Spoilers Secret Invasion grade and discussion
- Thread starter The Nth Doctor
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Ever since Terrence Howard became Don Cheadle?
It's also kinda sad because G'iah is pretty much right in how she reacted to what Talos "plan" was. Humanity is nowhere near what he was painting it as and the idea that after a part of a race of alien shapeshifters who 'defeated' another faction of alien shapeshifters who had infiltrated and replaced humans all over the world and in governments would be like "Oh... Cool. Ya'll were the good guys. Sure, the other 1mil of your people all can chill on our planet."
It seems pretty clear to me that if anyone is coming out of this series as a new recurring character in the MCU, it's G'iah. They even gave her superpowers!
Also...this is a bit of an aside, but how do Skrull shapechanging powers work exactly in the comics? I ask because they don't seem to...change shape very much. I understand it's probably just to save money on the budget, but I'm always shocked how little the Skrull characters seem to swap forms, even when it would help them achieve their goals (particularly because one Skrull seems unable to identify another when they're in shifted as well).
Also...this is a bit of an aside, but how do Skrull shapechanging powers work exactly in the comics? I ask because they don't seem to...change shape very much. I understand it's probably just to save money on the budget, but I'm always shocked how little the Skrull characters seem to swap forms, even when it would help them achieve their goals (particularly because one Skrull seems unable to identify another when they're in shifted as well).
Yeah, I find Talos' faith in humanity baffling and without merit. He doesn't cite any reason for why he thinks that beyond a general hope. A very misplaced hope.
The Skrulls have a higher shapeshifting level in the comics. They could vary their size a lot more, become inanimate objects, turn part of their body into a blade. So think of like Changelings in DS9.
The Skrulls in the MCU so far don't really seem on that level. In fact it seems like they actually try to keep the body size of the person they are becoming similar to the size of the Skrull who is shapeshifting.
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That was better. The Fury/Priscilla scene was nicely done, though as @The Wormhole says, ideally you'd seed something like the poetry reference in an earlier episode.
G'iah surviving was Republic serial levels of contrived. Look at all this stuff you didn't see. Glad to have Clarke back but at the expense of Talos!??! Noooo! As others have said the Fury/Talos banter has been the highlight of the show.
One hopes that Talos' actions in helping save the President will go some way towards making his overly hopeful message to his daughter a reality.
Looking forward to Gravik Vs G'iah now!
I'm pretty sure the US President would have way more security than that.
G'iah surviving was Republic serial levels of contrived. Look at all this stuff you didn't see. Glad to have Clarke back but at the expense of Talos!??! Noooo! As others have said the Fury/Talos banter has been the highlight of the show.
One hopes that Talos' actions in helping save the President will go some way towards making his overly hopeful message to his daughter a reality.
Looking forward to Gravik Vs G'iah now!
I'm pretty sure the US President would have way more security than that.
This is such a weird show. On the one hand I find myself gripped by the performances and individual scenes, but left rather cold by the larger plot turns and supposed twists.
Revealing G'iah's survival like that feels like a cheap cop-out on a cliff-hanger. Better to have at least shown the extremis begin to work at the end of the last episode. Now, Talos's death looses any weight it might have had, because the show already cheated once.
I have no idea what the hell is going on with Fury's (ex?) wife. Does she want to kill all humans or not? This does not seem like a thing one should be fence sitting about. Similarly with G'iah; what does she expect exactly? For Talos to will a safe planet into existence? This show has some very murky character motivations.
Oh, and are we supposed to know who the lady Skrull that's been impersonating Rhodey is? If not, why show a scene of her in the shower? Also, she's really deviating from Rhodey's usual personality. He was never this bitchy or petty.
Before the blip seems to be a possible candidate given his 180 in his attitude towards Cap et al. in 'Infinity War'.
Also let's be clear: Gravik's plan is ridiculous. I mean sure; step 1) get super powers, and step 2) kill all humans, seems promising enough. But what about step 3) Carol Danvers comes home to visit, or step 4) The Kree Empire find out Earth is now unprotected AND full of Skrulls? Step 5) Skrulls get nuked from orbit, that's what!
Revealing G'iah's survival like that feels like a cheap cop-out on a cliff-hanger. Better to have at least shown the extremis begin to work at the end of the last episode. Now, Talos's death looses any weight it might have had, because the show already cheated once.
I have no idea what the hell is going on with Fury's (ex?) wife. Does she want to kill all humans or not? This does not seem like a thing one should be fence sitting about. Similarly with G'iah; what does she expect exactly? For Talos to will a safe planet into existence? This show has some very murky character motivations.
Oh, and are we supposed to know who the lady Skrull that's been impersonating Rhodey is? If not, why show a scene of her in the shower? Also, she's really deviating from Rhodey's usual personality. He was never this bitchy or petty.
In reality, it's got to be at least some time after his accident in Berlin. I doubt a Skrull could have sustained such an injury and held her shape while unconscious, or hidden their nature for all of the subsequent medical procedures.
Before the blip seems to be a possible candidate given his 180 in his attitude towards Cap et al. in 'Infinity War'.
Well the alternative is mass genocide for one species or the other, so it's not so much misplaced as simply a desperate hope. He's seen too many wars to have any delusions about where more fighting would get them.
Also let's be clear: Gravik's plan is ridiculous. I mean sure; step 1) get super powers, and step 2) kill all humans, seems promising enough. But what about step 3) Carol Danvers comes home to visit, or step 4) The Kree Empire find out Earth is now unprotected AND full of Skrulls? Step 5) Skrulls get nuked from orbit, that's what!
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It seems like the Skrulls' immunity to radioactive contamination and the surprisingly large number of off-the-books poorly-maintained nuclear powerplants in the former Soviet Union that are unsuitable for human habitation seem like an obvious compromise for a place where Skrulls can live openly and exclusively among themselves. Sure, the optics aren't great, but Gravik's plan is to just turn the whole planet into an irradiated wasteland, too, and even the really crappy parts of Earth are much better than 99% of all other planets.
True, although I do not expect Talos to be revived. At least with G'iah, it was already set up that she knew about Super Skrull project so it was easy to predict omitted scenes where she powered herself up before getting shot. There's no such expectation for Talos.
Yeah, like I said in my review, it was poorly handled. I wanted to feel something and the masterful acting between Samuel L. Jackson and Charlayne Woodard was riveting in the moment, but that dissipated almost immediately.
Plus, and I know it's my own hang-up, but it's still weird seeing son and mother in Unbreakable and Glass as husband and wife here.
Yeah, that was a weird moment. I thought she was G'iah, washing up after her near death experience, but then she morphed into Rhodey. I guess the moment was suppose to be double shocking in that 1) Rhodey is a Skrull (not at all shocking) and 2) He's being impersonated by a woman (also not shocking and kind of meaningless since the show doesn't do anything with that knowledge).
As for Rhodey's behavior change, I just chalk that up to Don Cheadle getting the chance to let loose. Not a good explanation but there it is.
Yeah, that makes sense. I was mostly joking on accepting the Howard/Cheadle transition idea.
Perhaps but that's more of an example of loose character writing for supporting characters from film to film. As much as I've loved Rhodey since the beginning (but especially since Cheadle took over), he's never really had much to work with aside from a few fun scenes here and there. That's always been a frustration point (including his complete absence from the first Avengers), which was why I was so excited about him playing a big role here...and then, well, Skrull.
Still holding onto hope for Armor Wars in whatever form it takes...even if it actually happens.
#JusticeForRhodey
That's fair. Desperation is more what I meant than misplaced. I just wish someone actually explained to him why that was such a bad idea instead of simply disagreeing with him and then walking away (or making him walk away).
Yup, agreed on all points.
Although not literally nuke them from orbit since that's the whole point of forcing the rising conflict between nations, but I get your point.
The motorcade should have had its own air support in the form of drones or helicopters shadowing it. Some of these decisions make me think the writers are intentionally leaving fodder for the Pitch Meeting video.
"And then Gravik and his gang ambush the Presidential motorcade with attack helicopters."
"The presidential motorcade doesn't have attack helicopters of its own?"
"Well, no, they just got off an airplane. It takes time to shut down an airplane and start up a helicopter."
"But they're right outside a military base. How do attack helicopters sneak up on the US President right outside a military base without raising a lot of red flags?"
"Sir, I'm going to need you to get all the way off my back about the helicopters."
"Okay, let me get off that thing."
I'm kind of kicking myself for not thinking of G'iah turning herself into a Super Skrull before someone mentioned it on here, now it's what happened, I realize it was the most obvious solution.
Damn that was some fantastic acting in the scene with Fury and Varra.
I'm curious where they're going with G'iah since she's not with Gravik or Fury at this point.
Damn that was some fantastic acting in the scene with Fury and Varra.
I'm curious where they're going with G'iah since she's not with Gravik or Fury at this point.
Yeah, I had the same thought. They made it seem like it was supposed to be some big surprise, but all it showed us was what she looked like in her Skrull form, and that wasn't really all that shocking.
Especially after Fury's own derogatory comments about humanity.
No one knows at the moment.
Rhodey mostly tends toward formality and a bit of stiffness, but when he lets loose he has lines like 'Cheeze-whiz', 'You look like two seals fighting over a grape' and 'I'm just your babysitter so, when you need your diaper changed...'
He may be cutting loose more frequently here than elsewhere, but that's also just against one specific person in a fairly unique situation and we've never really seen him interact with that many different people before anyway. I don't really see any reason to think this is wildly out of character for him.
I wasn't arguing the plot logic of it all; just the execution. Making a big dramatic deal about killing off a main character, even lingering the camera on her unmoving corpse as the final shot of the episode, then immediately undoing it at the top of the next episode, complete with all the scenes omitted from the previous episode explaining the turn?
Well that's just poor narrative structure. Whether the continuity lines up is really neither here nor there. There's much better ways to do that.
Ever seen 'Punchline' and 'Forest Gump'? Same thing, but in reverse order. (full disclosure: I have in fact never seen 'Punchline'.)
Oh I'm under no illusion that they've been planning this anywhere near long enough to have plotted it out properly (sadly), but it does present an opportunity to take advantage of existing incongruities to make them retroactively logical.
That's the thing though; it's not supposed to be a *good* idea, but the least terrible one (aka: the one that doesn't involve wilful genocide.)
Well you say that, but while Skrulls are tough, and can tolerate radiation better than humans . . . but if they can't even survive bullet wounds and car crashes, then there's not much they can do about a thermonuclear fireball detonating right where they're standing. Hell I doubt even Extremis-Flora-Colossus-Cull-Obsidian-Jotunheimensi DNA mods coudl do anything about that. You can regenerate tissue if all mass is instantaneously converted to energy after all.
Remember this plan depends upon most of them camped out in the arse end of nowhere while the humans nuke each other's population centres into dust. So the worst they'll have to deal with is radioactive fallout and nuclear winter . . . at least before Carol and/or the Kree show up as previously indicated.
Between this and the weirdly inauthentic submarine stuff last episode; someone up the chain clearly does not like to do research, like at all. Also the giant oversized union jack on the chest of the SAS officer felt like it was a but much.
There's a difference between sardonic needling of friends, and taking obvious visceral pleasure in verbally t-bagging them while deliberately and gleefully destroying their lives.
Maybe you can chalk it up to the fact that with Tony gone, there's nobody close enough to him who would notice the shift in personality, but still, it seems pretty sloppy work for a master of disguise infiltrator.
Don't get me wrong; Don Cheadle isn't doing anything wrong and is clearly enjoying himself. I'm just saying from a writing & directing POV, it's a poor choice. I mean the whole point of this kind of paranoid thriller is that you're never entirely sure who's who. That tension kind of evaporates when previously "good" characters start openly moustache twirling.
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