REVIEW: ‘Secret Invasion’ Episode 4 — “Beloved”

Secret Invasion Episode 4 might be the shortest episode of the Disney+ series so far but it fails to exit the dreary, monotonous pace it’s found itself stuck in. There are a few elements that prove to be the series saving grace, such as Samuel L. Jackson’s performance, but even those aren’t enough to clear the fog. There’s little to no comprehension of the direction. The storyline is forced and hackneyed, wringing out any ounce of melodrama possible despite it being rushed. And some of the characters we’re meant to be most engaged with such as G’iah are played by actors who fail to deliver on any level of charisma or pathos. Secret Invasion squanders all of its potential. 

The second-best thing that can be said about the episode also preludes the worst, as we find out at the very least that a second female character hasn’t actually been fridged. G’iah survived the gunshot at the hands of Gravick from last week’s episode due to having injected herself with Extremis, becoming a Super Skrull. That we find this out in a hurried flashback is part of the problem. Greater still is that Emilia Clarke doesn’t bring anything to the character greater than surly looks and a tensed jaw. The character is shown to be a resourceful individual, one who has managed to get by without the aid of those around her, and yet there’s none of that resilience in the performance. The scene between her and Ben Mendelsohn’s Talos is hindered because of it. 

Talos is another major sore spot in Secret Invasion Episode 4, though for a much different reason.Mendelsohn has been one of the few highlights of the series, allowed to bring depth to a character first introduced in Captain Marvel — and a standout there too. While he’s been marked for death since his first reunion with Fury, it doesn’t make his supposed demise any less upsetting. To add salt to the wound, Fury abandoning his body in order to transport the president to safety is a grim development. It may be one befitting the character who has been written to sacrifice his own happiness for the sake of protecting the innocents of the world, the series seems determined to strip Fury of any emotional tethers despite those very connections being the impetus of his return to earth in the first place. 

All of which unfortunately feeds into the fuel of the series’ need to be dark and gritty and only seeing a way in which to do that through violence. There’s a lack of subtlety to the proceedings, and if the series and director Ali Selim could double down on the broad strokes and paint a story with purposefully big messages, then it might be more palatable. Instead, we get a sequence where Fury’s wife, Priscilla (Charlayne Woodard,) reads a passage by poet Raymond Carver to him in an opening flashback, only for that same passage to come back only twenty minutes later to signify an important, emotional exchange. 

We’re robbed of that potency because the writing fails the sequence by cramming it all into a single episode. This flashback should’ve happened episodes ago, right when we met Priscilla. We didn’t need to know her origins yet or how she assumed another woman’s likelihood and life, a scene that plays well despite the shortcomings surrounding it. But we needed more evidence of the two’s love for one another, and the sacrifices they’d made to stay together despite everything working against them. When she’s told by Rhodey (being impersonated by a Skrull) to kill Fury it’s meant to be a devastating moment, especially since Fury is listening in. Instead, the betrayal he feels, and the hurt at realizing the two will never know if he could’ve accepted her if he’d known she was a Skrull since the beginning, is muted because why should we care so much about a character whose relationship with the protagonist has been so thinly defined. 

It’s similar to Gravick, a villain who is a scene away from twirling his imaginary mustache. In staging an attack in order to kill the President of the U.S. with the help of Skrull Rhodey, he tells those under his command to make it “big” and “loud” like “the Russians would.” It’s just bad writing. 

The main highlight of the episode is Rhodey because Don Cheadle is obviously delighting in the fact of getting to be playful in a role typically meant to be the “straight man” persona to larger personalities. The sequence with him and Priscilla and, later, him and Fury, are the only two where the screen comes alive due to the energy he’s infusing into it. 

Because that energy surely isn’t coming from that direction. The tone is set in the opening moment when we learn of G’iah’s survival, only able to see her due to the orange of the extremis coursing through her. Marvel, for all of its absurd budget, still has yet to manage good lighting so that we can see characters and action in night scenes. Not that light helps much anyway, with the main standoff between Gravick and the U.S. military being just as muddied and messily shot. 

Secret Invasion Episode 4 continues to ask if the series was worth it. With only two episodes left the show is going to have to pull out all of the stops to regain a sense of excitement. Despite the massive budget and the all-star cast, most notably the excellent Samuel L. Jackson and Don Cheadle — the series might be beyond rescue. 

Secret Invasion Episode 4 is available now on Disney+.