Each of the first two episodes of Secret Invasion had a surprise ending, first the bad surprise that ended “Resurrection,” then the intriguing surprise that ended “Promises.” This week, “Betrayed” doesn’t so much end as stop, and it’s an extremely jarring end to an episode that, like last week, does a good job with conversations if not necessarily plot, and which, like two weeks ago, continues a tired trope.
First off, let me correct a mistake I made last week. When the Skrull Brogan was interrogated—first by FSB, then by Sonya Falsworth—and then was freed, he told Gravik that he lied, but their safe house was blown anyhow. I must confess to totally missing that G’iah was the one who called in the location of the safe house, figuring that Gravik would blame Brogan for breaking under interrogation.
On the one hand, I like this, because it shows that torture doesn’t actually work as an interrogation tool. Any information you get is suspect, because the person in great pain will say anything to stop the pain. And someone who will say anything is probably saying nothing of consequence. The lie that torture works to get information is one that popular culture has perpetuating forever, especially over the last 22 years or so, and yes, I keep calling it out when I see it, and I will continue to do so until it, y’know, stops being perpetuated.
On the other hand, Gravik confronts G’iah by pointing out to her that Brogan couldn’t possibly have known where the safe house was. Which raises the question of why he killed Brogan in the first place. Gravik isn’t supposed to be that short-sighted or impulsive.
Indeed, he isn’t later in the episode, as he enacts a particularly nasty operation to cause the British Navy to fire on a UN target that almost works. Fury and Talos stop it with help from G’iah—which Gravik thought might be the case. And so Gravik intercepts G’iah before she can escape and shoots her dead.
While it’s an effective surprise to kill the character played by a famous person who has a prominent place in the opening credits halfway through the season, it isn’t a particularly pleasant one given that this is the third female character fridged in this series alone (after Soren off-camera before the series started and Maria Hill at the end of “Resurrection”). It’s a plot well the MCU has dipped into constantly of late, and it’s gone from tiresome into despicably offensive.
This series has been pretty nowhere when it comes to action sequences, and getting more nowhere as it goes along—wondering whether or not Talos, Fury, and G’iah would succeed in keeping the Royal Navy from firing didn’t exactly put the “art” in “artificial suspense”—but it does succeed in entertaining conversations, three in particular this week.
The first is the meeting between Talos and Gravik that the former requested last week, which is held in the National Portrait Gallery in London. The two meet in front of the Statesmen of World War I painting by John Guthrie, and then decamp to the museum café. This provides one of the best visuals of the series so far when Talos physically threatens Gravik, and then everyone in the café stands up and changes shape into Gravik’s form. Ben Mendelsohn beautifully plays Talos’ surprise that he’s surrounded by hostiles.
The second conversation is even better, as it’s between Talos and Fury as they’re on their way to waylay the Skrull posing as the commanding admiral of the Royal Navy. (The admiral’s name is Robert Fairbanks, and I don’t know why, but Fury and Talos constantly referring to him as “Bob” cracked me the hell up. It isn’t even that funny, but it just worked for some stupid reason.)
What’s compelling about this particular talk is the fact that any time you put two greats like Mendelsohn and Samuel L. Jackson together, it’s bound to be golden. The banter between the two is fantastic. And it also makes explicit what the series has implied for the past two episodes. Yes, Fury is a badass, but one of the reasons why he was able to rise to the position of Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. after being a middling field agent in 1995 is because he had a score of Skrulls secretly helping him out.
This raises more than a few questions, of course. For starters, if Talos, Soren, and the others were such hot shit, how did they totally miss that Hydra had so thoroughly infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. (as revealed in Captain America: The Winter Soldier)? Plus, it reduces Fury as a character. Instead of being the brilliant strategist who singlehandedly formed the Avengers by sheer force of will, he’s a Black guy who cheated his way to the top with the help of a character who presents as White.
And yes, I know, Talos isn’t really White, but it’s the optics that are bad here. We’ve already got the “good” Skrull presenting as a middle-aged White dude while the “bad” Skrull presents as a person of color. That same “White” guy is shown to be the real power behind a Black character we all saw as badass for fifteen years. (Talos even forces Fury to say the words, “Help me, Talos, because I am useless without you,” which makes for a good laugh line, but borders on character assassination in context.) All this on top of the women dropping like flies.
Although the woman we met for the first time last week proves fascinating, and provides our third good conversation. It turns out that in 1998, Fury and one of his Skrull agents, who presents as a Black woman named Priscilla, started a relationship. Fury resisted at first, as he’s her boss, but since their little cabal of Skrull spies didn’t officially exist, there was nothing to stop them from becoming a couple.
Which they have. But first Fury was snapped by Thanos, and then he was returned by the Blip, at which point he buggered off into space. So he left her twice over, the second time voluntarily. She still loves him, but she’s pissed at him. And we find out at the end that she’s apparently also working for Gravik.
Charlayne Woodard does a superlative job as Priscilla, showing at once her anguish, her anger, her pain, and also her love and her skill.
Let’s hope she’s not killed, too…
This and That
- At one point, Gravik shows Rosa’s work to the members of the Skrull Council, which we find out the full story behind: she’s trying to create Skrulls that have super-powers beyond that of shapechanging, so that they can handle Earth’s superheroic population. Gravik calls them “Super-Skrulls.” This is a direct reference to the comics character Kl’rt, a.k.a. the Super-Skrull. Introduced in 1963’s Fantastic Four #18 by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby as a Skrull genetically engineered with the powers of all four members of the FF, Kl’rt has remained a major Marvel bad guy for all six decades since. Since the FF haven’t truly been introduced into the MCU yet, it’s obvious that they’re using the four computer records G’iah saw last week (Groot, the Extremis Project, the Frost Giants, and Cull Obsidian) as the template for the MCU’s version of the Super-Skrull. They’re not quite analogues for the FF, truly, but I guess they’ll do…
- When Talos contacts G’iah to get the code word Fairbanks would use to abort the missile strike, she goes into a room full of unconscious humans whose memories are being mined. We see several people whose Skrull counterparts are part of the Skrull Council (but not Everett Ross, because that would mean paying for another Martin Freeman appearance). So this means that the people the Skrulls have replaced are still alive, at least.
- The Skrull posing as Fairbanks captures Talos and tries to fool Fury into thinking that he’s Talos and has captured Fairbanks. But he refers to Fury as “Nick,” which clues Fury in to the fact that it’s a fake. This is a cute callback to Captain Marvel, where the fact that nobody calls him “Nick” was also a plot point. (Though people have referred to him as “Nick” here and there in other MCU productions that predate Captain Marvel; still, he’s mostly referred to as “Fury”…)
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be an author and musician guest at Shore Leave 43 this weekend at the Delta Hotel by Marriott in Hunt Valley, Maryland. He will be doing various bits of programming, and also playing a concert with his band, Boogie Knights. In addition, he’s launching two anthologies: Double Trouble: An Anthology of Two-Fisted Team-Ups, which he co-edited and has a story in, and Sherlock Holmes: Cases by Candlelight Volume 2, which he also has a story in. There will be another cool reveal at the show as well. His entire schedule can be found here.
It’s like they think rolling out a certain number of POC- and women-led movies gives them vouchers they can cash in for more sexist, racist crap. Ugh.
Maybe I missed this very obvious part, but if the Navy commander was a Skrull, why did he care about Fury holding the son hostage?
The conversations were terrific here — Fury and Priscilla, Talos and Gravik, Talos and Fury repeatedly. Strong dialogue delivered by strong actors, with Mendelsohn being a particular standout. I loved how Talos and Fury bickered like an old married couple, and when Talos said late in the episode “I’m not with Gravik because I’m with you,” that pretty much confirmed the vibe I’d been getting that Talos is in love with Fury.
And I took Talos’s “You owe your career to us” argument just as something Talos said because he was angry at Fury’s ingratitude and trying to make a point, rather than something he actually believed or something that we in the audience were meant to take as objectively true. I mean, yeah, Fury’s Skrull network helped him a lot, but Fury was the one who knew how to act on their intelligence. I think the history of intelligence agencies in the real world proves that simply knowing about something doesn’t guarantee that the people in power will respond to it, err, intelligently. The fact that Fury acted effectively and decisively on the Skrulls’ information is a key part of the equation that Talos left out because he was trying to bring Fury’s ego down a peg or two.
I’m also not convinced G’iah is really dead. It’s hard to believe they’d drop Emilia Clarke from the show only halfway through, and it didn’t feel like her story arc was necessarily over. I also noticed that when Talos shot Bob and killed him instantly, he shot him in the lower right side of the chest, while Gravik shot G’iah on the left side, close to where a human heart would be. I don’t know why Gravik would make that mistake with a fellow Skrull, and it could be nothing, but it could be significant. It struck me that it would be very easy for a Skrull to fake being dead by voluntarily reverting to Skrull appearance.
It’s cute that Sonya Falsworth actually went to the trouble to make (or instruct someone else to make) a little eyepatch to fit her owl statue, purely to amuse herself.
The review on io9 made an interesting observation — that for a spy thriller about shapeshifters who can impersonate anyone, this show is remarkably overt about who is actually a Skrull, rather than keeping us guessing about who we can trust. I can see the point, but I’m not sure I agree, because I feel that “Who’s the secret shapeshifter/Cylon/whatever” plots have been done to death (heck, Battlestar Galactica ran it into the ground single-handedly), so maybe it’s a good thing that they aren’t going there.
I don’t think you missed that G’iah gave away the safe house. I think it flat out wasn’t in the show.
In general, I think the cutting/editing on this show has been terrible and there was an instance here between Talos and Fury where it genuinely wasn’t clear from the visuals who was talking, because neither of them were visibly speaking.
At any rate, we turned the show off the moment G’iah got shot, because despite Sonya and Talos being awesome, we just couldn’t take the rest of the show anymore. Killing all the female characters, replacing some more female-in-the-comics characters with men and the sheer character assassination of Fury (holy crap the man is an absolute asshole to everyone, including his wife of thirty years?!) in the service of a really rather humdrum spy plot?
No. That’s not worth it. And let’s not forget the crappy AI-generated opening either.
I think perhaps the son was a Skrull too, presumably his real son and they were both just disguised as humans. There were two green corpses in the back of his SUV once they were done (although I guess the other one could have been one of the security guys).
As to “Bob”, that just made me think of Blackadder, who I know you love KRAD :-)
@4/Mark: “I don’t think you missed that G’iah gave away the safe house. I think it flat out wasn’t in the show.”
Yes, it was. There was a scene last week where she made an excuse to slip away and called someone clandestinely, and then later we saw cops around the safehouse. This week confirmed that she was the one who tipped them off.
“And let’s not forget the crappy AI-generated opening either.”
Rather, created by human artists including AI-generated content as an element. That was misreported.
“There were two green corpses in the back of his SUV once they were done (although I guess the other one could have been one of the security guys).”
I think they were both security guys. Fury shot at least three of them.
I still think it’s G’iah, not Gi’ah, but I suppose it doesn’t matter now that she’s dead.
Or is she?
Yeah, she probably is. I certainly didn’t expect Emilia Clarke’s to be killed off, at least not so soon. I don’t think it’s entirely out of bounds for the show to have killed her off, since she was obviously playing a very dangerous game, but to have her killed halfway through the show does make it look like she was killed off just to give Talos a revenge motive, which is a tired sexist trope. It also feels like a waste of Clarke’s talent. Why couldn’t they have flipped the trope and had Talos killed, which would have given G’iah the motivation to turn on Gravik in the first place?
OK, that would have definitely been a waste of Ben Mendelsohn’s talent, but the point stands.
As for the rest of the episode, I thought it was alright, though I do have to echo another comment in wondering why Skrull-Bob gave in when Fury threatened the boy, who was obviously the real Bob’s son, since he featured in Bob’s memories. Or was Bob’s son also replaced by a Skrull child or something?
@7/David: Yes, it is G’iah. Although it’s pronounced like “Gaia,” which is confusing. That spelling looks to me like it should rhyme with “Mia.”
As for Bob’s son, I’d assume that since the Skrull had Bob’s memories, he also had his feelings for the boy and didn’t want to see him harmed.
One thing that bugs me a bit: Did Captain Marvel portray the Skrulls as only capable of taking humanoid form? Because in the comics, they can become pretty much anything. The first Skrull story had a rather infamous ending where Reed Richards made some Skrull invaders shapeshift into cows and then brainwashed them to believe they really were cows, so they’d live out their lives that way. (Although it didn’t turn out that way in the long run.) But the Skrulls here only seem capable of taking human forms. I mean, when Gravik confronted G’iah in the road, I wondered if she could morph into a bird and fly away (though if so, he could naturally follow). But it seems they can only do human forms. (And clothes. They can morph clothes too. Does that mean they’re always naked?)
I don’t think we know yet whether G’iah’s death (or “death”) qualifies as fridging. We don’t know yet how it plays out. Could be, maybe very likely is, but we don’t know at this point.
And Christopher Bennett is right in comment 6. I got it immediately when I saw the cops at the safehouse.
@7 et al.—Gi’ah has been changed to G’iah, both here and in last week’s post. Thanks!
Yeah that was… something.
Would like to second all the questions about why they killed off G’iah (keeping up their trend that probably shouldn’t be kept up), why Talos killed Brogan, and why Skrull Bob cared so much about Bob’s son. Did Skrull Bob know the actual mission was to find the traitor and thus went willingly to his death?
Also, why did Gravik let Talos leave the meet with no interference? Is he just that honourable? Was it to find the traitor?
Anyway, all in all the episode left me feeling a little… flat. Even if I am loving Talos and always want to find more Nick Fury lore.
I hated that Fury abandoned his wife but my overriding emotion during that scene was frustration with how while they argued, he drank some coffee, he drank some orange juice, he drank some more coffee, and they continued arguing, those eggs were sitting on the table getting cold.
Winston Churchill is one of the worst possible examples Gravik could choose for his point about brave soldiers vs cowardly politicians. Churchill resigned from the government during World War One, joined the army, and was shelled nearly continuously for three months.
I also was perplexed about Bob’s son being an effective hostage.
I have to admit, I did think it was kinda great how Gravik just shot her in the middle of her pre-mortem one liner. It’s one of those movie/action tropes I always kind of roll my eyes at because in real life, nobody is going to give you time to make some dramatic pronouncement. THAT SAID, to me that also kind of suggests it might not be a real death. Given their propensity to just leave Skrull bodies out in the open (whyyyy???) I think it’s possible she fake reverted.
That said, it was also blindingly obvious (to me and my husband) that she was being fed the information on purpose…I actually thought it might be a plot to actually feed her the wrong information to see which suspected traitor ends up leaking it. But in this case, I guess it was a real plot, but Gravik wins either way.
Talos is also a bit too ‘Ned Stark’ here what with his, “I’m gonna tell everybody your secret plan!” (Not to mention he’s fairly naive if he thinks people will trust his faction of Skrulls).
Regarding Nick Fury, I do kinda like seeing his character lose some of that invincibility (and I agree with the previous comment that the idea here isn’t that he is incompetent, but that he did luck into an amazing asset – but it still takes skill to use it well so it doesn’t lower my opinion of his abilities) and have to come to terms with how his abandonment may have impacted others. Especially as Priscilla and Talos CARE about him and are mad for more than just professional reasons.
I feel like this show is just barely on the good side of mid. I have enjoyed the dialogue, but the rest of the show feels a bit flat to me. Not bad, but also not very interesting. I feel like a story about the enemy hidden among us should have way more tension. And I do feel that tension ramping up a little each episode, but not enough. I won’t have any problem finishing the show, I’m not put off by it, but I’m also not truly hooked by it either.
Speaking of tension, we need to have a big Skrull reveal, otherwise its a waste of this story line. And I don’t think Everett Ross counts because I don’t think he’s been a Skrull all along. I think it was just for that mission. At least I hope so, because that would be a really underwhelming way to make that reveal. I think the prime candidate for such a big reveal is Rhodey. He’s been around from the very start of the MCU, and has been an important, prominent supporting character. I don’t know what that would mean for the Armor Wars show that’s in development.
But it certainly sounded like Don Cheadle’s voice in that phone call at the end of the episode.
I get the feeling that this series is really trying for the Le Carre vibe, especially revealing Fury’s wife (who’s far less awful than Smiley’s wife, I admit.) With a bit of Mick Herron chucked in via Sonya Falsworth (when do we get Fury’s hidden cadre of Slow Skrulls?)
Depicting Gravik as a stereotypical Swarthy Terrorist has bothered me from the off. I’m also not happy with the fridging stuff, though I expect a swerve with G’iah, set up by Talos stabbing Gravik in the hand — he basically heals the wound right away. We’ve seen Talos fire a kill shot with Fake Bob, and we know Skrulls can be killed with a head shot, and an accurate chest shot, but Gi’ah was shot where a human heart is, not the Skrull heart (Bob is shot on his right side, lower down.)
Plus, of course, trailers. Which have been known to lie.
@6 Do you have a source for the intro thing? Not that it matters too much, because I still think it’s a pretty terrible intro, but at least it would be a bit less of an ethical issue.
That aside, I stand by calling the editing terrible and the plotting almost as bad. Again, writing Fury as this incredible asshole who is at best of middling competence and the sheer amount of misogyny in the show make it not worth sitting through.
It’s also the smaller stuff though, like them shooting all the guards. There was no indication that those guards would be Skrull (why should they be?) so it comes across as Fury and Talos being absolutely ruthless murderers who will kill any innocents who stand in their way. And then big reveal, they’re all Skrulls, so clearly it’s okay now!
Far too simplistic “us vs them” that undermines what the plot could have been. Wasn’t the entire point of the secret invasion that you couldn’t tell who was who and whose side they were on? Apparently mooks are still obviously evil and can be shot on sight.
– Saunters in wearing a cocked hat, red coat and the expression of a man licking his way through the wreckage of a party he wasn’t invited –
@krad, while this comes somewhat belatedly – I’ve been working – in honour of this years’ “Let’s party like it was 1783!” festivities I wanted to come in, point a finger and say how delighted I am that your decision to neglect dear old ENTERPRISE in favour of the Ancien Regime at Disney has given you such thin commons to dine upon.
– Makes a production of snorting a little snuff –
Let this be a lesson to you in the dangers of letting fireworks, fanfaronados and nearly 250 years of dramatic successes blind you to the adverse consequences of NOT BEING BRITISH!
If you were British you could have posted a review of a show that’s actually entertaining and-
– Gives an almighty sneeze –
God bless my soul! Better out than in. NOW, where was I? Oh, yes, making mischief. Anyway, I hope you’re keeping well and that Traitor Fireworks day went well for all on the West Bank of the Atlantic: I’m looking forward to seeing your review of the delightfully-pulpy conclusion to the Best series of ENTERPRISE so far reviewed.
See you Monday, have a lovely week and GOD SAVE THE KING!
Finally caught up on this show, and I’m not feeling it. I think it may be the weakest of the Disney+ shows to date. It’s like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with some of the interesting themes they danced around but ultimately abandoned.
One of the key issues with the show is Nick Fury is (as he’s being depicted here) a shitty protagonist. The idea of taking the guy always three steps ahead and making him older and slower is a good one, but they have also eliminated any redeeming qualities he may have had personally. We discover he broke his word, abandoned his wife, has alienated and outright insulted everyone who ever did him a solid. He seems to be not calling the Avengers in mostly because he’s too stubborn to admit he needs help. Why are we supposed to root for him again.
The curious decision to base a season of a show around the shape-shifting Skrulls and not play up the paranoia aspect common in spy thrillers is also bizarre. I’m sure there are some “twist” Skrulls coming, but the show seems way too eager to tip off who is a Skrull and who is not.
Also, the political undercurrents of this show are…awful. From the Skrulls being a refugee group seeking to genocide all humans for the LULZ, to a Protocols of the Elders of Zion style cabal (who go along with the genocide after a 30-second conflict) to Cage watching the in-universe Tucker Carlson…it’s all just ugh. At least The Falcon and the Winter Soldier had some interesting things to hint around regarding U.S. racism and imperialism before deciding Walker was a good guy somehow in the final episode. In contrast, I just can’t see any of this leading to anything good.
Calling it now that G’iah gave herself the Super-Skrull powers and will show up at some point to dramatically save the day.
I can’t say I’m feeling the Fury’s Skrull Wife betrayal very much considering we’ve only just met her, it’s not like we have any reason for stakes in her character.
I’m pretty sure there’s more to come with G’iah if only because we haven’t seen the usual round of postmortem interviews like we did when Maria Hill was downed in Episode 1.
PS: I agree that G’iah looks at first blush like its pronunciation should rhyme with “Mia” or, heh, “Maria” — but then again: Uriah; Mariah. The bigger issue to me is that the wonky, apostrophe’d spelling makes little sense as it’s surely a transliteration from Skrullos/Skrullian.
Generally agreeing with a lot of the above. I’ll probably keep watching to see what’s going to happen, but basically last night I watched this because it was shorter than the next episode of another series I was watching, rather than a burning need to see it.
However, besides all of the very valid criticism, I’m getting a feeling that’s popped up in a number of the Marvel series (especially the “present day” ones), but is most prevalent in this one. So far, we’re nearly 3 hours into a show, and I feel like it would have been stronger as the first 45-60 minutes of a movie. I know they’re trying to keep drip-feeding content, and keeping a break between MCU movies being tentpole pieces for theatres and the series being D+-focused, but I feel like I would be enjoying this more as a 2-2.5 hour direct-to-D+ movie.
Much like the second episode, it all comes down to the terrific exchanges, whether it’s between Fury and Talos, Talos and Gravik, or Fury and ‘Priscilla’.
I’m partial to the Talos/Gravik museum interaction myself. Not only for the well directed reveal that everyone around was a Gravik supporter (which I called a half-second in advance), but for clearing up that Gravik’s casual murder of the tortured Skrull last week wasn’t a bug, but a feature. Gravik is very much a fundamentalist SOB who’s as much a threat to the Skrulls as any Kree garrison.
Of course, knowing that pretty much removes any ounce of nuance this story could have had. Spy stories tend to thrive in ambiguous characters whose loyalties you’re never quite sure of. By making Gravik such an unrepentant villain with no chance at redemption, one who’s willing to kill off Emilia Clarke of all people not even halfway through the season makes the stakes as clear as a sunny day. So, the only story that’s left at this point is Fury dealing with his post-blip trauma. Unless we’re given a reason as to why Gravik is who he is, there isn’t much story to tell. He’s a far cry from Winter Soldier’s Karli Morgenthau.
@3/Christopher: It seems playing the game of “who’s the shapeshifter” can only last so long before it becomes tiresome. DS9 wisely moved away from that plot device after 3 seasons or so. The last one I recall was fake Bashir midway through S5. BSG kept that going for a ‘bit’ longer, for sure.
Also worth pointing out. Talos and his claim that the Skrulls are the only reason Fury has risen up the ranks on S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t take into account Fury’s biggest character strength/flaw: he’s a paranoid who doesn’t trust anyone. That paranoia is as much a reason for Fury’s continued survival and ascent into higher S.H.I.E.L.D. ranks as whatever informants he had. Hell, that paranoia was the biggest constant on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., driving most of that show’s 7 seasons. Coulson took every lesson from Fury and applied it, before and after death.
@12/Arben: Yeah, characters leaving food uneaten in meal scenes drives me crazy. I know why they do it — a scene might require multiple takes to get right, and then retakes from different angles, and if the actors have to eat throughout, they’d get really stuffed, plus there’s the whole talking-with-your-mouth-full angle. But it still feels so wrong to leave food uneaten. My father was a child of the Depression, and he passed along to me what his parents taught him, never to let food go to waste.
@18/Mark: “Do you have a source for the intro thing?”
https://www.gamesradar.com/secret-invasion-ai-title-sequence-controversy-response/
I agree that there’s an ethical issue either way, but it’s always important to get the facts right. People should be criticized for what they actually did, without exaggeration or error.
@20/Karl Zimmerman: “Why are we supposed to root for him again.”
Maybe we’re not. A lot of fiction is about examining interesting human flaws and follies rather than giving us heroes to celebrate. Also, a lot of fiction is about characters who start out flawed and have to learn to do better over the course of the story. We’re only halfway through.
“I’m sure there are some “twist” Skrulls coming, but the show seems way too eager to tip off who is a Skrull and who is not.”
Hey, wouldn’t it be a neat subversion if it turned out that some of the people we thought were deep-cover Skrulls in permanent human guise were actually humans all along? Maybe one or two of the captive subjects have identical twins…
While i do agree that marvel hasn’t exactly handled it’s female characters well in phase 4 and maria hill’s death was obvious and disappointing, I do find it tiresome, that every time somebody who isn’t a straight white male dies, it has to because of a trope or as a form of discrimination. Nobody is greater then death, especially in a show that is essentially about a war.
@28/Forseti: The problem is when it happens over and over and becomes a pattern. The MCU does seem to be killing off prominent female characters more frequently than male ones lately.
I would honestly like to meet the writers and ask them which woman hurt them so badly.
Some of them got ISSUES
This series is starting to remind me of the much-hyped but disappointing Amazon Prime show Citadel, which proved to be a bunch of by-the- numbers spy movie cliches, stitched together by a muddled and somewhat preposterous plot. Which is a shame, because I am a long-time Nick Fury fan. We are halfway in, and I still feel the show hasn’t found its footing yet.
The bizarre thing about Talos being surprised by everyone else in the cafe turning into Skrulls is that it’s just one more example of an experienced spy/general/shapeshifter being surprised by the presence of other shapeshifters.
And Gravik’s shooting of G’iah is yet another case of another trained operator (Gravik again) not checking to make sure the person they shot (just once in the torso if I recall correctly) is actually dead, and walking off instead of double-tapping them like gunmen do in every other instance of the genre this show is trying to emulate.
@27,
I agree there are a lot of possibilities here, including this being a “redemption arc” for Fury, or a “downward spiral.” sort of thing. But I have issues with both of these.
For redeeming himself, we’re halfway through the series now, and Fury has shown no growth other than begrudgingly telling Talos he’s sorry and needs his help. But this was a strange interaction, because although it showed that Fury isn’t too proud to beg, it also massively deflated his presumed competence within the MCU. Fury actually has to start doing something to atone for his biggest “sin” – breaking his promise to the Skrulls. He’s not even tried to defend this yet in bullshit ways, which I find astounding. I really hope this isn’t like Janet Van Dyne just not telling anyone about Kang for dramatic, nonsensical reasons.
As for a downward spiral, I don’t see how this is possible, given we know Fury will be back on the space station in The Marvels. This means the status quo has to be restored by the end of this series – Fury has saved the day, is in his old job, etc. Which honestly takes a lot of the tension out of the series, unless we’re just watching a Skrull pretending to be Fury the whole time.
I’m not sure G’iah is dead. All we saw was her return to her natural form, which yes also happens when Skrulls die, but they could do at any time. So…
Why they couldn’t figure out who the mole is, who is feeding intelligence to humans, when one of them as a name that literally MEANS “Earth” is kind of… well, comic book like. Still.
Also, nobody mentioned the voice on the phone at the end sounds suspiciously like Rhody?
I will admit that for whatever reason fridging just doesn’t bother me emotionally as a trope (unless it’s done in a way that is including a lot of gratuitous violence/suffering, or where it feels like the woman is being ‘punished’ by the narrative), or where all of the female characters are just nameless placeholders that exist to get killed, but that we as viewers don’t necessarily care about.
I think you can argue that to some extent here, but one thing I wonder about, is how much of it is also due that we now have more women in general in these types of movies (action/spy/superhero movies) such that they are now in scenarios that are legitimately dangerous, and are also legitimately developed such that it actually DOES cause a sense of grief for the viewers/other characters.
I don’t know if this is like…just a silver lining or something, but previously we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation because there wouldn’t even be any female characters to kill. And thankfully there are a lot of new female characters being introduced/filling the shoes of some of the male characters that have also been dispatched of so…I don’t know, perhaps it will even out. I am hoping they don’t do these characters dirty (feel like they already did with Wanda but that’s a separate rant… :) )
I recognize the trend is worrisome on an intellectual level, but I just don’t feel any emotional upset about it (although I don’t think it’s wrong to be upset about it – I wouldn’t tell anybody they should feel otherwise, and glad somebody is kicking up a fuss so that hopefully creators are more thoughtful about it!), if that makes sense.
Granted, we treat a lot of human life is fairly disposable in these kinds of movies/shows anyway…mooks/guards are always fairly routinely dispatched without dwelling on it much as a narrative choice.
Hopefully I’m not kicking over a hornet’s nest here. Last time I did (not on Tor) it was wading into the whole ‘new Disney Star Wars sucks because all the new Visions shorts had FEMALE main characters, and that is male erasure’ – now THAT is the kind of mentality that pisses me off when it comes to feminism in media/fandom spaces. I am capable of getting up in arms of this kind of thing, just not this particular issue, I guess, lol.
@31/Jeffronicus: Given that Gravik shot G’iah where a human heart would be instead of a Skrull heart, I suspect he knew it wouldn’t kill her but is playing some long game to use her against Talos, somehow.
Karl, while Fury ghosting all his loved ones may make him an unlikable protagonist, it’s consistent with what we saw in Captain Marvel. Why do you think he was so friendly with Carol? Let’s not forget that Wandavision didn’t paint her in a good light. Monica resents her for abandoning her mom. Guess who else also has that tendency? Obviously they didn’t know that about each other but this is a case of “like attracts like,” which often happens on an unconscious level.