With the entire world’s fate hanging on Nick Fury’s shoulder, Secret Invasion 1×06 had all the makings of an epic Avengers film but without any superheroes. Like I said in last week’s Secret Invasion 1×05 review, the entire show felt like a platform to launch G’iah into the Marvel Cinematic Universe while giving Nick Fury more of a backstory after all these years.
The 38-minute finale, despite being short, kinda delivered the action, suspense, and thrill that you expect when one has to save the world from aliens. However, this episode, like the ones before, feels rushed, like some scenes cut out, but the show tries to make up for it with some unexpected reveals throughout the episode.
Nick Fury & Gravik’s Face Off
Secret Invasion 1×06 ‘Home’ starts with Gravik and Fury’s meeting up at the Skrull camp for him to give up the Avengers DNA that he stole without telling them. Kingsley Ben-Adir gets into an emotional rant at Fury inside the machine, but what would have been the peak moment for the show’s villain was spoiled by G’iah. After seeing Fury in The Marvels trailer, I think we all knew that he would never go to the radiation-filled camp. He is human, after all, and will die. Though Gravik doesn’t realize this and ends up using the Skrull machine on him and Fake Fury, they both end up absorbing most of the Avengers’ powers.
The cool stuff begins when Fury blocks one of Gravik’s punches leading to one of the weirdest CGI fights I’ve ever seen. The two Skrulls showcase various powers, indirectly telling us which of the Avengers Fury stole DNA from, like Groot, Hulk, Drax, Mantis, Cull Obsidian, and most importantly, Captain Marvel! Seeing G’iah light up like Captain Marvel was the best thing about this fight; with all his power, Gravik didn’t go out like the terrifying villain he started as. It was just sad and his death was also so unsurprising. I don’t blame G’iah for giving Gravik a quick death, he killed her parents. I’m sure it’s all she’s been thinking about doing for a while and got done with it as quickly as she could.
G’iah saves Colonel Rhodes and every other important person that the Skrulls captured, but I hope they got out there fast enough not to be affected by the radiation. Or was that only something that would affect Fury when he came for Gravik? Judging by how confused he looks, Rhodes will have a lot of catching up to do because he looks like he hasn’t been himself since the events of Captain America: Civil War. Fury and Falseworth had gone to save the president, but what was supposed to be a tense moment didn’t really feel like it. There was no way the nukes would make it to Russia after Gravik died so quickly.
Fury Is Always A Few Steps Ahead
After Fury kills a Skrull in front of President Ritson, he vows to get rid of them from his planet, which, as expected, leads to an uprising of vigilantism against those suspected to be non-human. Fury confronts the President for starting a war with the Skrulls, which is explained with around four quick scenes of both Skrulls and humans getting killed. This would have been a great plot for one of Secret Invasion’s earlier episodes, right? But all this, along with G’iah’s surprise partnership with MI6’s Sonya Falseworth, is done in the show’s last few minutes.
It feels like they were tying up loose ends, so we know what happened to every character, even if it didn’t completely make sense before how they would end up there. G’iah not thinking twice about joining Falseworth also seemed out of place, like Fury just wanted to leave G’iah with someone he could trust because he was running away again. She’s the most powerful being on the planet with all the Avengers but Fury just leaves her with a friend. Did he forget G’iah once had the same beliefs as Gravik, she’s pretty powerful and capable of anything. We might see Fury regret this decision later on, but not now cause he’s not going to be on Earth to deal with the aftermath of what Gravik did.
Fury is leaving Earth again just as things are bad but for a good reason. The Kree are ready to talk to the Skrulls about a peace treaty and we just find this out in the last minutes of the show, like they didn’t want to show us any of the good stuff. Fury kisses Varra while she’s in her Skrull form, proving that he loves her as she is, and it tugged at my heartstrings for a moment. The couple walks into the light that will take them to space where they can negotiate the Skrulls’ future. So I guess in the end, Fury tried to make things right by getting the Kree to talk peace.
Lastly, I think Secret Invasion was rushed as a whole; if it would have had at least 10 episodes, then I think the story would have had more time to make sense and not feel unfinished. Everything we learned from episode 5 (Fury stealing the Avengers’ DNA & Gravik’s true motivation to kill him) should have been in earlier episodes. Episodes 1-4 felt like it could have all fit in two episodes but it wasn’t all that bad.
As a fan seeing Fury doing what he does best was a good distraction before the next MCU project came along. Samuel L. Jackson was great and so was Olivia Coleman. I think we’ll see more of G’iah in upcoming projects, so Emilia Clarke might get the chance to really make us care about her character now that Talos isn’t coming back from the dead and she’s the leader. Don Cheadle was also brilliant as a Skrull and overall, I think everyone was great, but still, the story felt missing something.
Final Thoughts.
The show would have been better with one or two superheroes at least making a cameo – it doesn’t make sense that in the entire MCU, not one superhero would reach out to Fury once he returned to Earth. Killing off Maria Hill and Talos was a HUGE mistake on their part just to give Fury motivation to take down Gravik! I was hoping that one of them would come back to life before the series ended.
I enjoyed this Nick Fury outing through Secret Invasion because, as one of the most important Avengers, it’s been a long time coming. Could it have been better? Yes, totally, but I give the show a 7/10 nonetheless.
