While they’ve always been antagonistic in the comics, the Skrulls were portrayed as sympathetic refugees, victims of Kree imperialism, in Captain Marvel. The only other time we’ve seen them since was in Spider-Man: Far From Home, in which we find out that the Nick Fury and Maria Hill we saw throughout that film were actually Talos and his wife Soren, while Fury was busy up on a space station.
The first episode of the new Disney+ series Secret Invasion answers many of the questions posed by the post-credits scene of that Spidey film, in service of a series that looks like it’s bringing quite the John le Carré vibe…
Spoilers for Secret Invasion: “Resurrection”
One of the reasons why the MCU has been successful is because they’ve embraced other genres. The existence of S.H.I.E.L.D.—which provided the backbone for Phase 1 of the MCU and also was the basis of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series—would seem to lend itself to this type of espionage thriller. However, aside from the Black Widow film, there’s been surprisingly little of this style of storytelling in the MCU, including on the AoS show, which was much more of a standard superhero tale than a show about spies.
Secret Invasion, though, does a lovely job of blending the superhero universe that has been building since 2008 with a storyline—as well as a look and feel—that wouldn’t be out of place in a Jason Bourne, Jack Ryan, or James Bond film.
It also continues one of the more despicable trends of the last five years of the MCU.
I was already mildly annoyed to find out that Soren—played in both Captain Marvel and Far From Home by Sharon Blynn—has died off-camera. Of the various Skrull refugees living on Earth, a large group of them—led by a revolutionary named Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir)—are engaged in a plan to take on Earth as their new homeworld, which they will do by getting rid of humanity. To that end, they’re posing as various terrorist groups, hoping to destabilize the world enough to start a world war. Since Skrulls are immune to radiation, they’ll be all right.
The plot is so very Cold War, even though the world of the early twenty-first century is not really one of two super-powers on the brink of annihilating each other like it was in the last half of the twentieth. Indeed, the world of the MCU is even less so, given the post-Blip world. The wars are smaller, though in deference to that, the Skrull plan involves a buildup of conflict all over the world.
Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) and Soren have been working with various spooks—among them Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), a guy named Prescod (a delightfully batshit ranting performance by Richard Dormer), and Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman). The latter turns out to be one of Gravik’s Skrulls impersonating Ross, but the impression is that the real Ross is part of the fight.
Prescod’s death at the hands of the fake Ross—and the fake Ross’ subsequent death at Talos’ hands—prompts Fury (Samuel L. Jackson without his eyepatch and with a full beard, and limping) to come down from the space station he was last seen hanging out in at the end of Far From Home. The station is called S.A.B.E.R., and is—based on a conversation between Rhodey (Don Cheadle) and the U.S. President—an orbital defense against alien invasion, which is an understandable thing to have in a world that’s had several extraterrestrial threats…
Fury’s performance is the standout in this premiere episode. For the first time in the dozens of appearances Jackson has made as Fury, he’s broken. Being dusted in Avengers: Infinity War majorly affected him (we even flash back briefly to the post-credits scene where he watches himself disintegrate in that film), and he’s very obviously a shadow of his former self. Fury looks smaller in this episode. Even when he was near-fatally injured in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, he always felt like the tallest person in the room; even when facing off against a god in Avengers, he always felt like he was in charge and, as Hill puts it, three moves ahead.
But not now. He’s playing catch-up and very obviously doesn’t have a plan. He’s gone full Indiana Jones, making it up as he goes. As a result, the op he leads with Hill and Talos to try to stop three bombs from going off in a crowded square on Unity Day in Moscow fails utterly.
That failed op leads to the moment that threw me completely out of the episode—which was quite engaging up until then—because Hill gets shot and killed.
We’re up to seven adult women regulars in the MCU who have been murdered since 2018: Gamora, Natasha Romanoff, May Parker, Wanda Maximoff, Jane Foster, Queen Ramonda, and now Maria Hill.
When discussing Ramonda’s death in my rewatch of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, I said, “It’s at best lazy-ass storytelling, and at worst despicable misogyny,” and “Resurrection” has me leaning toward the latter. Mainly because Hill’s being fridged is the third strike. (And before y’all start asking me again if this is really a fridging in the comments, let me assure you that this is classic: killing a female character to motivate a male character, as Hill’s death is very obviously meant to goad Fury into going back to being the badass we all know and love.) The first strike was Soren’s off-screen death. The second was the casting a male actor as Pagon, who was a woman in the comics. For that matter, the mastermind behind the comics story this was based on was also a woman, the Skrull Princess Veranke, but here it’s Gravik. This is a universe that already had far too many white men in central roles as a byproduct of most of it being created in the 1960s. To take two of the female roles from the comics and make them male in the same episode that kills off two established women in the milieu is a bad look.
It’s especially frustrating because Smulders has been excellent in the support role of Hill, providing a near-effortless competence (starting with her kicking ass at the beginning of Avengers), as well as an ability to call Fury on his bullshit when necessary. The character and actor deserve better.
As always in the MCU, we get some very strong performances. Smulders’ swansong is at least a good showing, as she keeps kicking Fury and Talos back in bounds throughout. Mendelsohn is his usual brilliantly snotty self as Talos. The opening with Freeman and Dormer is not only a good bit of exposition, but also gives us two excellent actors at the top of their game.
And then we have two other characters whose motivations and loyalties are a bit up in the air. Olivia Colman is magnificent in her too-brief appearance as an MI-6 supervisor and friend/rival/colleague of Fury’s. Since Colman is a regular, we should be seeing more of her, which can only be a good thing. Emilia Clarke takes over the role of Talos and Soren’s daughter Gi’ah (played as a little girl in Captain Marvel by Auden L. Ophuls and Harriet L. Ophuls), who has defected to the bad guys, working for Grivak. She doesn’t find out about her mother’s death until this episode, and it seems to turn her—or does it? She fills her Dad in about the plan to blow up Unity Day, but she’s also a decoy. It’s not clear whether or not she deliberately lied to Talos to set him up or if she was set up by Gravik. Clarke does her usual fine job of microexpressions subtly showing the conflict on her face, and I like that we genuinely don’t know which way she’ll go.
This was an enjoyable thrill ride for the first fifty minutes but the last five piss away the good will. The fact that Smulders wasn’t in the opening credits (and hey, look, Secret Invasion actually puts the opening credits in the opening where they friggin’ belong!) was a bad sign.
However, I will give the show credit for, once again, doing what the TV series have done a much better job of than the movies: show the consequences of Thanos’ snap. WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, and now Secret Invasion have done fine work in showing the effect that the five-year disappearance of half the people had, both on those left behind and on those who were blipped.
This and That
- This miniseries is based on a 2008 event Marvel did in the comics. The primary story was told in the Secret Invasion miniseries by Brian Michael Bendis & Lenil Francis Yu, and also crossed over into several other comics. In the comics, the Skrull Empire had been devastated, first by having their homeworld eaten by Galactus (Fantastic Four #257). Princess Veranke engages a long-term plan to invade Earth, which includes impersonating various important people, including the superheroes Elektra and Spider-Woman. The storyline picked up themes from “Civil War” and led into “Dark Reign.”
- The Skrulls were one of the first bad guys in the modern Marvel Universe, debuting in Fantastic Four #2. They didn’t become part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe until Captain Marvel, possibly due to being part of the Fantastic Four license, and therefore part of 20th Century Fox’s FF license that gave us the 2005 and 2015 Fantastic Four films, as well as Rise of the Silver Surfer. However, Disney’s purchase of Fox has made it all one big happy family…
- Ross was last seen in Wakanda Forever being freed from CIA custody by the Midnight Angels. How he got from there to being part of the nebulous agency that Fury, Hill, Talos, Prescod, et al are a part of is left as an exercise for the viewer, at least so far, as is where the real Ross actually is…
Keith R.A. DeCandido is very busy on this site these days, as his Star Trek: Enterprise Rewatch runs every Monday and he’s also reviewing the new episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as they debut every Thursday. Wheeee!
My understanding is that the Skrulls are a race of merchants looking for a homeland that are trying to take over the world. Where have I heard that trope before
They killed Maria Hill? I had hopes for the miniseries, silly me. (Will the rewatch start back up soon? You are behind where you started it last summer.)
Since EP brought it up, is there any chance of us getting a rewatch of Superman: The Animated Series in the near future?
It was fairly interesting, but killing off Maria Hill is not a good thing.
Also, weren’t those supposed to be dirty bombs? That means bombs laced with radioactive material. Fury should have radiation poisoning now.
Apparently the opening title graphics were generated with an AI program, which means they were constructed using plagiarized work of uncredited artists. They also don’t look very good. I get what they were going for — a weird, unnerving, abstract twistiness — but there’s a certain mechanical blandness to the result (though I admit I could be reading that into it because I knew in advance it was AI).
The opening caption saying “Moscow: Present Day” was a bit misleading, because according to the MCU Wiki, the Snap isn’t undone until October 2023. So in the present day, Fury and Hill are still piles of dust. I guess they meant the MCU present day, relative to the latest releases.
I am disappointed Hill is dead, as there are too few recurring non-superhero roles in the MCU, and Smulders was always pitch perfect in the role. There was a little too much talking about plot points in this episode, as opposed to showing things.
Jackson and Mendelsohn were solid, and Olivia Coleman actually sparkled–the only character who got to wear anything but black and grey. Clarke’s “microexpression” acting is a bit too subtle for my taste, and I am usually left wondering what she is thinking. But the character she is playing is compelling.
The show is off to a solid start, and now that they’ve gotten the exposition out of the way, should get better as it goes along.
EP: due to my being overloaded with Enterprise, Strange New Worlds, and this show, and due also to a comparatively light slate of superhero films this year, I’m going to wait until December to revive “4-Color to 35-Millimeter,”
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Yep, those AI-generated credits are pretty pathetic. Although, I guess it’s in line with the enormous swath of mediocrity that is Disney Corp. I wonder, when their films and TV shows are full produced by machines, will anyone notice the transition?
RIP Maria Hill died bravely on the floor in Moscow, or at least on the Floor of the Piece Hall, Halifax, England pretending to be Moscow.
Hmmmm … not sure about this one.. Sam Jackson’s Nick Fury is a little subdued which I suppose is what they were going for but it makes a rather jarring change of pace from his previous MCU appearances, The main Villain has not yet been developed at all, I know it’s only episode 1 but once again we only have 6 episodes, I wish these series would have followed the Initial Wanda Vision model and gone at least 9 episodes.
Emilia Clarke I am still on the fence about as an Actor, Game of Thrones, great.. everything since …. Not so great …. once again thought she was a bit wooden here… stand out performances were from Ben Medndelsohn and the great Olivia Coleman, I hope that now having the coup of casting someone of the stature of Coleman they don’t waste her.
And have to agree with everyone else that the handling of the death of Hill was horrible.. I cling to the hope that there was a swap and it was a Skrull but I don’t think it will be the case, just really very poor to so quickly dispatch a character who had become iconic in the wake of The way the Thanos Snap had been portrayed.
Had been really looking forward to this series as the Trailers had given off Winter Soldier vibes, may favourite MCU Movie, but this first episode I can only really give a 6 out of 10
@1
Oh good gravy. Tell me that are not using any other of those “fantastic” antisemitic tropes out there.
I thought it was fantastic, but the MCU’s apparent obsession with killing off all of its established adult female roles is… disheartening at best. I’m sad about losing Hill, but I thought the shock of her death set a good tone for the series. The problem of course is that it’s an absolutely terrible look for the franchise; you’d swear there must be someone at Marvel who sees this too, yet here we are.
I did not know that the title credits were AI-generated, but I certainly thought they looked like such (and commented as much to my daughter.) On the one hand, I’m disappointed they went that route, but on the other hand I thought the uncanny vibe they gave off was a perfect fit.
I thought Mendelsohn was fantastic, as was Dormer.
The Skrulls were also seen in the series finale of “WandaVision” (which began 3 weeks after “Avengers: Endgame”, so in late 2023) and the same scene suggested that Fury was already on the space station. The events of “Spider-Man: Far From Home” were set in 2024 (8 months after “Avengers: Endgame”). This episode states that it’s been 30 years since the main events of “Captain Marvel”, so 2025. It also implies (with the Carol Danvers abandoned Earth line) that this is set before “Ms. Marvel” and the upcoming “The Marvels’ film. I like how it all fits together.
I actually really loved the opening credits and while they used AI, per a statement released in The Hollywood Reporter by Method Studios that I think people should check out, the AI used was one of several tools and no artists lost their jobs as a result.
I look forward to the rest of the season.
Slight correction to your first paragraph. We saw a Skrull briefly in one of the post-credit scenes of WandaVision recruiting Monica.
I’m going to be honest and state that SECRET INVASION is probably the worst possible story for Marvel to adapt and that includes Wanda going crazy in a way that plays a lot into a bunch of misogynist tropes. No shade on Elizabeth Olsen, who I totally want them to bring back as Scarlet Witch reborn and Magneto’s daughter.
Secret Invasion was, how do I put it lightly, racist as all get out. The advertising campaign for it was full of creepy images of Skrulls marrying (white) humans, Skrull children next to (white) children, and other stuff meant to be disconcerting but only if you’re afraid of Replacement Theory. Which as Gary says in my Supervillainy books, “I’m not afraid of alien babies.”
There’s also the fact that SI was explicitly a War on Terror parallel but exactly the opposite from Civil War. At least if you were paying attention, Civil War is very much against government overreach and Dark Reign nicely serves as an indictment of the Bush Administration (with Norman as Bush II). Secret Invasion is all about the Skrulls suddenly being radicalized religious terrorists.
Here, they’re not even a galactic empire but radicalized refugees. Which is…just disgusting to vilify.
My husband audibly groaned when they killed off HIll. It is definitely an annoying trend (although I suppose in some ways it is at least something that we are getting so many female characters that are ‘in the action’ that they are able to get killed). But earlier I had actually been thinking that the really ballsy thing would have been to kill off Fury in the opening episode, but of course they are not going to do that for a show they are marketing based off of him.
You know, it didn’t even occur to me that Gi’ah herself might have been double crossed.
Anyway, we’ll see how the show goes – I love Ben Mendelsohn and Emilia Clark, but the tone is a bit grim for me. I’m always a little wary of shows that basically show that “The conspiracy theories are right!!!” because we just don’t need that right now, and in a way it does almost seem to undermine Captain Marvel. Like, okay, the Skrulls actually are the villains – like, it sucks that they don’t have a home, but it feels kind of petty to blame Nick Fury for that given all that’s happened. I get that it’s also kinda making a statement about displaced/radicalized people, but it also seems that if they really are radiation resistant, that they COULD just make a real home in the abandoned nuclear plants and not have to hide and just…live alongside humans. I am not sure if that was already discussed or tried, or there was some ‘changeling mistrust’ on the part of Earth, etc. But it just seems like a jump to go to, “Guess we’re genocidal terrorists now!”.
@14 – Yeah, thanks for kind of articulating why the general arc doesn’t sit well with me. Like, I get that radicalized refugees are a thing, and there are all sorts of story possibilities once you are dealing with changelings but ultimately it just feels like it’s going to feed into a lot of distrust/fear/othering and people are going to apply their own biases to it.
I didn’t even think about the ‘Replacement Theory’ stuff, gross.
@14/C.T. Phipps: You have a point, but it’s not like all the Skrulls are demonized, since Talos is one of the main heroes and his daughter seems reachable. It’s mostly Gravik who’s being painted as an extremist, and he reminds me of Karli from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, a villain with sympathetic motives and a valid point. It’s not like the Skrulls are doing this because they’re evil aliens; it’s because Fury failed in his promise to find them a homeworld and they’re getting desperate. It’s a very similar premise to Doctor Who: “The Zygon Invasion”/’The Zygon Inversion,” and I don’t think I’ve ever heard that story called racist.
The story also seems to have a lot to do with how everyone was traumatized by the Blip and a lot of people coped by trying harder to seize control of their lives. I suspect the show will be looking at that from both sides, and maybe it will provide common ground.
And it seems like a major conflict here will be between Fury, who’s friends with the Skrulls and wants to find a way to restore peace with them, and Olivia Colman’s character who prefers a more “scorched-earth” approach.
Just wanted to comment on the AI credits, which I really liked. Feels great for the show.
Unlike a lot of people here, I don’t think “plagiarized” is accurate for the data structures used. Also, anyone who used Stable Diffusion or Midjourney probably realized that it is perfectly capable of creating things it has never seen (an example someone sent me yesterday – a turtle and woman partially made of bread/cheese, which actually looked pretty good).
Honestly, I don’t even think he has a valid point (even if I sympathize with their situation – fwiw I found Karli’s group/motives a bit more sympathetic). Yes, Nick Fury broke his promise, but Nick is a fallible man, and there was also widespread chaos on a cosmic scale for the past 30 years so this isn’t some rank betrayal that warrants genocide. Sorry you lost your planet, but that doesn’t mean you just get to take somebody else’s.
Now, it will be interesting to see if they reveal there has also been some kind of persecution/mistreatment on Earth but so far they haven’t mentioned that. Maybe Earth could have outright offered them those radioactive sites (along with resources to rebuild, since humans wouldn’t be able to work) but it’s not like Nick Fury’s promise was some binding agreement on the part of Earth.
The other thing I just thought about while re-watching was the existence of the “fracking pods” which Talos mentions in a very matter of fact way. It’s one thing that they are shape shifters, but they also apparently have somewhat common place technology that allows them to absorb peoples’ identities. Why would they even have that? I am wondering if there previously benign uses to this technology (mind melding, therapy, passing on memories, etc) or if it was something that was always intended to facilitate taking on others’ identities.
I was pleased by the inclusion of Maria Hill (Cobie Smolders), and was hoping she’d finally have some hefty screen time. But as soon as she started walking down the dark alley I got the premonition that she wouldn’t be making it out of the episode alive. What a waste of a great character, and a great actress. DC was the one that spawned the term “Fridging” for female characters, but it seems Marvel is the one that’s perfected it.
@18/Luiz Marques: “Unlike a lot of people here, I don’t think “plagiarized” is accurate for the data structures used. Also, anyone who used Stable Diffusion or Midjourney probably realized that it is perfectly capable of creating things it has never seen”
But as I understand it, it does so by mixing together bits and pieces of human-created work, much of which was fed into it without the permission of the creators. It’s a murky area at best.
Although it’s been clarified that the company that created the titles did so using human artists who employed some AI-created imagery as one of their tools, which is what I expected, since I doubt pure AI without human mediation could come up with something that consistent or fully animated. Still, I can’t say the result works for me.
@19/Lisamarie: Okay, “valid point” may have been an overstatement, but what I meant was that, while Gravik’s methods are obviously wrong, one can sympathize with the Skrull’s frustration at their situation, being forced to live in the closet because society won’t understand or accept them for who they are. Basically, Talos and Gravik are on a similar axis to Xavier and Magneto, both wanting freedom for their people but completely at odds on how they should respond to human intolerance.
“Now, it will be interesting to see if they reveal there has also been some kind of persecution/mistreatment on Earth but so far they haven’t mentioned that.”
Like I said, they’re forced to conceal who they are. That is persecution.
@20/J. Angel: “DC was the one that spawned the term “Fridging” for female characters, but it seems Marvel is the one that’s perfected it.”
Well, perhaps the most famous fridging in comics, the death of Gwen Stacy, was done by Marvel decades before the term was coined.
I thought the first ep was a mixed bag. Didn’t love or hate the opening, tho to other people’s comments, it was nice to see one for a Disney+ show for once. SLJ is great as usual, putting some nuance into his performance. He’s not as useless as Coleman’s character declared, but he does feel like he’s a little rusty.
Personally, Talos is the only Skrull I remember, so the absence of his wife wasn’t really felt. Coleman was great and looking more for her.
As for the killing of Hill, not really a fan. Wasn’t really feeling it was impactful and was kinda a waste for the character.
I’m a little surprised that everyone is convinced that the Maria Hill that was killed is the real Maria Hill. It may very well be her, but considering that we’re dealing with shape shifting aliens, I’d probably wait on that one.
I agree that the first part was solid with a great performance by the leads. However even without Hills unnecessary death (probably done to cast them as the villains) I found their operation incredibly botched. Are they really super spies? That was not done well imho.
well let’s see how things progress.
@23/Superstar: But we saw that Skrull revert to their native form when they die. For the fake Ross, it happened fairly quickly. The camera lingered on Hill for some time after she died, presumably for the specific purpose of making it clear to use that she wasn’t a Skrull.
Maybe she’s really dead but I think the camera lingered to make us really think she is. And then she’ll return and they won’t bother to explain why the corpse in this episode didn’t revert to skrull form.
@Christopher
Racist is perhaps a very strong word because Skrulls are, at the end of the day, a fictional race but I actually remember a mild backlash to Doctor Who with “The Unquiet Dead.” The premise of that story being the Gelth being refugees from the Time War (allegedly) who manipulate the Doctor’s sympathy in order to reveal they’re typical baddie aliens who want to conquer the Earth. It’s uncomfortably common Right wing talking point that letting in refugees will result in criminals and terrorists (which is nonsense as we both know) but one that happens here even if it’s 30 years later. The Skrulls may have been waiting 30 years but the show has them jump to genocide. Especially when there’s not even an X-men inciting event like the Zygon story where humanity is panicking about the Skrulls among them. No, they’re actually making the first strike against humanity that is largely ignorant of their existence.
The original comic Secret Invasion got some “racist” accusations because the advertising seemed to be taking a lot of digs at Obama and his hopeful message with its advertising. However, it didn’t have the refugee issue looming over it and was more the Skrulls had been taken over by a bunch of religious fanatics.
I thought the use of AI in the opening credits was disgusting, considering the WGA strike at the moment. Although it was clearly edited to remove many of the faults in AI imagery, it still looked exactly like the twisted Midjourney images. The use of uncredited artwork is in poor taste, not only due to the writers’ strike, but also due to how comic creators are often treated without credit to their work and little pay for their creations. This just seemed to sum up the worst in Disney, and it was sad to see it in these times when writers and artists are speaking up about it.
Onto the actual show, I’m so sad Maria Hill died, but I’m hoping that isn’t the end for her. Agents of SHIELD isn’t technically canon, but if Fury brought back Phil Coulson there, I’m hoping he can do something about it here. But then of course it turns more towards sci-fi than spy genre.
In any case, I’m still very much looking forward to see what happens next.
Felt like I was the one shot in the gut when Hill died. It’s just increasingly frustrating at all the female characters randomly getting killed. I feel like when shows kill off a character, there’s a way to do it well… spend some time in the episode having the characters deal with it. Hill was just punked. There really wasn’t that much story purpose for it, and the motive for Gravik to go out of his way for it is flimsy at best. Presumably it’s just to cause Fury pain, but that’s one-dimensional villain stuff at this point. It didn’t make sense for him in that situation.
Honestly, I also don’t really need a show about Fury anyway…like let the dude just retire. While I like them visiting the consequences of the blip, and while sometimes stories about a broken character can be interesting, I don’t know that we needed this while show to be about that. It would’ve been more interesting if Hill was the main character needing to pick up the pieces and be at the forefront of this. She’s more of an age to operate at the level Fury was in the beginning, and it would be interesting to watch her struggles as she was trying to fill that role.
Anyway, I actually really liked the animation of the credits. Ironically, I was hoping they would credit the animators for that. Learning that they used AI art means they now have to credit more people I guess.
Popping back in to point out that I was reminded elsewhere that the ‘fracking pods’ are shown in Captain Marvel and were used for interrogation (among other things).
Hill’s murder and the loss of Smulders to the saga overall is a particular disappointment since she was ripe for some actual character development — I feel like this episode was the most we’ve really gotten a sense of her, which happens so often in these situations. The clearly male-heavy casting slate as the opening credits unfolded had me almost literally shaking my head, no matter how delightful the specific additions of Colman and Clarke are. I don’t think Sonya Falsworth is from the comics herself, but as a kid who loved The Invaders way back when I appreciate the nod to the century-old lineage of superheroic Falsworths.
I also wondered if the show and MCU at large are prepared to deal with the fallout — no pun intended; honest — from the detonation of multiple dirty bombs in a crowded public square.
@31 Yeah, it probably was the most I’ve seen of her at once. My wife wasn’t as bothered by it because she wasn’t as attached to Hill as a character, and upon reflection, I think her arc as a guest star on Agents of Shield is what helped me form more of a fondness for her (which is not to say she didn’t always stand out for me from the first Avengers on).
But I think this episode clearly showcased she was more than capable of carrying her own series.
One of the comments mentioned thiat this is similar to a Doctor Who story, and that’s what struck me too. I really enjoyed that Doctor Who story, so this series has a lot to live up to. I abhorred the death of Maria Hill. I don’t think they needed to do that in order to prove the bad guy was a bad guy. After all, he’d just set off a bunch of bombs. At any rate, I hope this show gets better as it goes along.
I am convinced that the Hill that died at the end of Episode 1 was a Life Model Decoy. Until the characters dig up Hill’s grave, run tests on the bones they find and 100% confirm Hill is dead, then maybe I will believe that Hill really died.
But the average person who watches this episode may not know about the concept of LMD. This, I agree with those comments above that say Maura death is a bad look.
Hill was listed as a guest star in the credits, not as a recurring cast member, which does not bode well for her return.
I saw Maria Hill’s death coming from several thousand miles away. Right from the beginning, the story implied very loudly that Fury was broken and needed a shakeup – which means some sort of sacrifice. And Fury was a paranoid director attached to no one – except Hill. Not Coulson, not Carter, not any of the Avengers. Only Hill. Whether that was a good thing or not remains to be seen.
I liked the ending for the actual bombings. Other than Thanos and the snap, we haven’t seen a lot of actual carnage in the MCU (the movie side of it, that is). Given the PG friendly nature of the movies, it makes sense that some of the Disney+ TV offerings are given more freedom to explore the more nasty elements of these stories. It reminds me of that one scene in Falcon and the Winter Soldier when Walker uses the shield to kill one of the Flag Smashers;
For the most part, I was unfamiliar with the talent behind these Marvel/Disney+ shows. The fact that Marvel tends to promote the directors over the head writers doesn’t help matters any. The exception was She-Hulk’s Jessica Gao, whose work I knew from Rick and Morty. And I know Kyle Bradstreet’s own work, having watched all four seasons of the excellent Mr. Robot. Secret Invasion certainly looks and feels like John le Carré. Pretty good take on the genre so far.
@32. crzydroid: “My wife wasn’t as bothered by it because she wasn’t as attached to Hill as a character”
When Smulders debuted as Hill in Avengers, I had a bit of a hard time taking her seriously because she was so good at deadpan comedy in How I Met Your Mother and never quite shook that dissonance. (The same issue cropped up for me long ago with Alec Baldwin, even before I grew unsettled by his offscreen activity.) Seeing her in that Russian dive with Jackson’s Fury didn’t help any, but all that considered I still feel there was unrealized potential in the role, never mind how killing off a fairly prominent if underdeveloped female character to motivate a male one is a bad look to say the least.
Either its another fake Marvel death or they fridged yet another leading female character. Either way its not a great look or novel plot development.