Secret Invasion is a thriller show with the involvement of the shapeshifting Skrull and Nick Fury! The show was created by show runner, Kyle Bradstreet, who also the cyber thriller series, Mr. Robot. There is eerie music as we have the setting, “Moscow, Present Day”, on a screen of black. Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) is heard on his mobile replies that he will be there. We last saw Freeman in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). He is in a tunnel, throws his phone to the side, and has his gun ready. We see Ross walking up steps as a man (Richard Dormer) says to “imagine a world where information can’t be trusted.”
Dormer was Beric Dondarrion in Game of Thrones. Then, as Ross goes to a street and slips into a building, the voice notes that we can only trust the people close to us, and what if they were “someone else.” Also, that the people are not human! This captures the premise of the show based on the 2008-2009 limited series by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu. It reminds me of the sci fi movie, Invaders from Mars (1953) which freaked me out when I was young.
There are news clipping, a screen of computers, and questions on a wall like a conspiracy theorist. Ross asks Agent Prescod (Dormer) what he is saying and Prescod notes “five global terrorists strikes.” Prescod seems wild and says that there is some people behind this war. Then, he adds, Skrulls. These are the green aliens with pointy ears that first showed up in Captain Marvel (2019). In the comics, they debuted in Fantastic Four #2 (1962)! Prescod says it started when the Skrulls first came to Earth 30 years ago! Ross says that there is only a “handful” of Skrulls on Earth as Prescod continues his rant. He continues that their liasion is Nick Fury.
Then, Ross says that he is on the space station, S.A.B.E.R., and needs evidence if he contacts Fury. The best part of introducing the main character of a spy-type story is to talk about him or her before seeing the person. Presod takes a iPad that projects a hologram to show Ross. After looking at the hologram, Ross says he will take it to Fury. Prescod tackles him! Skrull! This of course make me re-think the character and his time in Wakanda in the Black Panther films. Was that Everett Ross or did a Skrull replace him? To respect the character, he should be replaced after the last film. Still, we have not seen the body if Ross is killed, just his duplicate body.
He chokes him with a cord around his neck until shot. Ross picks himself up and walks down an alley and he is followed. He calls for an extract. In her car, Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) touches her rearview mirror to pull up a map showing a metro station. Smulders last played Hill in Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019). Ross starts to run as the pursuing man shouts at him in Russian. The chase goes into a building and up floors that light up windows. They reach the rooftop and Ross tries to leap across, but falls into the street. Bleeding, he struggles to crawl forward as Hill runs up to him from her car.
She draws her gun on the man who holds up his hands and transforms into the Skrull, Talos, played by Ben Mendelsohn. The actor last played the character in Captain Marvel. She asks what he is doing and Talos says he was chasing Ross. The agent dies and transforms into a Skrull. Talos says he’s one of “them.” Then, we get the twisting, painterly title sequence of the destruction of the Skrull homeworld, Skrullos, Nick Fury, and the brief shifting of human faces to Skrulls. A dark forest is suddenly illuminated by a beam of light. We see the blurry, then distorted form step out, it is Nicky Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). He has been missing from the live action MCU since Spider-Man: Far From Home. This is a great extraterrestrial intro for Fury.
He turns, no eyepatch, just the blinded eye from the cat-like Flerken, Goose, in Captain Marvel. Fury sees the approach of a car, he stumbles painfully, a wound in his leg?, over to be welcomed by Maria Hill. She takes him to a house and tells Fury to go upstairs to meet with Talos. He is tending to a plant with large petals with a glowing blue interior. Talos tells him that it is a Skrull sky plant. We see something alien like the Skrulls changed, but thriving on Earth. Talos explains that Soren had planted it. Soren was Talos’ wife whom we saw in Captain Marvel.
Fury apologizes over her death and Talos says she worried that the events would return him to Earth. He asks about Gravik. Talos mentions that after the Blip, Fury disappeared as well as Carol Danvers and Gi’ah, his daughter. He explains that she was angry at not finding a home, this is the refugee story in fictional terms, and Talos was removed from the Council. Hill debriefs Fury on a hologram device showing Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir). The actor starred in the crime series, Peaky Blinders. Hill continues saying Skrulls are immune to radiation and the young Skrulls have used unofficial nuclear plants as bases. Gravik’s location is unknown.
Hill explains that the Ross imposter was looking for a dirty bomb and she tells Fury that Prescod was checking on a group called the AAR (Americans Against Russia). Fury asks if Gravik was trying to start a war. Hill explains that weapons were stolen in Kazakhstan the day Prescod was killed. Both Hill and Talos are somber at the debriefing. Talos says if Gravik’s plan succeeds, the human species will die, Fury stands up, upset at the news! He says he is going for a walk. Washington, D.C., James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) reports to the president, Ritson (Dermot Mulroney), about Nick Fury. Cheadle was last in the MCU in the premiere, “New World Order” (2021) of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
A great connection to two MCU series! Mulroney is in this year’s bio drama, Shooting Stars, based on the young LeBron James. I think Mulroney makes an excellent president figure. The last president we saw was Matthew Ellis (William Sadler) in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode, “Laws of Nature” (2016). President Ritson is surprised that Fury left S.A.B.E.R. building the best aerospace defense. Rhodes says there was a message between Hill and Fury, but says without communications, they are considered AWOL (Absent Without Leave)! Fury is walking the Moscow streets at night, suddenly two agents throw a sack over his head, and forced him into a van!
In the darkness he is greeted by the voice of a woman played by Olivia Colman! The Academy Award as well as BAFTA Award winning actress played Miss Havisham in this year’s Great Expectations mini-series. This is Sonya Falsworth, MI6 agent, a new character, but the last name Falsworth has a connection to James Montgomery Falsworth (JJ Feild) in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). As she pours a drink for him, Fury activates a device on the eye of an owl figurine. She seems very polite, but I sense she is also deadly running in the same circles as Fury. He knew that walking the streets that eventually he would be brought to Sonya.
Fury says he’s come to stop the Skrull rebellion. Sonya brings up that he knew Gravik. Then, it becomes a back and forth with Fury asking him about the Kazakhstan heist, she counters with he doesn’t know what was stolen shows he changed after being taken out by Thanos! He brings up an alliance, but she says Fury should have noticed her men “a mile away” and rejects him. He leaves and we get a closeup of the owl’s eye. Next, it shifts to “312 km Southwest of Moscow”, around 193 miles. A man (Samuel Adewunmi) wearing a Russian Trooper hat walks up to a fence guarded by soldiers. He says he wants to go home. A car pulls up and out of it is the imposing woman in pink jacket played by Emilia Clarke. The actress is in this year’s sci fi romance, The Pod Generation.
She tells him to take his “natural form.” He removes his hat shifting into his Skrull shape. The gates are opened and she welcomes him to New Skrullos. She drives him and the man says his name is Beto. The mysterious woman asks Beto when was the last time he had food, but he doesn’t know. She lowers the glove compartment and he is stunned to see a blue petaled fruit. The young woman says they only grow Skrull produce. They drive up to an abandoned nuclear plant surrounded by a forest. There are men outside, Skrull kids play outside, she takes him inside a building and says there are 500 Skrulls in the compound.
She says if Beto wants to be a warrior, then Gravik will let him leave the compound. The warriors have to stay in their human “shells” so they will not be easily identified. Also, a good way to save on effects. She tells him to stay from a guarded room and he asks what is inside and she replies, “Victory.” There are people in metal platforms with blue devices sending energy to their temples. The young woman stands by the side of a leader, Pagon (Killian Scott), he calls up a Skrull warrior, Brogan (Ben Peel), who swears his dedication to be “home in my own skin.”
Pagon then orders his shell, the human to duplicate, one of the Americans Against Russia! He has Brogan shift into the form of the human. I would think he could perfectly match another by taking a sample of his DNA, like blood. Then, Pagon slams the man into the cage, the electricity begins hitting his temple! He asks Brogan to take his mind. Brogan touches his fingers to the man’s forehead stealing his memories! The Skrull woman watches all of it. On the next level from a window is a shadowy form, Gravik!
The owl’s eye records a meeting of Sonya Falsworth. A hologram of them is projected in the kitchen with Fury, Hill, and Talos watching. She mentions that there are five specialist who could build a bomb and points out Vasily Poprishchin, who has an art gallery. Falsworth wants to see if a Skrull contact will lead them to their base. Fury says Falsworth will have agents there and tells Talos that he can’t have mercy with Falsworth involved. This will involve Nick Fury with Talos and Maria Hill to stop the Skrull woman and uncover a stunning secret! Secret Invasion sows the seeds of the refugee Skrulls trying to feed the tensions of humans to destroy the Earth for a new homeland with Nick Fury there to stop them!
Five Skrull Sky Plants out of Five!
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