she doesn’t need
it. She claims that she’s figured out where she ‘belongs’ and that it’s with
her family. She begs her dad to tell her what his plan is for finding them a
new home, as Gravik is implementing his and his could work. He plans to for
them to take down Gravik’s plan, and then go to Present Ritson and use the
latest save as a bargaining chip to get help. G’iah doesn’t like this plan, but
Talos insists that only by being helpful to Earth will they be able to get what
they need. G’iah tells him he’s delusional and walks off.
Varra returns to the house and
hears Fury in the kitchen. He offers her tea, and she notes that he’s not
wearing his ring. He claims he came in the back and that he’s just stopping by
before heading back out for work. They sit down for tea and have an awkward
stare down. Fury calls her the ‘greatest mistake.’ That he ignored all the
impulses in his head telling him to “stop” with her, but even now, knowing that
she’s going to try to kill him, he’s not sure that he’d do anything different. They
both pull out their guns, Fury first, and he asks her why she chose Dr.
Priscilla Davis as her human disguise. Varra tells him that the original Dr.
Davis had a congenital heart defect and didn’t want her friends and family to
spend all their time around her hospital bed. Varra would visit her often,
almost daily in the end, and on some level, she knew she’d seen that Priscilla
might be the sort of person to get through Fury’s defenses. When she learned
that Priscilla had only hours left, she’d asked her if Varra could assume her
identity. Well, she phrased it as “how would you like to fall in love?”
Priscilla made her make three promises, 1. Bury her at sea, 2. Continue to be a
daughter to her parents, and 3. That she would never hurt Fury. They quote the
Carver poem again and as they say the final line both grab their guns and
shoot. They both missed by at least a foot, and Fury says if he’s not sure if
this means they should get divorced or renew their vows. Fury tells her that
the others will be gunning for her, but she says she’s a big girl. She asks if
he’d have loved her even if she hadn’t changed herself into Priscilla, and Fury
just says that he guesses they’ll never know.
We shift over to a Skrull showering
off before assuming Rhodey’s form. Rhodey Skrull leaves their shower and finds
Fury in their kitchen. Fury tries to play like he’s trying to bury the hatchet
with Rhodey by sharing bourbon. Rhodey Skrull asks if they should be worried
about poison, and Fury jokingly says no, but Nanotech, maybe. Rhodey says that
maybe he should pour this out just in case, but Fury jokes that if he does his
ancestors will rise from the grave and strangle him. They both knock back a
drink and Fury tells them the reason that he’s there, that there are Skrulls in
the US Government. Fury says that he’ll keep his mouth shut about it, though,
if he gets his job back. Rhodey pulls out a recording of Gravik killing Hill.
He says that he’ll keep this secret but that he can’t have Fury running around
shooting people. Fury takes his coat and goes.
Outside with Talos, we learn that
there was, in fact, a liquid nanotech tracker in the bourbon and they will use
it to follow Rhodey Skrull. Rhodey Skrull meets with President Ritson and preps
him for a meeting with the Russian. Ritson notes the alcohol smell on Rhodey
Skrull’s breath and suggests he gets a large coffee for the road. The motorcade
heads out. On the Road, Rhodey Skrull calls in where the President is in the
motorcade. Gravik and his men attack with a pair of choppers, as Fury and
Gravik pull up. They confirm the President “citadel” is alive and a firefight
breaks out. Surely someone should be questioning why Rhodey isn’t War
Machine-ing up right now, yeah? Fury and Talos take out the remaining attack
chopper and attack Gravik’s men from behind as the rest of the Secret Service keep
firing on the front. Gravik shows off another power that he encoded into
himself, Groot’s stretching arms. They get some back up from UK special forces.
They reach the President and Talos tries to break the glass to get to him. He
gets shot by Pagon but uses his remaining strength to break the glass. Fury
pulls Ritson out and promises Talos that he’ll be back for him. Fury gets
Ritson to the car and one of the UK soldiers grabs Talos. Fury sensing a trick,
tells him to put Talos down. He shoots the soldier when he doesn’t, revealing
him to be Gravik. Gravik regenerates and stabs Talos, killing him.
Damn, I’m going to miss Ben
Mendelsohn’s Talos. He was a fun character. And yet… I didn’t feel anything
with his death. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I saw it coming because the
series has been fairly paint-by-numbers in terms of Spy Thriller. Obviously,
the partner is going to get iced towards the end of the series. And, again, I’m
really questioning why Rhodey Skrull didn’t even attempt to suit up to protect
the president. Like… War Machine works for the US government, I’d expect him to
suit up at a moment’s notice. I will say, though, that making him the Skrull
spy was interesting. Seeing Don Cheadle flex his acting muscles a little while
being an evil Rhodey. The bit where they’re drinking the bourbon and it’s clear
that Fury knows Rhodey is a Skrull and Rhodey Skrull seemingly counters his
play with the Gravik as Fury murder tape, only to find out that Fury did in
fact win by getting him to drink a LOT of liquid tracker was really well done. I
also liked the bit between Fury and Varra. Charlayne Woodard is doing a solid
job as the Skrull in love with a human. The bit where she reveals how she got
her human face was well done and I liked the fake out where they both shot at
each other and missed. Gravik’s power set at the moment seems to be Extremis
healing and taking on Groot’s plant like powers for stretching. Feels like they
wanted to do a nod to Kl’rt, as stretching is one of his main powers. So Talos
is dead, Fury has Ritson and the world is one tick or so from the Midnight of
nuclear war. Fun times. Next time, episode 5. See you then.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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