Secret Invasion – Betrayed review S1 E3
While I’m digging Secret Invasion, Betrayed felt more like a wait to binge the entire series than a solid installment of a weekly series.
Gravik reveals his two-part plan to the Skrull Council. First, he’s got three operatives infiltrating the Royal navy, which should prompt Earth’s heroes into action. I feel like I’m on a loop saying this repeatedly, but Secret Invasion really would be so better timed if the Avengers were an active group in the post-Endgame MCU. Or at least they were mentioned in passing as still being operational.
Next, he’s countering their powers with their own by creating Super Skrulls. Gravik invites them to join him in the extinction of the human race. Kingsley Ben-Adir has been outstanding in every episode. He’s got the kind of presence that would have been well-suited for multiple movies that it takes the Avengers/various heroes several shows and films to finally conquer. Almost like a conqueror…
We get a flashback to New York in 1998 when Fury begins his relationship with Cilla. This is a ton of backstory padding to fit into the Skrull narrative. Not that it is completely outrageous, but this development only carries weight in Secret Invasion and not the litany of other Fury appearances this could have been incorporated in namely Spider-Man: Far From Home.
Back to the present, Fury is trying to mend fences with Cilla while the Skrull masquerading as a TV talking head keeps stoking the flames of paranoia. That’s a pretty great use for a Skrull actually.
Cilla is peeved that Fury didn’t try and restore their marriage after he returned from The Blip. I like the idea of a lost, finding his way Fury trying to set his life back on track after The Blip, but I like the idea that he abandoned his wife at home less so. Fury isn’t quite sure if he can trust Cilla, which is validated by her not-at-all shady reaction when someone calls. She might as well yelled “I need to talk in code as my husband who knows about the Skrulls is right in front of me.” That might have been subtler.
Gravik is ferreting out the traitor in his ranks and seems settled on G’iah. That checks and her response doesn’t assure me and I know she’s passing notes along to her father, Talos. Gravik is no idiot and sets up a plan to catch her while playing Talos masterfully.
I’m not gonna complain about a show that gives Samuel L. Jackson more time to play around as Nick Fury, but Gravik has been a bit of a revelation and his showdown with Talos is tremendously entertaining especially with the reveal that all of the patrons are Gravik’s Skrull loyalists. He’s so cooly calculated and doesn’t seem rattled by anything. Of all the Disney+ shows, Secret Invasion has the greatest concentration of amazing actors so any conversation results in killer scenes.
Talos’ line of “Until the end of time my daughter’s name stays out of your mouth” was an epic threat. Ben-Adir and Ben Mendelsohn play off each other so well in this scene.
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Thanks to intel from G’iah and Falsworth, Fury and Talos have a lead on this Royal Navy infiltration plot. Fury and Talos get into a kinda weird conversation where Talos wants equal share for his role in Fury’s success in his ascension up the SHIELD ranks. I suppose weaponizing shape shifters is a savvy way to accomplish that, but then it begs the question how Fury’s secret Skrull network didn’t know HYDRA infiltrated SHIELD. Seems like just one of them would have been able to pass on that very important info to Fury. That’s the problem with trying to retroactively add in an entire plot point this deep into the MCU.
Interesting note that casually gets dropped when the Skrull gets the drop on Talos — Fury tells the Skrull that no one calls him “Nick.” This confirms Fury’s growing suspicion of how far reaching the Skrull invasion after his conversation with a certain longtime ally last episode.
Stopping the missile launch saves Gravik’s Plan A to trigger World War III, but it was more important for him to confirm G’iah was the traitor ratting out his plans to Talos and Fury. She’s in a bad spot and can’t really lie her way out of it despite her earlier insistence she’s a great liar. It was odd that she didn’t assume another identity in making her escape…
No matter, Gravik doesn’t care about ceremony and just shoots her. Gravik already killed Maria Hill in cold blood and it’s probably not a good look for the show to keep having the main villain just gunning down unarmed women. Granted, that’s the kind of behavior that would make someone a villain, but it’s maybe a bit much for Gravik. Of course, there’s a few outs for G’iah to survive and likely will since this was a lame way for her character to get killed off.
Cilla is worried about something and heads to a safety deposit box with a gun. Maybe it has Fury’s special fingerprints? She makes a call and the voice on the other end is very familiar. It’s Rhodey, specifically Skrull Rhodey, who tells Cilla she’s dealing with him instead of Gravik now.
This feels like it should be a bigger bombshell, but that’s 2 for 2 of characters acting slightly out of character who were revealed as Skrulls. Maybe the better play would have been for Gravik to kill Maria Hill, who was a Skrull and neither he or Fury knew she’d been swapped. It just felt too obvious for the high-profile guest star characters — Everett Ross and Rhodey to be Skrulls and the only other one — Hill — to get killed early on.
Betrayed had a few logic gaps, but the midway point of Secret Invasion was solid enough to keep the mystery rolling. Still the series would be better served avoiding the past and sticking with the present day to avoid creating MCU legacy plot holes.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Photo Credit: Disney