In honor of the de-aging the studio will bring us with Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Disney used the same technique in this week’s episode of Secret Invasion. If Lucasfilm is given the gift of CGI, Marvel can have a little wrinkle-smoothing effect as a treat too. There’s enough available for every franchise!
The second episode of Secret Invasion opens on a throwback to 1997, where Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, looking younger than he did back then) continues to build his Skrull hub on planet Earth. Following the events of Captain Marvel, Fury and Talos (Ben Mendelsohn, who looks the same here) have teamed up to find the Skrull species a new planet. That mission has proved futile in the present day; back in 1997, the two were still young and hopeful for change.
How ironic is it, then, that Talos’ wife and daughter G’iah (Emilia Clarke) join the Skrull headquarters on Earth at the same time as Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir), who later forms an evil Skrull army working against the human race? The revolution goes on to recruit G’iah and kill Talos’ wife, becoming a real sore spot for the poor Skrull.
Flash forward to the present day, where the evil Skrull revolution has just bombed Moscow and killed Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders). Fury escapes, thanks to Talos’ ability to shapeshift into a Russian commander and help him flee the scene. Not long after that, though, Fury is fighting with Talos all over again.
Fury finds out that during the blip caused by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War—which erased half of the universe’s population, including Fury—Talos took it upon himself to shuttle in so many more Skrulls to Earth. Skrulls are everywhere now. Whereas Fury once thought the Skrull population was manageable on Earth, it no longer is. They’ve all been shapeshifting into humans for quite some time—there’s no way to figure out who is who.
This is a problem for Fury, who compares the Skrull/human relationship to racism. After giving Talos a lecture about how he and his family used to not be allowed in the food car on trains, Fury shows Talos that humans can’t even coexist with each other—let alone an entire alien population. “There is not enough room or tolerance on this planet for another species,” Fury says.
It’s a good point for the show to touch on, but it does feel a little weird for Marvel to start comparing the treatment of this fake alien race to actual problems that real humans face. It’s fine for Fury to say that humans can barely tolerate each other—but it’s a little off-putting for him to compare his real civil rights issues to aliens migrating to Earth. Either way, the conversation infuriates Fury, who demands that Talos leave him alone for the time being.
Fury heads to Maria’s funeral, where we get a brief-if-lazy send-off for a character that’s been with us almost since the beginning of the MCU. Maria’s mom (Juliet Stevenson) confronts Fury. She thought he would always be her protector. Fury was—but the Skrulls were too smart and saw how much Maria meant to Fury. Maria’s mom understands this. “Don’t let it be for nothing,” she tells him.
Marvel has really set themselves up for so many twists with the Skrulls’ shape-shifting ability, but is it too much? Revolution leader Gravik goes to visit a table of the world’s biggest leaders—from NATO’s ambassador to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Shocker! All of them are Skrulls. The alien race has taken over human society already—now, they’ve agreed to stage a coup and completely dominate.
Only one of the Skrulls at the table disagrees with Gravik’s plan.“We did not end up hopeless refugees because we were unwilling to wage war,” she says. “We ended up hopeless refugees because we were too willing.”
This is a far better theme to explore than the idea that humans’ intolerance will resurface with the presence of the Skrulls—because of course it will; who cares? When is a violent revolution actually necessary? The Skrulls have been living peacefully on Earth for years, and have now completely taken control of the planet. Must they forcefully take out the human race?
As with any form of entertainment, this show is at its best when Olivia Colman (playing MI6 agent Sonya Falsworth) just does her thing. To get more information about the Skrull headquarters, she tortures one of the ringleader’s closest allies. It takes place in a meat locker, where a fight breaks out. Not a lot of plot progresses here, but it may be the closest we’ll ever get to seeing Colman star in a Bond movie.
All in all, it’s a boring episode that ends with a big twist. Fury returns home to his wife, Mrs. Fury (Charlayne Woodard)—who happens to be a Skrull. He doesn’t seem to know this, though, as the lady of the house chops vegetables in her green Skrull appearance but switches to her human look when Fury enters the house. This brings a more complex layer to Fury’s relationship with the Skrulls.
At the same time, I’m a bit peeved at how easy Marvel has made it to throw twists into Secret Invasion. If anyone can be a Skrull, can the plot just be that everyone has already gone full-Skrull, and the humans are gone?
