The first episode of Secret Invasion opens with Everett K. Ross’s meeting with Agent Prescod, who is associating the multiple terrorist attacks happening all over the globe with the Skrulls. Prescod wants Ross to call Nick Fury, who is vacationing in a S.A.B.E.R. Space Station. But Ross thinks that there’s not enough evidence to bring in Fury. So, Prescod shows what he has learned about the Skrulls’ plans in order to convince Ross. When Ross says that he’ll relay that information to Fury, Prescod realizes something is wrong and attacks Ross. Prescod dies, and Ross goes on the run. He is chased down by a thug. When Ross falls from a building, he’s revealed to be a Skrull; the thug turns out to be Talos, and everyone, including Maria Hill, is surprised.
Spoilers Alert
Nick Fury Returns To Earth
Nick Fury makes a not-so-impressive homecoming. Just to be clear, he did die during The Snap in Infinity War. But when The Blip happened, he replaced himself with a Skrull (because he had been friends with them since Captain Marvel), as revealed in Spider-Man: Far From Home. He spent his time building a space station to safeguard Earth. Well, technically, it was the Skrulls who were doing the manual labor while he was overseeing things. Now that he’s back in the thick of things with Maria Hill and the exiled Talos, he is expected to get his hands dirty. Talos informs Fury that his wife, Soren, is dead. Fury tries to start talking about Gravik, but Talos focuses on how Fury has changed post-Blip and that Carol Danvers hasn’t helped them in any way.
Then Talos comes to the main point that his daughter Gi’ah, Gravik, and many other Skrulls are apparently angry and want to turn Earth into their new home planet. How? Well, by executing all of humankind. This understandably disturbs Fury. So, he goes for a walk through Moscow. He is abducted by MI6’s Special Agent Sonya Falsworth for questioning. In the meantime, Rhodes informs President Ritson that Hill and Fury have gone AWOL, and Ritson simply tells him to deal with it. Back in Moscow, Sonya interrogates Fury about his relationship with the Skrulls—unaware of the fact that Fury has already planted a chip in the office—while Fury interrogates Sonya about her involvement in a heist in Kazakhstan. They both know that they are lying. So they part ways for the time being.
Enter New Skrullos
An adult Gi’ah welcomes a refugee Skrull into a place called New Skrullos. It’s apparently the place where all the Skrulls are living without being disturbed by humans because it’s in a radioactive region, something that the Skrulls are immune to. They are growing the kind of food and beverages that Skrulls used to drink back on their home planet. And they are mingling with the general human populace in order to execute their invasion. Yes, it’s an Invasion of the Body Snatchers kind of situation where the Warrior Skrulls are shape-shifting into a human and even taking his or her memories, thereby making them indistinguishable from other human beings. Unfortunately, it’s so sanitized that the “invasion” aspect doesn’t evoke any emotional reaction. While all this is going on, Fury, Hill, and Talos learn about a Former Chechen rebel, Vasily Poprishchin, who could be responsible for a terrorist attack in the middle of Moscow.
Fury tells Talos that if Sonya finds out about the Skrulls, she’s going to greenlight a genocide. So, they need to get to Gravik, or whoever is working with Gravik, before he does something stupid and gets everyone killed. Gravik’s right-hand man, Pagon, orders Gi’ah to go into Moscow and bring the bomb from Vasily to New Skrullos. Before Talos and Fury can get to Vasily, Gi’ah gets there and leaves with the bomb. Fury and Talos waste their time interrogating (yes, there’s a lot of that going on here) Vasily and eventually killing him, while Hill goes after Gi’ah and tries to stop her. Hill fails, and Gi’ah gets away. Then Talos catches up and pleads with his daughter to give up the bomb and leave Gravik. But she refuses, especially after learning that her mother is dead. Here’s the thing, and this might be a pet peeve: nobody goes after Gi’ah. They just give up the chase because the plot needs Gi’ah to deliver the bomb to Gravik. But what about believability? Shouldn’t a chase stop when it’s literally not possible to continue it anymore? Well, the makers of Secret Invasion think otherwise.
Is Maria Hill Dead?
Nick Fury and Maria Hill have a pretty redundant conversation about what he has been up to and how the world has changed. Yes, yes, these two characters are having this conversation for the first time after many years. But this exact conversation has been done to death by every other Marvel show and movie. It has no edge. It has no emotional weight. It’s just words for me now. Back in New Skrullos, Gi’ah delivers the bombs to Pagon and then goes to meet Talos to tell him about the bombs. They start an argument about Soren’s death, but as soon as Talos insinuates that Gravik is responsible for her death, Gi’ah shuts up. Instead, they talk about the terrorist attack. Gi’ah says that there are so many operatives in the field that it’s difficult for her to determine who is from New Skrullos. So, she’s going to mark the bags, and that’s how Fury, Talos, and Hill will be able to track them. The whole mission goes sideways, especially after Fury starts to hallucinate, just like he was doing before he got kidnapped by Sonya’s men. By the way, I’m not sure if these are hallucinations or Gravik shapeshifting into the things that haunt Fury.
At the end of Secret Invasion, episode 1, the bombs go off, and Gravik takes Fury’s form to kill Hill. He tries to kill Fury too but fails. Hill dies, thinking that Fury killed him. And this is supposed to be a pretty heartbreaking moment for Fury as well as the audience. But it’s Maria Hill. The franchise hasn’t made us care for Maria Hill for even a second. Why am I supposed to care for her now? It could have been shocking. However, the moment doesn’t even build up to it because the action direction is absolutely garbage. Well, it’s a good thing that Cobie Smulders is finally out of this franchise, and now she can do whatever she wants with the money she has earned from this thankless role. If you are wondering where Ross is, I think he’s safe with the Wakandans after being arrested by the C.I.A. or whatever organization Valentina Allegra de Fontaine works for. You are free to theorize that the version of Okoye that sprung Ross out of the van was a Skrull, and that’s why the Skrulls have access to Ross’s likeness and his memories. For now, we’ll have to wait and watch the next few episodes to get some form of confirmation on that.
