Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and Don Cheadle’s Col. James Rhodes are meeting at Berners Tavern in London, with Rhodes’ security man and a bartender the only others in the room. The two men have had very little contact recently, and the tension between them is palpable. We won’t get into the details of the crisis, but suffice to say the talk turns tough and deep.
“We owe each other,” says Fury. “Men who look like us don’t get promoted because of who our daddies know. Every ounce of power we wrestle from the vise grasp of the mediocre [people] who run this world was earned in blood …”
Rhodes’ reply, in part: “You should know better than most, the reason we wrestled this power from mediocre men who don’t look like us was not simply to turn around and hand it to mediocre men who do. The point of this power is to be uncompromising, to be unsparing …”
The verbal confrontation goes on for some six minutes — just these two powerful, scarred, world-weary men laying it all on the table. It’s a brilliantly written and acted scene, and a reminder there are times when the Marvel Universe is about a lot more than great-looking people flying through the skies and bantering while taking on the latest megalomaniacal villain.
The six-part limited “Secret Invasion” is set in the present-day MCU, and while the central plot does indeed involve an existential threat to Earth and there are plenty of expensive-looking, big-picture action sequences, it’s also about fractured friendships, family ties, divided loyalties and betrayals that cut to the bone. Based on the first two episodes, this ninth TV series in the MCU has the potential to be a standout.
Show creator Kyle Bradstreet (“Mr. Robot”) and director Ali Selim do a splendid job — this is a great-looking show with a cinematic vibe — and they’re blessed with a first-rate cast that includes not only Jackson and Cheadle but Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Martin Freeman as Everett K. Ross and Ben Mendelsohn as the Skrull leader Talo.
There’s also Oscar winner Olivia Colman giving an absolutely devilish performance as a veteran MI6 operative; Emilia Clarke as Talo’s daughter, G’iah, who has conflicted loyalties; Kingsley Ben-Adir as Gravik, the revenge-minded leader of the Skrull resistance, and Charlayne Woodard (Elijah Price’s mother in “Unbreakable” and “Glass”!) as someone with a very close connection to Fury. What a remarkable group.
In flashback sequences set in 1995, a computer-de-aged Jackson as Fury promises the shapeshifting Skrulls, “While you work to keep my home safe, Carol Danvers and I will find you a new one. … You keep your word, I’ll keep mine.”
Flash forward to present day, with Fury returning to Earth after a long, self-imposed off-world stay on the S.A.B.E.R. space station. Fury has returned home because his old friends Maria Hill (Smulders) and Talos (Mendelsohn) need him — but things have changed. Fury has changed. “After the blip,” says Talos, “You were different, and you disappeared. Carol Danvers disappeared.”
We’re more than three decades since Fury made that pledge to the Skrulls to find them a new home, but they’re still here (in surprising numbers and in some powerful government positions), blending in with the human race due to their shapeshifting abilities — and some of them are done waiting. Led by the clever and ruthless and power-hungry Gravik, who has no qualms about resorting to terrorism to achieve his goals, the Skrull rebellion believes they HAVE found a home, and it’s right here on Earth, and the humans will have to be disposed of or at the very least put in their place.
This sounds like a job for the Avengers, but their absence is explained in a throwaway line that sorta-kinda makes sense, making it clear this is going to be a grounded, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” type sci-fi slice of the Marvel Universe.
“Secret Invasion” has some impressive production design, i.e., the “Skrullquarters” camp located “312KM WEST OF MOSCOW,” as the title card tells us, where members of the Skrull rebellion are free to be themselves and can even eat Skrull food and drink Skrull wine, rather than that bland human dreck.
Kingsley Ben-Adir makes for a charismatic lead villain, while Emilia Clarke is terrific as Talos’ daughter, who is torn between her loyalties to her father, who wants nothing to do with the rebellion, and her feelings of resentment and anger over the death of her mother and the fact she’s never had a real home. Olivia Colman is a marvel as Sonya Falsworth, who has the chipper demeanor of a nanny or your favorite aunt but will literally cut your finger off if she needs answers. Mendelsohn and Fury are great together as two allies from different worlds who wonder if time has passed them by. “Secret Invasion” is one of the best new series of 2023.
