Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Episodes 1-5 of Secret Invasion.

We have only one week left before Secret Invasion ends its six-episode run, and there are many loose ends to tie up. While this isn’t an uncommon flaw for a Marvel project, it does feel a little more urgent considering the storyline the series is adapting. Based on the 2008 comic event written by Brian Michael Bendis, Secret Invasion spanned eight issues and found the heroes of Marvel questioning even their closest allies. Of course, the MCU’s adaptation is a bit different, the most glaring change being the complete lack of any Avengers as it leans more into the espionage side of things with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) taking the helm as protagonist. This change actually works in favor of the series as the political thriller vibe allows the dialogue and action to inhabit a more mature tone. But by elevating its content, the series fails to answer the questions it proposes and renders the show’s main focus, the Skrulls, no more than a mere plot device.

RELATED: ‘Secret Invasion’ Has Taken the Easy Way Out with Gravik

So How About that Alarming Skrull Population?

As established in Captain Marvel, the Skrulls aren’t so different from us. The majority of the species are kind and humble people who lost their home planet amidst a brutal war against the Kree. Seeking refuge, they found Earth and took a liking to it, blending in among the humans for fear of not being accepted in their natural form. After the events of Captain Marvel, unable to find a new planet to inhabit, Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), the general of the Skrull Council and a small clan of Skrulls returned to Earth and have been working closely with Nick Fury carrying out various missions and stings for S.H.I.E.L.D. with their shapeshifting capabilities since the late ’90s.

As Fury rose through the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D. to director, thanks to the help of Talos and his council, the Skrulls grew wary of his promise to find them a new home. Tensions continued to rise and finally boiled over between Talos and Fury in the second episode of Secret Invasion. Amidst a tense conversation about broken promises and secrets, Talos tells Fury that there is a much larger number of Skrulls on Earth than the former S.H.I.E.L.D. director was aware of — approximately 1 million.

This is a staggering statistic that greatly changes the MCU as we know it, but the series lacks the scale or depth to expand on the subject. Instead, the greater majority of Skrulls shown onscreen are in human form and don’t get a second notice before they’re shot point-blank by Fury, Sonya Falsworth (Olivia Colman), or even another Skrull. And despite inhabiting human skin, since they are technically aliens, the typical threshold of MCU violence is cranked to 11, meaning they can be brutally tortured or straight-up shot in the head. As long as it’s purple, the blood can flow like never before in an MCU project and still fit the show’s TV-14 parameters.

Losing Talos Serves No Purpose to ‘Secret Invasion’s Story

Episode 4, “Beloved,” left us on quite the cliffhanger as Fury had no choice but to watch Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) brutally murder Talos, perhaps his closest friend and confidant. Mortified, Fury had to leave his friend behind, dead on the ground. Heartbreaking for sure, but it feels awfully familiar, right? That’s because the exact same scenario went down in Episode 1 with Fury’s other close friend and MCU veteran, Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders). Maria’s death at the beginning of the series, while unexpected, did serve a purpose as it was genuinely shocking and immediately established the stakes Fury and company would be dealing with. It also lit a fire under Fury that propelled him into investigating Gravik and his plans.

But what was the motive behind killing off Talos? The past four episodes of Secret Invasion did a brilliant job of peeling back the layers between Fury and Talos’ relationship that began ever since they met in Captain Marvel and confirms that the pair arguably have some of the best chemistry in the entirety of the MCU. Their brother-like bond combined with the fact that they are capable of being vulnerable in the other’s presence speaks volumes for their relationship, especially when it comes to hard-boiled Nick Fury who doesn’t let anyone know how he feels.

So again, the question poses itself: Why kill off Talos? The only answer seems to be as a motivator for Fury, but did poor Nick really need any more motivation to stop Gravik? He’s lost his job to a Skrull impersonating Rhodey, he’s trying to reconcile his complicated marriage with his Skrull wife, Priscilla/Varra (Charlayne Woodard), and trying to clear his name for Maria Hill’s death. Beyond that, Talos was our biggest link to the Skrulls and their culture as well as an MCU character that has been around for a handful of years now. If he can be offed as swiftly as he was, it begs the question — are Skrulls simply just expendable?

‘Secret Invasion’ Values Fury’s Story Over the Skrulls

Secret Invasion seems very drawn to the idea of shocking its audience, as three of the five episodes released have ended in a character’s death (G’iah (Emilia Clarke) survived thanks to Extremis) but the more we lean into character deaths, the further we inch away from the Skrulls’ cause that is the basis of the series to begin with. Talos spoke with fervent passion on the importance of finding the Skrulls a home. Gravik’s anger towards Fury and the humans stems from not having a place to live in his own skin. Again and again, we are reminded of this conflict but instead of expanding on this concept, the series opts for violence as a Skrull holding a high-ranking position is killed, or an explosion is set off.

The Skrulls are a fractured people and the ones that aren’t blending in among humanity are living in a nuclear power plant deep in Russia at the behest of Gravik (all who are still not living in their own Skrull skin). When Gravik unexpectedly kills his right-hand man, his followers watch in fear. A couple of scenes later and the Skrulls have decided to stage a pointless coup to subdue and eliminate Gravik. As could be predicted, their ambush fails, but what’s even more confusing is we don’t see any discussion of this coup — it just happens. We’re led to believe they’ve had a conversation about Gravik’s actions and decided he needs to be stopped, but instead of providing the screen time for that exposition, we’re given another scene with Fury.

This off-screen, hive-mind decision to assassinate Gravik unveils another of the show’s glaring problems with the Skrulls. In comparison to the detailed backstory the MCU has set up for them, the Skrulls’ complexity as individuals pales in comparison. The only two Skrulls we got to know (outside of G’iah) in Gravik’s inner circle, Pagan (Killian Scott) and Beto (Samuel Adewunmi), have already been outright murdered by him, leaving the only other Skrulls a nameless and line-less bunch of background actors. We aren’t given any opportunity to learn for or care about them, and it seems despite the cause he is supposedly fighting for, Gravik doesn’t care all that much for them either.

Gravik’s master plan in the penultimate episode goes against his alleged cause and the entire reason the Skrulls backed his efforts in the first place. Gravik orders Raava (Nisha Aaliya), the Skrull impersonating Rhodey (Don Cheadle), to advise the President (Dermot Mulroney) to bomb New Skrullos in order to start World War III with Russia. If enacted, this would result in mass genocide of the Skrulls, all to serve Gravik’s agenda. Yes, Gravik has proven to be unhinged and basically pure evil at this point, but bombing the makeshift home of his fellow Skrulls just doesn’t add up. It does, however, create quite the ultimatum for our protagonist. Gravik has left the fate of New Skrullos in Fury’s hands: he’ll call off the bombing as long as Fury brings him the MacGuffin of Avengers DNA known as “The Harvest.” Once again, Secret Invasion takes the trauma and toil of the Skrulls and merely uses it to further Fury’s arc.

While getting to learn more about Nick Fury and his complicated past has been a long-overdue delight, it frustratingly overshadows the larger plot of the series and turns the Skrulls from intricate characters to pawns. Despite the predictable “Rhodey is a Skrull” reveal and the brief Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) bit during the premiere, Secret Invasion has barely scratched the surface of the plot-twister, mind-bending thriller that shape-shifting characters like the Skrulls allow for. And with only one episode to go, Fury will likely gain some closure for his story, but there is no conceivable way to wrap up all the questions raised concerning the Skrulls from politics to ethics and beyond. It’s a shame that the show is categorized as a “limited series” because the secret invasion won’t end for a long while.