It’s been over a week since I finished watching this series and I’m still left discombobulated – just what the heck was THAT??! If you haven’t seen the series yet, I caution you that I will be discussing spoilers here.
I have been so MCU fatigue for some time now so I wasn’t sure initially but was intrigued by the stellar cast. Plus it promises to be a cold war espionage thriller set in the MCU post the blip. Avengers leader Nick Fury comes back to Earth from S.A.B.E.R. Space Station and the shape-shifting Skrulls have stealthily infiltrated our world.
The very idea that we can’t see our enemies and that nothing is what it seems sounds intriguing on paper, especially when you’ve got a terrific set of actors and a huge budget to boot. Alas, director Ali Selim & co. have created the most uneven and baffling series that pose more questions and narrative problems for future phases. Poor Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) gets killed off right away. It’s rather shocking considering she’s a key ally to Fury, but the way they did it makes it seem like she’s a throwaway character, as her death seems inconsequential to the show.
The biggest shocker of all circulating all over social media pertains to Rhodey (Don Cheadle) who’s revealed to be a Skrull, and not a good Skrull ally like Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) either. Just how long has he been a Skrull??! Was the same Rhodey who mourned Tony Stark in Endgame has been an alien all along?? The show barely answers that question, nor does it provide a clue as to how Rhodey and a slew of other Avenger allies have been possessed by Skrulls.
I was hoping for something in the vein of my fave movie of the MCU, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, alas it’s got nothing that made that spy thriller great. The pace of this entire series has been lackluster with no real tension, suspense, or sense of urgency despite the high stakes that could wipe out humanity as we know it. The tone of the series is more of an action comedy, with occasional fun ‘odd couple’ banters between Fury and Talos. Too bad the show just kills off Talos unceremoniously.
Speaking of comedy, the MVP of that aspect had got to be Olivia Colman as a British spymaster whose looks and mannerisms resemble her role in The Crown if the Queen had been a cold-blooded killer. She’d nonchalantly shoot someone in the head as effortlessly as she sips her afternoon tea. The energy of the show immediately shoots up whenever she’s on screen, which is not often enough.
Now, Samuel L. Jackson has always been fun to watch as Fury but somehow Selim manages to do the impossible, which is turning SLJ boring. Say what?! Ok maybe his performance per se isn’t boring, but he actually looks bored in a lot of the scenes. Some of the best moments are actually the quieter scenes with his wife Priscilla, a Skrull in a beautiful black woman form. I appreciate the flirtation and intimacy between the two and seeing Fury’s romantic side that’s never seen before. I love Charlayne Woodard in the role, as she immediately adds gravitas and warmth every time she’s on screen.
The fact that Fury doesn’t mind marrying a Skrull shows how much trust and love he has for the alien species. So of course it’d be especially painful to see Gravik, whom Priscilla introduced to him as an orphaned boy, ends up betraying him. I was thrilled to see Kingsley Ben-Adir join the MCU and his theatrical training is perfect for the dramatically intense role. He can be charming and menacing in a matter of seconds, and the finale offers him to let it rip as he voices his disappointment that Fury never delivers the home for his fellow Skrulls as he promised. But Gravik is not a fully fleshed-out character that it’s actually frustrating to watch.
I think the show did the biggest disservice to Ben-Adir and Emilia Clarke as G’iah, who’s miscast as Talos’ estranged daughter. I’ve never seen Clarke so morose before, the usually jovial actress barely cracks a smile the entire series. But the worst part is that finale fight scene after Gravik and G’iah–posing as Fury–got zapped in the Super Skrull machine, infusing them with a bunch of MCU heroes’ DNA. I tried to guess which powers they got while they were fighting, the ones I can make out are Drax, Hulk, Groot, Abomination, Mantis, and Captain Marvel.
Even for a superhero series, this whole thing is just beyond ludicrous. To make matters worse, the CGI of the fight is so awful and painfully laughable. Where did the $200mil budget go?? Maybe the AI-created opening credits were extremely expensive because it didn’t seem like it was spent on quality special effects. It’s odd too that Selim deflects blame on the much-ridiculed Super Skrull fight, saying that it was Kevin Feige’s idea all along. Even if that were true, I’d think the show’s director ought to take some responsibility for how bad the show is overall.
I have no idea where they’re going w/ G’iah now that she’s an extremely powerful being. It’s even more baffling that with a potential threat from a supremely powerful alien (stronger than most Avengers!) and the US president declaring war on all alien races, Fury just went off in his spaceship with his Skrull wife in tow. WTF??!
In any case, by the time G’iah kills Gravik with Captain Marvel’s energy blast thing, I was like, dayum, Secret Invasion is such an abomination that it has obliterated the slight remaining interest I had left in the MCU. I don’t even plan on watching LOKI season 2 despite my love for Tom Hiddleston’s portrayal. We shall see if I’d ever be as excited about the MCU as I once did 15 years ago.
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While I liked it a bit more than you did. I too had issues with the show as I hated the fact that they killed both Maria Hill and Talos. There has to be an explanation into what happened to Rhodey as I noticed there were things in Skrull Rhodey that felt off. One of the things I love about Rhodey was his humor and the need to see/find reason. I think something happened to him after Falcon and the Winter Soldier as there needs to be some explanation about that and how did they kidnap Everett K. Ross?
I do like Kingsley Ben-Adir but man, Gravik was a moron. He had every chance to kill Fury and instead played the long game which you don’t do. I knew that wasn’t Fury in the finale as it would’ve been too easy. I like Emilia Clarke though I felt they could’ve done more with her character and why she initially sided with Gravik at first.
Olivia Colman was the best thing in the show as I could watch her do Shakespeare while torturing someone to death. Please, put her in a future film/TV project where she just owns everyone. I just love her so much.
Marvel needs Victoria Alonso back as she got kicked out by Disney over a bunch of bullshit as it is obvious she’s been a key player to Kevin Feige while I also think Marvel needs to slow things down. I also hope they get someone to replace Shawn Levy for Deadpool 3 because honestly, Shawn Levy fucking sucks. I have no confidence in him doing something like Deadpool.
Yeah there are lots of plot holes and unexplained things in the show that seem to undo a lot of the storytelling of the MCU in the past 4 phases.
Yeah, Gravik is a terrible character… such an intriguing build-up and back-story but in the end, it was such a letdown and the fight scene was just ludicrous.
I love Colman too, and I agree that out of ALL the characters in SI, she’d be the only one I wanna watch in a spin-off series!
I’m not super excited for Deadpool 3 yet apart from Wolverine comeback, so I don’t really have strong feelings about Shawn Levy directing.
I could watch Olivia Colman read a phone book and be entertained. I think she read the script and saw how serious it was and she was like… “No! I’m going to have camp this up a bit!”
In regards to Shawn Levy, if you get a look at his body of work. It features a lot of films that are just mediocre to horrible shit as he is the wrong person to do a film like Deadpool. I love the first 2 films because they were off the wall, crass, and didn’t take themselves seriously and you need a director who is willing to play into that. Levy is not that guy as he’s more of the kind of a guy that will acquiesce to the studios and play it safe.
Yessss totally agree about Olivia Colman!!
Ok, I hear ya about Levy, I only like Free Guy out of the ones he directed. The Adam Project was atrocious!!
Agreed! If the goal was to make Nick Fury boring (his interactions with his secret wife notwithstanding) this did that. Not only that, all of his accomplishments previous to this became suspect.
– the main guy in S.H.I.E.L.D. who get things done and protected the country and planet? Sorry, but his Skrull allies did all the heavy lifting, espionage and action, to get it done
– plus, Nick failed those same allies for decades in finding a place to live for all they’ve done for him
Not happy with that, the series made sure Rhodey is compromised, too. Finally released from his Skrull confinement wearing a hospital gown, everything he did, post-CIVIL WAR Cap movie, is now dodgy. Way to go, Marvel, you trashed the reputations of key characters in a carefully built cinematic universe, who just so happened to be people of color.
Finally, this series made a mockery of storylines involving Cap’s original super-soldier serum that nations have sought for decades when Nick secretly had his Skrull allies gather all of this superhero “DNA” laying about. I know we’re talking about fictional characters from comic books, but a convoluted sub-plot and technology that grants all of those unique powers to anyone for nefarious means is just plain lazy writing. Giving us a suped-up Ghia now in cahoots with a foreign government intel service. Sheesh.
Expected way more, and better, than what viewers got. Good post, Ruth, and I share your pain.
Hey Michael, thank you for your thoughtful comment! Tons of great points here and we’re generally in agreement about the show.
What they did to Rhodey is incredulous and distasteful, now I can’t watch all the scenes of Stark and Rhodey in ‘Endgame’ the same way again.
You are absolutely right about the super soldier serum, I guess I never read the comics so I assume that’s what the show is based on, but I think in the end it’s just botched storytelling. In the press, Ali Selim doesn’t come across as sympathetic at all, and the fact that he deflects blame on Kevin Feige really puts me off. It’s really too bad that the MCU has come to this, especially like you said, it’s been carefully built for over a decade!
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This was a half ass and not well thought show, I regret that I’ve wasted my time watching it. Marvel and Disney needs to either give the creative team more time to fresh their ideas or hire more talented creative teams. This show looked like it was made by film students or recent film school grads. Very immature and I still don’t buy it’s so-called $200mil budget.
Cobie Smulders looked like she had a gun held to her head during that first episode, pretty sure she’s happy that her contract is over with Marvel and she no longer have to appear any other future projects. Sam Jackson looked his age and uninterested. I agree about Olivia Colman, she’s the only one who tried to make something out of her character and appeared to have fun while doing it. Everyone else looked like they’re in the show for an easy paycheck.
I think you might be on to something about the money laundering thing, ahah, I mean, it’s hard to believe it’s more expensive than Oppenheimer with nothing to show for it.
I think Colman is the only one that comes out unscathed from this show because she’s just soooo much fun to watch. I feel bad for Kingsley though as he’s still an up and comer, so people will remember him as Gravik but the show completely fails him and his talent!
I watched the first episode and honestly after reading everyone’s reactions (and some spoilers) I don’t even want to finish it. It sounds like some shit I’m going to ignore lol
Consider yourself lucky, Brittani!! I just want to forget I ever watched this abomination!