In last week’s episode of Secret Invasion, we learned that Nick Fury and Talos had come to the understanding that the Skrulls were going to work for SHIELD until he found them a new home planet. Fury didn’t deliver on that promise, thereby causing the Skrulls to break into two factions: one who were still working for humans like Fury and another who were ready to wage war on the humans and claim Earth as their own. Gi’ah learned that Gravik was planning to use the powers of Groot, the Frost Beast, Cull Obsidian, and Project Extremis to turn themselves into Super Skrulls. And at the end, we learned that Fury was married to a female Skrull who was living on her own in a sort of suburb.
Major Spoilers Ahead
Talos Goes For A Parlay Meeting With Gravik
Episode 3 of Secret Invasion opens with Pagon, Beto, and an elder Skrull planning to infiltrate the Navy because, well, that’s what they’ve been ordered to do. Gravik brings the Skrull Council for a site visit of the machine that’s going to turn them into Super Skrulls. He uses a lot of words; I’m just giving you the gist of it. I would’ve loved to hear him blabber about his genius concept if the writing wasn’t so bland. He does get into the topic of becoming suicide bombers and inciting xenophobia, which is quite radical. However, I don’t think Marvel is ballsy enough to tackle this icky topic. Also, I’d like to point out that I correctly identified the opening as a work of generative A.I. (it’s the unethical type of A.I.). Marvel’s bootlickers came to defend, although there was nothing to defend. It has set a very bad precedent, and when some of them came to realize that, they took two very weird routes. Some of them said that the rest of the show was very good, and people could just skip the title sequence. Counterpoint: the show isn’t good enough to excuse this blatant artistic theft. Others said that Marvel could earn back the respect that it had lost by “simply” changing the title sequence with something that matched the show’s “noir” aesthetic. Well, they clearly didn’t. So, can we continue disrespecting the billion-dollar company for using a technology that is being bombarded with all kinds of lawsuits for doing all kinds of illegal stuff? Yes, I think we can.
Moving on with the plot, we see Fury meeting Priscilla back in the 90s, thereby establishing that they’ve been dating each other since then. Dreykov’s name is brought up. In case you don’t have any recollection of who that is, it’s Ray Winstone’s character from Black Widow. Going by the timeline, he was peddling young girls into the Red Room Program, and it seems like the Skrulls were working with SHIELD to stop that. It’s not very clear, so you just have to depend on my amazing assumptions. In the present day, Fury and Priscilla have a conversation about her allegiances. Priscilla angrily assures Fury that she was only mourning his apparent death and subsequent absence. Hence, it’s quite offensive for Fury to come back to her after all this time and label her as a traitor. It’s funny because moments later, she gets a dubious call, which makes Fury suspicious all over again. Gravik tries to insinuate that Gi’ah is a traitor because Brogan couldn’t have spilled any details about their safe house without Gi’ah’s help. Gi’ah continues to deflect these allegations as they go to a peace meeting with Talos. Gravik gets a call about bombing a U.N. ship with a Navy vessel called Neptune. As soon as Gravik leaves the car to meet Talos, Gi’ah notes down this piece of information so that it can be relayed to Talos, I guess. Yes, the mission is very real, but Gi’ah has to be too stupid to not see that this is a trap to catch her red-handed, or maybe the writing is just that dumb.
Nick Fury And Talos Infiltrate Bob’s House
Talos and Gravik could’ve had an interesting conversation about the ethics of committing genocide to colonize an entire planet full of people who are relatively innocent. Instead, Talos says that humans are good, and Gravik says that humans are bad. Gravik takes Gi’ah’s name a few times, which angers Talos so much that he stabs Gravik’s hand, at which point Gravik reveals that he has injected Extremis into his body, thereby giving him the ability to heal spontaneously. I mean, you have Winston Churchill’s photo and the images of so many politicians in the background who have been hailed for their acts of genocide because they did it in the name of nationalism. Yet, the show doesn’t go into that level of complexity about what Gravik is doing. It doesn’t even insinuate why Gravik wants to kill everyone to make a home for his people. If Skrulls can infiltrate every sector, why can’t they just go the democratic way and replace every human in existence? What’s the need for an all-out war? It’s a pretty interesting topic, but Secret Invasion chooses not to dive into it. There are just three more episodes left. It doesn’t even have the time to dive into it. So much wasted potential.
Anyway, Gi’ah clearly disguises himself as an old man to give him the information about Neptune and the U.N. plane, and then runs back to the car so that Gravik doesn’t suspect her of betrayal. FYI, the old man that Gi’ah turns into is played by Pavel Douglas, who appeared as a French warship captain in Goldeneye. That is a little spy-espionage genre connection. Fury meets Talos to inform him about a Skrull working in a very high position in the U.S. Government. Talos is clearly still angry about their conversation on the train, where Fury told him to leave because Talos had called all the Skrulls to come and live on Earth. That’s why Talos tells Fury to be properly apologetic and ask him for his help. Initially, it seems that Fury is about to walk away because he’s too egotistical to do that. That said, he does realize his mistake and requests Talos’ assistance. Sonya, who has found the bug in her owl that was planted by Fury, gives up the name of the person heading the mission that can lead to World War 3. It’s Commodore Bob Fairbanks. Talos and Fury infiltrate Bob’s house so that they can stop the attack. Yes, they have a conversation about dogs and humans and somehow compare it to Fury and Talos’ relationship. It’s supposed to be funny, but it seems like they’re padding the running time while filling the gap between Captain Marvel and the first time Fury showed up in the post-credits for Iron Man. I guess the showrunners don’t know about the age-old technique of “show, don’t tell.”
Is Priscilla Betraying Nick Fury?
Bob’s computer shows that the Neptune submarine is planning to bring down a plane that’s carrying a U.N. delegation. The captain of the submarine thinks that it’s a mistake because it’s stupid to attack a plane all of a sudden. One of the Skrulls tries to convince him that that’s not the case and that they should be following orders. Talos and Fury try to convince Bob to call off the strike. Bob keeps rambling about Talos’ allegiance, which at this point is just so repetitive. So, Fury speeds things up by shooting Bob in the knee and forcing him to give up the code that’ll put a stop to the attack on the U.N. plane. Bob still doesn’t give up and continues to antagonize Talos until he kills him. I am guessing that was what Bob was aiming to do because then Talos wouldn’t get the code, and the strike would happen as per the plan. Talos calls up Gi’ah to get the code from the real Bob’s mind, and Gi’ah does exactly that, albeit after facing some resistance from the Skrulls loyal to Gravik. Talos relays the termination code to the captain of Neptune, and the danger is averted.
Gi’ah tries to go on the run, but she’s stopped by Gravik and then shot. Guess why? Because this whole plan was to find out the traitor. I don’t know if this is simple writing or dumb writing, but anyone could’ve seen this coming from a mile away. As for whether or not Gi’ah is dead or alive, I want to think that she’s dead because that’ll add some sort of gravity to the show. Marvel isn’t famous for dealing with consequences. They always find a way to haphazardly reverse things. That said, keeping Gi’ah dead and using her death to motivate Talos will be an example of fridging. So, yes, the show is treading on very shaky ground. During Secret Invasion episode 3’s ending, we see Priscilla accessing a case in a bank vault. She pulls out a gun and gets yet another phone call. Priscilla says that she wants to talk to Gravik, and the man on the other end says that she has to deal with him for the time being. The man sounds like Rhodes. That means he is a Skrull as well. Now, whether or not Rhodes is working against Gravik or with him is a big question mark. But it’s pretty much confirmed that Priscilla lied to Nick Fury’s face and has been working covertly for the establishment of the Skrull community on Earth, or she’s protecting Earth in her own way. Why doesn’t she want Fury to know this? Well, we’ll have to wait until next week’s episode to know that.
