Secret Invasion - Disney+ (***Spoilers***)

Ice power was from a Frost Beast, stayed on Earth at the end of Thor The Dark World. Gravik/Giah already had that power before The Harvest at the same time they got Groot & Extremis powers.

And yeah, looks like Rhodey was taken around Civil War, which means he doesn't know about Tony's death or the whole Blip stuff. Should be interesting for Armor Wars.

As I said previous, bit disappointing throughout. They never really capitalised on the premise of Skrulls being anyone. Small bits here and there, but they set up various world leaders and influential media figures being Skrulls in Episode 2, then did nothing with that except just showed a montage of them being killed (or the real people being accidentally killed because vigilantes thought they were Skrulls) in this episode. A complete waste of what should have been the selling point of the show; the paranoia of not knowing who is or isn't a Skrull, how long they've been here, what have they been manipulating. Apart from Rhodey, they basically just always showed us instantly who was a Skrull. Instead it boiled down to CGI fight between two super-skrulls, and all I could think of when I saw Giah fighting was:

Sam Jackson, Don Cheadle, Ben Mendelsohn and Olivia Colman were all great throughout. Emilia Clarke was pretty good too, as was Ben Kingsley-Adair. Nothing wrong with the performances. Just wasted potential imo.

I was confused about the frost beast too only it showed up on the computer in episode 2 along with Groot, Cull Obsidian and Extremis and someone else mentioned here about the beast in Thor TDW (because who remembers anything that happened in that film). Neither of them used that power until now though. My first thought was Loki until I remembered he died before the battle anyway.

Not really sure why they bothered with all the different powers anyway. Most of the time it was just either use a big muscle arm for punching, or use Captain Marvel powers, and she has super-strength anyway. The Harvest could have just been Cap.Marvel's DNA and the final fight wouldn't have been any different really, maybe aside from Gravik using Ebony Maw's magic.

VINDICATION

The only other one that stood out was I think Mantis? Ghost? And seemed to be a lot of the abomination (done badly)

Yeah, fair points. I guess a lot of the heroes don't really have interesting powers. I saw Winter Soldier's name in the list of DNA they got too. That's fairly pointless. They'd already get more strength from the other DNA, and can't change to have metal vibranium arm.

Just felt like half the fight was "Drax arm punch.... Hulk arm punch.... Cull Obsidian arm punch.... Korg arm punch... Thanos arm punch....". I think if they'd slowed it down a bit, had them try to figure out the powers, what might counter each other, struggle to use the powers a bit, combine powers in interesting ways, that might have worked better. Instead they seemed to know instantly how to use the powers, mostly just punched each other a bit, but once it got to Captain Marvel powers there was little point doing anything else.

So so disappointing. Olivia Colman pretty much carried the whole show.

Really feels like they overestimated the whole toned down spy drama schtick, which left them with massive revelations that will have huge implications for the MCU that landed like a dud.

Really enjoyed that series ?

Adding to your 3rd paragraph - if Rhodey was a Skrull in Endgame, then that Skrull was with the remaining avengers when they found Thanos on his retreat planet - an entirely empty planet that could have been suitable for the Skrulls????

I can see how it makes sense but also how it doesn't. SkRhodey's actions, even his mourning of Tony, can be explained by him being hooked up to the real Rhodey, so those emotions and how he acts can probably feel just as real when you're truly in character. There's also the line in Endgame between him and Nebula after she looks at her robotic arm and says she wasn't always like this, he replies "Me neither, but we work with what we got". At the time it felt like he was talking about his legs, but it could also be retconned into being a line about being a Skrull.

We don't know how long Gravik has been gestating this plan for. Seems he was still working for Fury after Endgame as he collected the dna for the Harvest and handed it over willingly to Fury. Maybe SkRhodey and other Skrulls took over their people to be in places of power before there was an actual plan. Hard to know.

The thing that throws me off though, is in Endgame when Thanos' ship destroys the facility and Rhodey has to get out of his armour to help Rocket, he has to crawl over to him because of his legs. If he was a Skrull then, he's a real method actor.

Let's face it, it's definitely going to be shoehorned in regardless of whether there are continuity errors or not. They wouldn't have had any plans for Secret Invasion at the time of Endgame, so they'll just do what they can to make it all fit.

So was the harvest taken from Dead avengers? or am I missing something.

So stupid that they can get their powers from absorbing their DNA... utterly idiotic.

I should have been patient as Episode 2 explained why Talos and his people came back but I think maybe that opening scene should have been the opening of episode 1. Or even have Talos mention during the episode.

anyway good to know it will be fleshed out a bit more.

They’ve come up with a decent explanation for why superheroes can’t be called in but if there is going to be more attacks that will not hold as it won’t make sense why they aren’t involved. Perhaps mention on a news broadcast that such and such saved people or stoppped a bomb?

Its a twist on old mythology the Greek Roman and Asgardian myths where and when The Gods fought the Titans and Giants their divine blood fell to the earth below and from it sprung monsters rare flowers and animals.

In this case Fury sent a very young Gravik and other Skrulls to collect the blood left behind after the battles seen in Black Panther and the Avengers films now Fury being Fury would have considered collecting the blood and dna of heroes and monsters to be his ultimate failsafe but again this is Nick Fury and in putting all that power in these samples I would bet my good eye he added a crap load of failsafes in the event he died or was fired from his job or and I'm betting this was the sole paranoid reason the avengers ever went rogue.

Unfortunately the powers that be now at Marvel and Disney don't always follow through with good stories or obvious conclusions. I mean if anyone in the mcu should have been a big bad Skrull it would have been Agent 13 Sharon Carter given how she behaved in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

It blows my mind that the budget was over €200m for four hours of content.

That would make it one of the most expensive TV shows of all time and it looks like a cheap b-movie.

For reference that's double what it cost to make something like Game of Thrones S7 or S8, shows known for their lavish production quality, sets and extensive use of CGI.

I wouldn't mind if Secret Invasion was good and looked good, but it's not and it definitely doesn't.

The first season of foundation cost 45m seemingly....that is serious value for money looked 10 times as expensive

The Expanse was also about $30-50m per season and it was absolutely top notch stuff, great sets and visual effects.

Just finished it.

It was a decent enough series but it wasted the epic and paranoia filled potential of spreading the story across movies and shows that Secret Invasion Saga could have hand. And it made no sense to kill of Hill and Thalos. Ben Mendelsohn is such a great actor, can’t believe Marvel have ended his time in the MCU.

I thought at first that Gravick was a decent different kind of villain but he was nothing emrealky but a street thug.

What would have been better if it was a Nick Fury series where he has to deal with a human threat - a remnant of HYDRA, or mission in his past that went wrong.

Or better yet it could have been a good way to introduce mutants to the MCU - Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. had been keeping them a secret and protecting them for decades but a group of disgruntled young mutants (or maybe Magneto) become terrorists and Fury teams up with Xavier. Ritson make the hateful rant and the world starts to fear and hate mutants. It ends with Xavier opening his school.

Maybe that is a rubbish idea, I don’t know.

A great superpowered fight though. And done in daylight too.

I’m lost as to the ending though - just out of nowhere Gia, Sonya and her agents are in a warehouse full of sleeping people with no explanation of who or where they are.

Or did I miss something?

I know that is an island nation of mutants but nothing else. I’ll avoid reading in case that is the route the MCU takes and it can be new to me.

A Nick Fury series should definitely have been about a human adversary from his past with some super powered henchmen. Save the Skrulls for movies.