The MCU pushes forward with another TV show but sadly it’s among the first MCU properties I just didn’t click with. Sometimes great actors and acting can overcome a dull certain issues but this was not one of those times, I can’t quite put my finger of exactly why but the show never drew me in to the point where a few weeks I forgot it was on and watched it Thursday instead of the Wednesday it uploaded. To be so unengaged when such good actors were on my screen is a real sign of poor script and direction, I guess. Oh well, let’s take a closer look anyway…
Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) returns to Earth from an extended stay in space after being erased from existence and then returned to life five years later freaked him out a bit (understandable!), all at the request of two former allies in ex-SHIELD agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) and Skrull Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) who are worried about a rebel cell of Skrulls that are looking to escalate Fury’s long-promised new home idea by taking Earth for themselves. These villains are led by a Skrull called Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and Talos’ daughter G’iah (Emilia Clarke) is among those underneath him. Much like the comic of the same name these terrorist Skrulls have taken the likeness of key people across Earth in order to further their goals, keeping them alive in their base (though some Skrulls have taken the likeness of people who are now dead, so I’m not sure why some need to be kept alive. Something to do with accessing their memories or something?) though with one or two exceptions the people are politicians and the like, rather than other superheroes like the comic. In fact let’s get this out of the way: it’s not an adaptation of the comic in any real way apart from the idea of Skrulls pretending to be humans and wanting to conquer the planet. So it’s the basic premise and that’s it, which would be fine if what was in its place was, you know… good.
Fury rocking the “I’m too old for this shit” look.
After a throwaway scene where Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) gives chase to a conspiracy theorist and ends up falling to his “death” only to be revealed as a Skrull, Gravik soon stages a terrorist attack on Russian soil during which he kills Maria Hill while taking Fury’s image, framing him for the deed and making it look like America was behind the attack. This leaves Fury and Talos to be on the run, though the two make a fun odd couple they do break apart once or twice thanks to the Skrull admitting that during the blip he settled one million of his own people on Earth since there was the room at the time (and Fury was dead, so who’s going to know?) During this time apart Fury meets back up with his never-before-mentioned wife Priscilla, otherwise known as Varra, a Skrull (played by Charlayne Woodard), which was an interesting twist that… didn’t really add much. G’iah eventually escapes from Gravik’s group and tries to make peace with her father, and James “War Machine” Rhodes (Don Cheadle) begins acting uncharacteristically arrogant to Nick Fury to the point that when he’s revealed to be a Skrull in the next episode it was already extremely obvious. That’s your lot for “this person was a Skrull shocker” plot points, Everett Ross and War Machine. Not exactly exciting, though fair play to Mr. Cheadle he played a good baddie and was clearly having fun with it.
“What are you going to do Telos? Which is the real me?” “Well, none of you seem to be armed so I’ll just shoot all of you.” “Oh. Damn.”
Probably the most fun thing in the series was Olivia Colman as Sonya Falsworth, the British MI6 equivalent of Nick Fury, though she has a great combination of friendliness and stone cold efficiency, torturing someone with a smile on her face and hand waving any attempts at lying at her, as it she knows all the possible tricks so trying it with her is just silly. I hope she reappears in something a bit more worth her time soon… Episode 4 ended with a bang at least as Gravik assaulted the US President’s motorcade disguised as Russians in order to cement distrust between the nations and cause nuclear war (Skrulls are immune to radiation, which is why the terrorist cell hides in Chernobyl, or an abandoned Russian nuclear facility that looks an awful lot like Chernobyl, anyway). Fury and Telos arrive and while Fury manages to get an injured President Ritson (Dermot Mulroney) out of harms way Gravik kills Telos. The attack was a perfectly fine action sequence but again I didn’t end the episode excited for the next one, nor did I particularly care that Telos was killed. Varra is revealed to be in contact with Gravik and is told to kill Fury but she intentionally misses with her handgun at the last moment just as her husband does the same, Fury having figured out what’s going on. This ends up lead to a group of terrorist Skrulls breaking in to her house in an attempt to assault her but she and a visiting G’iah fight them off in another fun scene that made no lasting impression, for whatever reason.
I’ll leave the rest for the spoilers but what else can I say at this point? The series had some really good acting and some fun scenes but by the end of each episode I wasn’t left with any other feeling other than “well, that’s that for another week”. At no point was it actively bad but at no point did I feel was in any way excited or invested in what I was seeing…
Overall Thoughts:
Pretty much the one good thing to come out of the show. MI-13 series when, Marvel?
Secret Invasion had the cast and core concept to be something really special but for some reason the script and direction just weren’t there and I left each episode completely indifferent to the idea of watching the next one. It was never bad but rarely exciting, and due to that I won’t be watching again…
In the end Gravik kills most of his followers when he shows weakness towards Fury while we find out his plan is to become a “Super Skrull” by assimilating the DNA of all the Avengers and aliens present during the big battle at the end of Endgame but only Fury knows where the DNA is stored, so Gravik offers a trade, though it takes place at his base which means Fury arrives sick and slowly feels the effects of the radiation. This made me raise an eyebrow as clearly Fury wouldn’t be that stupid, and sure enough when he uses his special device to splice the DNA into himself right next to Fury it’s revealed that Fury was G’iah in disguise and she too becomes a Super Skrull. The two have a Super Skrull showdown which ends with G’iah killing Gravik. I have to say that allowing him to become all powerful because you assumed you’d be in the machine with him when he turned it on and would be better at using the powers than him was a hell of a gamble…
Gravik uses tree powers because Mr. Fantastic doesn’t exist in the MCU… yet!
I did enjoy that Gravik revealed the human likeness he took was of the first person Fury instructed him to kill when he was a young Skrull, something that had a traumatic effect on him. He was recruited to protect Earth until Fury found a new home for them, but this is something he (or I guess G’iah) admits isn’t going to happen, though I assume this is a lie because Guardians of the Galaxy shows us that the galaxy is overflowing with life and planets, so… Well, anyway, while this is going on Fury and Sonya save the President from the Rhodie Skrull and other agents free all the captured people in the Skrull compound, including the original Everett Ross and War Machine, the latter of which needs help walking (which I guess should’ve been a giveaway that the Skrull wasn’t the read Rhodes). In the end the President makes a public announcement that the human race will now hunt and kill all Skrulls leading to a rash of Skrull and non-Skrull killings due to the public being whipped into a panic. Fury and his wife head off to space as the Kree wish to have peace talks and possibly take the Skrulls in. Oh and G’iah is recruited by Sonya to join her in combating threats to the UK while also helping to keep the innocent Skrulls safe, pretty much the same deal Fury made with her father all those years ago…
Hogan Reviews 