Last time on Secret Invasion,
Gravik had to deal with a couple small… coups. Pagon, frustrated by Gravik
continually having the chance to but not actually killing Fury, calls him out
on that and gets his heart ripped out instead. The other Skrulls feel like this
was a step too far and a group of them including Beto attempted to kill him via
suffocation, but he overpowered them and executed them all. He orders Raava,
the Skrull impersonating Rhodey, to convince the president that the Skrulls are
working with the Russians and to attack New Skrullos. This is the pressure he
decides to put on Fury, knowing that Fury won’t want innocent Skrulls killed
for no reason, to get him the Harvest. The Harvest being the name for a
collection of DNA samples that the Skrulls under Fury’s orders collected of the
various super beings during the Battle for Earth. Sonya Falsworth, meanwhile,
uncovers the Skrull directing SIS and replacing him and nabs Dr. Dalton, the
Skrull working on the Super Skrull program. G’iah went to Varra to bury her
father in the Skrull way and the two of them fight off the hit squad sent to
kill Varra. Fury and Sonya meet up and head to a Graveyard in Finland. Fury set
up dummy graves for himself around the world to hide the Harvest. He retrieves
it and his iconic eye patch and trench coat before heading out to face Gravik.
Ep 6: Home
The episode opens with Varra
returning to her home, bodies still all over the place, and getting a call from
Fury. She jokes that that’s the first time he’s called this number in years,
and Fury points out he’s dialed it a million times but has only hit send once. He’s
not sure if he’s going to be coming back and just wanted to hear her voice once
last time, it seems. They hang up and he marches off. Later, Fury somehow moves
his empty car toward New Skrullos’ front gate and kill the two gate guards
while they’re distracted.
Back in London, Raava attempts to
manipulate the president towards focusing on the motorcade attack and the
Russian/Skrull connection. An Admiral attempts to be the voice of reason,
asking the president to slow down and give them time to investigate, but Raava
keeps on attacking verbally. They demand that the Admiral do what she was
summoned to do, giving the president options for what happens when they strike
New Skrullos. An aide arrives and gives Raava more ammunition, satellite
footage of Russia moving tanks toward the Ukrainian/Finland boarder. They go
over to Ritson with remarks they’ve prepared for him to address the nation.
They pressure Ritson to make the call.
Fury heads into New Skrullos. He passes
the body of Beto and sees the cafeteria where the Skrull operatives were
slaughtered. He starts coughing heavily and takes out a pocket radiation
detector, it’s really going off. He pops some radiation pills and goes in
deeper into the facility.
Sonya calls Raava and lies to them
that Fury is headed to get the president. Raava is just freaked out enough by
the legend of Colonel Nicholas Fury that they seem genuinely shaken by Sonya’s
lie and goes to look in on their security.
Fury finds Gravik in his
enhancement machine. He asks where everyone is, and Gravik says they were
locked away. He offers Fury a drink and he takes it.
Raava moves Ritson and orders their
men to start hunting Fury. As they move the president, someone knocks out
guards and pulls them out of view.
Gravik mocks Fury, asking him if he
has any sort of back up plan for this situation, any heroes to come rescue him
or if he’s going to die from Radiation sickness. Fury accuses him of playing
dress up with Fury’s face too much Gravik reveals the origin of his Human form,
saying that his human face is that of the firsts man he killed on Fury’s
orders. HE says that the man had a wife and kids, but he did it to impress his
hero. He killed that man and so many others for Fury. He calls Talos weak, and
because of him, a noble warrior race became a race of beggars. He is furious
with Fury and says that he will kill him and then take a flamethrower to
humanity. Fury admits that he failed the Skrulls and that after a few years of
searching he knew he couldn’t find them a planet out there. That the only way
he could keep his promise was to build the Skrulls a home on Earth. Gravik asks
him why he didn’t do it then, and Fury replies that it’s easier to save the
lives of eight billion humans than it is to change their hearts and minds. Then
the Blip happened. Fury says that the last thing he felt before disintegrating
was relief, relief he could stop fighting, that he’d been given a way out. He
says that he came back to Earth for Gravik, that he should have taught the
young, impressionable Skrull on his team that you never give up the fight. Fury
says that because he failed Skrulls, he’s going to give them what they want. In
exchange, the Skrulls take their new powers and leave Earth now. Gravik says
that he thinks the radiation is eating his brains. Fury starts coughing harder
and dropping to his knees.
While this is going on, we’re shown
scenes from the hospital as Secret Service agents are taken out by a mysterious
force. Ritson is given a gun by one of the Secret Service people and Raava
heads out to search. We’re shown a military base where a soldier is given a
classified document.
Gravik puts the DNA into his device
and checks it. The device confirms the Harvest has the DNA and Gravik chuckles
that Fury did really want to die.
Back at the hospital, Raava clears
a room, only to have Sonya appear and scold them for not checking behind the
door. She holds them at gunpoint and orders them back into the hall. Sonya
takes them over to Ritson.
Gravik switches on his machine,
Fury also inside it and empowers himself. When the field dissipates, he’s
buffed out significantly. He slaps Fury aside and he hits the ground hard. He
picks Fury up and goes to finish him off with a punch, but Fury grabs the fist,
his arm hulking out and he punches Gravik away and into a smokestack. As he
gets up, it’s revealed that “Fury” was in fact G’iah in his form. The real Fury
is at the hospital with Sonya and helped tranquilize most of the Secret
Service.
Gravik and G’iah play rock paper
scissors with powers, finding different combinations to try to kill each
others. We see Jotun ice manipulation, different muscled arms and so on. G’iah
stabs him through the heart with an ice blade.
Fury meanwhile lays out the Skrull
situation to Ritson, telling him that Rhodey is a Skrull and unless the
President calls off the air strike, he’s going to kill the real Rhodey and
dozens of innocent people.
Gravik frees himself by busting out
some Ebony Maw telekinesis and throws her around.
Raava tries to convince Ritson to
stay the course. Fury puts his gun down and tells Ritson that if he goes
through with this the rebel Skrulls win. Sonya and Fury tell him to just delay
the strike, Fury even saying that he’ll gladly go to prison if he’s wrong.
G’iah and Gravik both bust out the
Captain Marvel power and fly into the sky. They grapple, G’iah grows Mantis’
antenna and puts Gravik to sleep. He hits the ground with a huge crash. He
wakes up, though and starts blasting at her. G’iah rushes him and grabs him by
the throat. Gravik says she’s just like her father, just like them, before she
blasts Gravik through the stomach, killing him.
Raava goes for Sonya’s gun, gets
it, but Fury grabs Ritson’s and blows his brains out. When dead, Raava reverts
to their natural form. Ritson asks for the phone and makes the call.
G’iah heads into the New Skrullos
to try to free the captives. She powers down all the machines and starts
freeing them from their ‘pods.’ Including the real Rhodey and Ross. Ross asks
Rhodey how log he’s been in there. From how stiffly he’s moving and his
hospital gown, it might be from as far back as when he broke his back in Civil
War.
President Ritson, shaken by these
events, in an address to the nation reveals he sent a bill to congress for
immediate vote. It designates any non-human resident off Earth an enemy
combatant and he threatens to kill them.
Fury visits Varra at home. He
apologizes for not being there to help her. She claims that she knows who she
is when he’s gone, but when he’s here its where she’s confused. He asks for one
last chance and reveals he’s leaving tonight. She says that means this is
goodbye. Fury puts his ring in the dish and leaves, saying that she knows where
to find him.
Sonya tracks down G’iah and offers
her a deal. She’ll give the Super Skrull all the resources she needs to protect
her people from Ritson’s hunting for them, and in exchange she’ll ask for a few
favors. They agree to not repeat the situation of Fury and Talos, keep
affection and loyalty out of it. They’ll use each other and together will keep
the planet safe for both humans and Skrulls.
Fury calls Ritson and scold him for
the witch hunt he insighted. We’re shown footage in the background as he talks
of vigilantes killing public figures, some of them being Skrulls, some not, and
some Skrulls fighting back and killing them. We also are shown a chamber filled
with Skrull pods, to drive home how many people have been abducted over the
years. Ritson tells Fury that the old him would know how this is going to end. He
warns Fury to get the Skrulls off Earth if he really cares about them. Fury
walks toward his teleporter back to SABER. A car pulls up. He tells them to
hold a minute. Varra gets out and walks up to him. He tell her that the Kree have
reached out to SABER and say that they’re willing to negotiate with the
Skrulls. Fury wants her help in negotiating the peace. She agrees to help, but
saying she’ll only help him start and that she’ll need to get back to her work.
She returns to her Skrull form and says that she loves him as who she is and
Fury agrees. They board the ship and the credits roll.
This show had a few good ideas but
I think it was just bogged down in places. It feels… messy. Like, getting
background on Nick Fury and his interactions with the Skrulls? Interesting.
Super Skrulls? Interesting. But mashing them together undermines them both. Gun
to my head, I think this would have worked better as a pure political thriller.
Fury working against the Skrull disguised as Rhodey to stop World War 3. It’s
all spy moves and counter moves, maybe with a few Skrull double agents on both
sides. It’s only after Fury beats Rhodey Skrull that Gravik decides to leave him.
He’s seen what fighting humans head on will get them and yet knows we can’t
coexist after all that and sets about making Super Skrulls. Yeah, now that I
think about it, it’s the same issue I had with Ms. Marvel, it was two
seasons of TV stitched together in a haphazard way. I think Ms. Marvel handled it better,
by the way, but that was my big critique of the show. I’m so glad that the
Writers Strike happened and that they’ve forced Disney to switch back to the
more expensive show models, with show bibles and additional staff writers.
Maybe Daredevil: Born Again can get some things ironed out before things
begin. It seems like the majority of the CGI budget was used up with the
shapeshifting Super Skrull fight and that is so disappointing. Both because
introducing a character with power on par with Captain Marvel is rather world
breaking, and because the battle was just uninteresting. Too many powers, many
of them duplicates (really, Hulk and Abomination?) and the real only creative
use was busting out Telekinesis in a fist fight. There’s a reason why Kl’rt,
the original Super Skrull, only has four powers, well five including his
natural shapeshifting. Combining the powers of the Fantastic Four makes him an
incredibly dangerous opponent, but also keeps his powers reasonable. He can
shapeshift, stretch, become superstrong and nearly invulnerable, make himself
invisible and hurl invisible bullets, and fly and shoot fire. It’s a lot of
power, but doesn’t tip into a situation where it’s unreasonable for his heroes
to fight. All I’m saying. This show was a mess and I hope that it and Loki are
the last of this messier breed of Marvel shows. I hope The Marvels makes
me feel like it was ultimately worth it. Have a good night, everyone!
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