"We’ll see how the series handles it from here, but Maria Hill’s death is definitely bordering on a fridging. Especially on the heels of killing Talos’ wife Soren offscreen."
This struck me as well. Although at least Soren was killed off to further the story of a woman (her daughter) as much as Talos. I don't know if that makes it better or if I'm reaching.
I was kind of confused because I thought it was revealed that Maria Hill was Talos’ wife Soren in Spider-Man Far From Home, but I then remembered “oh she was just only pretending to be Maria Hill because...” yeah idk why, I mean I get why Talos was Nick Fury, but... wait I don’t understand why Talos was pretending to be Nick Fury. Why did they feel they needed to pretend that Nick Fury had a presence on earth while he was on a secret mission in space??
The MCU has really lost the thread in the last couple of Phases.
Anyway I agree about Soren’s offscreen demise. If it doesn’t turn out to be some kind of fake-out death or something it really sucks to just make that character death just a motivator for the characters on this series. Also I think the death of Maria Hill is just terrible, what was the point of making her think that Nick Fury shot her?! What’s the motivation for that? It’s just cheap.
I’m hoping the series gets better but it’s pretty weak start.
The only rationale I could think of for Soren disguising herself as Maria Hill in Far From Home is that Talos is *such* a wife guy that he refused to do the mission without her. And if he was gonna pose as Nick Fury, Hill was the most obvious cover for Soren. (As for why he needed to pose as Fury in the first place, truly who knows.)
Oh yeah, I totally get that Talos would want Soren with him on the mission but why shape shift into Maria Hill? I mean isn’t the real Maria Hill on Earth? Was it just to trick Spider-man, she could’ve just been another SHIELD agent.
I mean honestly the real reason it was done was for the benefit of the audience and trying to trick us into thinking that Spidey was on a legit SHIELD mission.
"Are we meant to assume Everett Ross has been a Skrull this whole time? Or that the real Ross is locked up somewhere? Or was it more of an opportunistic impersonation?" That was my big question, too. I know this episode was already a bit talk-heavy, but I wish we had a little more exposition about how the Skrull duplication works, especially for those of us who haven't rewatched Captain Marvel recently.
The bad Skrulls clearly have some humans locked up while their duplicates are running around, and there was that instance of somehow scanning one to download his memories or something, but Gravik cycled between several appearances in swift succession and ultimately landed on Fury while Nick was standing just a short distance away. (One of those sequences that looks neat but breaks down entirely under the lens of fridge logic. What was the motivation for changing his appearance out in the open where anyone in the crowd could have seen him? Why shoot Hill, and why then, and why looking like Fury? Isn't the whole point of the Skrull threat that they can impersonate someone you trust in an ongoing relationship, not for sudden sneak attacks?)
With such confusion, this episode leaned way more towards the disappointing Falcon/Winter Soldier end of things for me, but it feels like it could turn into more of the paranoid conspiracy thriller we loved in CA:TWS if they can manage to get the pieces working better. We'll see!
If it helps, I *did* rewatch Captain Marvel to prep for this, and I'm still a little confused about how the show is handling Skrull transformations.
In the movie, Skrulls could duplicate anyone they wanted just by looking at them (there's a comedy moment where Talos and another Skrull both disguise themselves as the same surfer girl), but the catch is they can only duplicate their "recent memories." So the Kree would make each other recite old shared histories to test for Skrull invaders.
That's basically the equivalent of what Gravik does at the end of this episode, but whatever is happening with the mind probe scene at the Skrull base seems to be a new addition for the series. (And maybe something that lets them duplicate more long-term memories? Unclear.)
The mind-prison at the Skrull base seemed like a stock sci-fi, "Keep the original alive to access their memories" trope. As for Ross in particularly, my guess is that he's in hiding in Wakanda post-Black Panther II, so one of the rebel Skrulls could impersonate him with impunity, but didn't have access to his memories since he wasn't kidnapped by them, so he missed some little secret signal the real Ross would recognize that was slipped into the dossier on the iPad, which is why the other guy realized he was a Skrull and tried to kill him.
Jun 21, 2023·edited Jun 22, 2023Liked by Caroline Siede
If you re-watch the ep all the people Gravik turns into in the last scene were seen earlier in the episode. He was telling Fury that he was on to him the whole time. Basically he is fucking with him. As for Hill he was just posing as Fury to get her to let her guard down.
And fact that he keeps looking back at Fury after every transformation to see if he got it was clear signal that he was deliberately messing with Fury. That was favorite sequence in what was otherwise pretty meh episode of mostly exposition. (Me had high hopes for this one based on trailer and premise, so me hoping this one was just table-setting and we get into main course next week.)
I'm holding off to see how this plays out. Winter Soldier was a high watermark for the MCU, but I've always disliked the "Who's a secret Skrull" parlor game that periodically infects the comics.
Its the same reason why I groan whenever Mission Impossible uses the face masks. I've rarely cheered louder than when Ghost Protocol had the gag where the mask machine failed to work.
Had fallen off the MCU bandwagon a little, but the cast in this one has dragged me back.
My partner and I had always had a running joke about Hill being the most hard-done-by character, *barely* significant in any of the movies but oddly notable enough to have a name.
So to begin the episode thinking she was about to get her get ‘Black Widow’ moment, then see her unceremoniously shot in order to fuck with Fury... my response was that of dark laughter.
i’m sticking with it for now even though it was very boring and if i had to guess a secret skrull it would be the president. the twist also didn’t land for me but it was because of the subtitles revealing her name.
Nice review. Not much to add, but I seem to have found this first episode even more dull than most. I don’t know that Secret Invasion was really a great comic series to begin with, and this adaptation retreading the Flag Smashers from F&WS and not doing anything big in the first episode to hook people on the “they can be anyone” premise doesn’t fill me with confidence. They can be anyone! Like this extra! Or that extra! Or even that extra!
So glad to have you here, Caroline! I petitioned for this from day one of Episodic Medium 😁
I wasn't planning on watching this but you reviewing it has changed my mind. I'm not convinced about the show yet, though, but as your reviews managed to make my watching Iron Fist worth it, I remain confident that this will be interesting either way 😏
Aww, well thank you for the vote of confidence! I can't promise Secret Invasion will be a great show, but even after just one episode, I can promise that it'll at least be better than Iron Fist.
Dylan McDermott is playing the president, not Dermot Mulroney.
(I was genuinely so worried about making this mistake when I was writing this review)
"We’ll see how the series handles it from here, but Maria Hill’s death is definitely bordering on a fridging. Especially on the heels of killing Talos’ wife Soren offscreen."
This struck me as well. Although at least Soren was killed off to further the story of a woman (her daughter) as much as Talos. I don't know if that makes it better or if I'm reaching.
I was kind of confused because I thought it was revealed that Maria Hill was Talos’ wife Soren in Spider-Man Far From Home, but I then remembered “oh she was just only pretending to be Maria Hill because...” yeah idk why, I mean I get why Talos was Nick Fury, but... wait I don’t understand why Talos was pretending to be Nick Fury. Why did they feel they needed to pretend that Nick Fury had a presence on earth while he was on a secret mission in space??
The MCU has really lost the thread in the last couple of Phases.
Anyway I agree about Soren’s offscreen demise. If it doesn’t turn out to be some kind of fake-out death or something it really sucks to just make that character death just a motivator for the characters on this series. Also I think the death of Maria Hill is just terrible, what was the point of making her think that Nick Fury shot her?! What’s the motivation for that? It’s just cheap.
I’m hoping the series gets better but it’s pretty weak start.
The only rationale I could think of for Soren disguising herself as Maria Hill in Far From Home is that Talos is *such* a wife guy that he refused to do the mission without her. And if he was gonna pose as Nick Fury, Hill was the most obvious cover for Soren. (As for why he needed to pose as Fury in the first place, truly who knows.)
Oh yeah, I totally get that Talos would want Soren with him on the mission but why shape shift into Maria Hill? I mean isn’t the real Maria Hill on Earth? Was it just to trick Spider-man, she could’ve just been another SHIELD agent.
I mean honestly the real reason it was done was for the benefit of the audience and trying to trick us into thinking that Spidey was on a legit SHIELD mission.
I think he was just posing as Fury to get her to let her guard down. It wasn't anything more than that.
"Are we meant to assume Everett Ross has been a Skrull this whole time? Or that the real Ross is locked up somewhere? Or was it more of an opportunistic impersonation?" That was my big question, too. I know this episode was already a bit talk-heavy, but I wish we had a little more exposition about how the Skrull duplication works, especially for those of us who haven't rewatched Captain Marvel recently.
The bad Skrulls clearly have some humans locked up while their duplicates are running around, and there was that instance of somehow scanning one to download his memories or something, but Gravik cycled between several appearances in swift succession and ultimately landed on Fury while Nick was standing just a short distance away. (One of those sequences that looks neat but breaks down entirely under the lens of fridge logic. What was the motivation for changing his appearance out in the open where anyone in the crowd could have seen him? Why shoot Hill, and why then, and why looking like Fury? Isn't the whole point of the Skrull threat that they can impersonate someone you trust in an ongoing relationship, not for sudden sneak attacks?)
With such confusion, this episode leaned way more towards the disappointing Falcon/Winter Soldier end of things for me, but it feels like it could turn into more of the paranoid conspiracy thriller we loved in CA:TWS if they can manage to get the pieces working better. We'll see!
If it helps, I *did* rewatch Captain Marvel to prep for this, and I'm still a little confused about how the show is handling Skrull transformations.
In the movie, Skrulls could duplicate anyone they wanted just by looking at them (there's a comedy moment where Talos and another Skrull both disguise themselves as the same surfer girl), but the catch is they can only duplicate their "recent memories." So the Kree would make each other recite old shared histories to test for Skrull invaders.
That's basically the equivalent of what Gravik does at the end of this episode, but whatever is happening with the mind probe scene at the Skrull base seems to be a new addition for the series. (And maybe something that lets them duplicate more long-term memories? Unclear.)
The mind-prison at the Skrull base seemed like a stock sci-fi, "Keep the original alive to access their memories" trope. As for Ross in particularly, my guess is that he's in hiding in Wakanda post-Black Panther II, so one of the rebel Skrulls could impersonate him with impunity, but didn't have access to his memories since he wasn't kidnapped by them, so he missed some little secret signal the real Ross would recognize that was slipped into the dossier on the iPad, which is why the other guy realized he was a Skrull and tried to kill him.
If you re-watch the ep all the people Gravik turns into in the last scene were seen earlier in the episode. He was telling Fury that he was on to him the whole time. Basically he is fucking with him. As for Hill he was just posing as Fury to get her to let her guard down.
And fact that he keeps looking back at Fury after every transformation to see if he got it was clear signal that he was deliberately messing with Fury. That was favorite sequence in what was otherwise pretty meh episode of mostly exposition. (Me had high hopes for this one based on trailer and premise, so me hoping this one was just table-setting and we get into main course next week.)
I'm holding off to see how this plays out. Winter Soldier was a high watermark for the MCU, but I've always disliked the "Who's a secret Skrull" parlor game that periodically infects the comics.
Its the same reason why I groan whenever Mission Impossible uses the face masks. I've rarely cheered louder than when Ghost Protocol had the gag where the mask machine failed to work.
Had fallen off the MCU bandwagon a little, but the cast in this one has dragged me back.
My partner and I had always had a running joke about Hill being the most hard-done-by character, *barely* significant in any of the movies but oddly notable enough to have a name.
So to begin the episode thinking she was about to get her get ‘Black Widow’ moment, then see her unceremoniously shot in order to fuck with Fury... my response was that of dark laughter.
i’m sticking with it for now even though it was very boring and if i had to guess a secret skrull it would be the president. the twist also didn’t land for me but it was because of the subtitles revealing her name.
Nice review. Not much to add, but I seem to have found this first episode even more dull than most. I don’t know that Secret Invasion was really a great comic series to begin with, and this adaptation retreading the Flag Smashers from F&WS and not doing anything big in the first episode to hook people on the “they can be anyone” premise doesn’t fill me with confidence. They can be anyone! Like this extra! Or that extra! Or even that extra!
So glad to have you here, Caroline! I petitioned for this from day one of Episodic Medium 😁
I wasn't planning on watching this but you reviewing it has changed my mind. I'm not convinced about the show yet, though, but as your reviews managed to make my watching Iron Fist worth it, I remain confident that this will be interesting either way 😏
Aww, well thank you for the vote of confidence! I can't promise Secret Invasion will be a great show, but even after just one episode, I can promise that it'll at least be better than Iron Fist.
Well, that's a low bar to raise 😅
Welcome aboard