Since the MCU became a viable franchise Secret Invasion was always one of the comic book runs that was on readers’ wishlists for an adaptation. Kyle Bradstreet (Mr. Robot) was picked as showrunner and Ali Selim (The Looming Tower) to direct. The show stars Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Emilia Clarke, and Olivia Colman.

Premise: Nick Fury works with Talos, a shapeshifting alien Skrull, to uncover a conspiracy by a group of renegade Skrulls led by Gravik who plan to gain control of Earth by posing as different humans around the world.

Review The series had a soft start – and maybe a soft run – despite some surprising events in the pilot. You’d think that a spy thriller involving alien shape-shifters would be fantastic, but the simple fact that they can shape-shift make any twists or surprises open to be second-guessed or doubted.

So as a viewer, in the back of your head, you’re almost constantly doubting what’s going on, not trusting that people are who they’re supposed to be particularly when they do or say some wild things. Yet, it seems like that constant doubt wasn’t taken into account in the development of the series. There were arguably big emotional moments in the series that didn’t hit me because I doubted them. I couldn’t believe this was happening, even when it was seemingly confirmed that these events were real – I’m speaking about the deaths. Even when allies turned out to be enemies it didn’t have much of an impact because the show didn’t spend enough time building a sense of doubt and a feeling of paranoia.

The story had its moments, it seemingly was building into something better, more complex, intense but instead stayed in the simpler and easier to digest realm. The acting is great because they’ve cast some greats. Colman is delightful in the show, a competent spy with a smile, Ben-Adir gave us as much of a compelling villain as the story allowed him, and Clarke was great and embodied a shape-shifting Skrull, she’s stealthy and efficient. Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn gave more layers to Fury and Talos, yet like most of the cast they’ve been a little undercut by the story.

It seems like Secret Invasion was a setup, a primer, the inception for what the comic book run was, it looks like Skrulls will be a constant problem throughout the MCU

If you want to support this site, help by getting me a coffee from the link below: