“Secret Invasion,” starring Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Ben Mendelson as Talos has completely destroyed itself with yet again no plot progressing and slow dialogue that ultimately has no meaning nor bearing on the story at large.
Disney+ has had nine action/superhero television shows including “Secret Invasion.” Some are animated while others are live action. Every single time there’s a new MCU show, it gets built up as this ultimate show. The tagline for “Secret Invasion” in particular is “Who Can You Trust?” It’s all over the posters and all over the marketing.
It was obvious that Rhodey was a skrull from the beginning; he is the only big-name hero in the show, so of course it has to be him. The show’s tagline is ironic when it is so hard to even trust the writers of this show to create a cohesive story that makes sense and is entertaining to watch.
“Secret Invasion” has below one million viewers for episode one, which is unheard of and is similar to “Ms. Marvel,” a disappointing show from last year. This show doesn’t appeal to the MCU fans who just want action all the time because there are barely any action scenes in the show so far. It also doesn’t appeal to the MCU fans who want deep and meaningful dialogue because while they want to appeal to those people, the dialogue is full of unnecessary fillers.
Episode three, titled “Betrayed” lasts for 43 minutes, but it felt like a two-hour movie watching it. It is so slow-paced that I zoned out and had to rewatch it to understand what happened during the duration of it. There was a slight bit of hope with the show at first, however. The producers looked like they were trying to write a good show, but now it just seems amateur and pathetic.
The episode revolves around a British submarine bombing a UN plane to start World War 3. To set things straight, this was never hinted at as the plan, and there is no discovery from our protagonists about this plan. Instead of finding out through their roles as spies, they find out because the main bad guy, Gravik, has a sit down with Talos.
Before that happens, Talos’ daughter gives him the name and time of the attack, but never says what it is or means. There could be something missing as it’s obvious that Talos was somehow in the car with Gravik and Giah (Talos’ daughter), but it is so absurd how he was not seen.
We also get meaningless dialogue with Fury and his wife. She doesn’t have a character – all she does is point out a character flaw that was created just for this show that makes no sense, that being Fury was on S.A.B.E.R for years before coming down to Earth for the show. Afterwards Fury randomly finds Talos after abandoning him on the train. He doesn’t explain how he found Talos but the plot doesn’t care.
We then have Talos and Fury conversing for five minutes. The story doesn’t want to resolve the situation, or explain why skrulls have to be on Earth when it’s known that there are thousands of planets that can sustain life in this universe. Fury and Talos eventually prevent World War 3 in a terrible breaking-and-entering scene, and it’s revealed at the end that Rhodey is a skrull.
This episode is unwatchable and broken in so many ways that it is almost impossible to put every single problem on paper and not have this review be 20 pages. People always joke that the MCU is dead, but this is the breaking point. This could have had such an amazing show after “Guardians of the Galaxy 3,” a way to turn things around, but it’s completely worthless. This one's beloved franchise is never going to reach the heights it once had.
People complained about Star Wars’ “Andor’s” slow pace, but at least that show had a purpose and used that time wisely. The best example would be the second arc of that show when Andor is on the planet of Aldhani with a group of rebels planning on attacking an Imperial Garrison stationed there. In the slowest episode, which is the second one of the arc, the show explains every single little detail, how something could matter, and it builds the characters around the show.
One character is an ex-stormtrooper, so that character trains the other rebels how to properly march, walk, hold their guns and more. He comes off as a stern character and eventually you find out why. Just that example of a small character done within a small amount of time to convey actual information does not exist in “Secret Invasion.” It’s sludge dialogue that only makes jokes or belittles Nick Fury.
Judging by the trailers and previous MCU shows, the finale will probably be Fury going to the Skulls base, giving the good skrulls some small town and Fury going up to S.A.B.E.R for “The Marvels” movie. Gravik will be killed, Rhodey’s character will be completely ruined if he became a skrull before Endgame and the show will be pointless for future MCU projects like the rest of them.
Overall, “Secret Invasion” will be another safe and base show, riding on its concept alone to drive it forward. It wants to make more questions than it answers, and instead of building up characters, they would rather tear them down.
Rating: 1/5
