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Secret Invasion Recap: Not Great, Bob

Season 1 Episode 3 Editor’s Rating3 stars ***

Photo: Gareth Gatrell. © 2023 MARVEL Last week, Secret Invasion ended with a hazy bombshell: the revelation that Priscilla Fury, Nick’s long-unseen wife, is actually a Skrull. Several folks in the comments posited that this was a twist for the audience, but not Fury, who must have known his wife’s, uh, immigration status. Director Ali Selim subsequently semi-confirmed that I was wrong, revealing in a Deadline interview that the script had Fury knowing, while also admitting that it was shot ambiguously in the final episode, for reasons I’m not entirely clear on. “Betrayed” almost immediately clarifies the situation; it even flashes back to 1998 for a glimpse at what seems like an early moment in their courtship, when Fury encounters Varra in her newly chosen human form during a little espionage-and-clandestine-hand-touching session. It’s a clever twist on the first time two lovers lay eyes on each other: Fury knows Varra, but not in this particular form.

Back in the present day, Priscilla/Varra gives her husband a stern (but not that stern, all things considered) talking-to about his absence — about how he essentially made her a widow twice over by returning from the blip, then leaving Earth when he returned. The leaving, she says, she’s used to. “Staying away … that leaves a mark.” This reorients the conflict at hand: Yes, Fury has always known that he’s married to a Skrull, but in the past he was able to trust her as one of the “good ones,” like Talos; now, the show implies, her loyalty may not be quite so strong. I’d still argue that Fury way underplays his sense of betrayal, or even curiosity, over the possibility that Varra knew the entire Skrull population had since come to Earth. Doesn’t that predate the blip, at least in part? If he got that mad at Talos, why doesn’t he seem to feel the same way about the person who he nominally shares a home with?

While Fury takes a little domestic break, Gravik is busy, constructing a plan for three Skrull operatives to infiltrate the Royal English Navy and attack a U.N. target in hopes of kickstarting a war. Gravik also tells his council that the Skrulls’ long-term plans no longer involve merely changing faces, but changing powers — essentially creating their own superheroes. (Again, this feels kind of like a prequel to the actual Secret Invasion comics series, in which Skrulls imitate the powers of everyone from Wolverine to Captain Marvel.) “While they’re at each other’s throats,” Gravik says, “we’re going to break their backs.”

As the infiltration falls into place, G’iah accompanies Gravik on a public meeting with Talos at the National Portrait Gallery in London, waiting in the car and discreetly passing intel about the compromised submarine Neptune to her dad’s side. At first, Gravik seems confident to the point of foolhardiness, holding a secret meeting in a museum where, pontificating on whether he’d choose to have his deeds written in oil paint or blood, he loudly proclaims to “choose blood all day long.” But his seeming lack of discretion is explained just a few minute later, when Talos lunges for him — goaded on by talk of G’iah — and suddenly the pair are surrounded by several dozen Graviks, making the museum look a bit more like Skrull territory than a truly public space. (Let’s not dwell on the questionable logistics of all this.) Talos then figures he has the all clear to spitefully stab Gravik in the hand the next time he mentions G’iah. Just imagine how stabby he’s gonna feel next week!

Talos retreats to a pub for an old-fashioned English breakfast, where Fury finds him for a particularly crusty and reluctant reconciliation, wherein Talos extracts a specific plea for help from his arrogant pal. Once they’ve kinda-sorta made up, Fury tells Sonya about the plan for the Neptune sub to launch on the U.N., and she supplies him with the name and address of one Robert Fairbanks, the commander whom the Skrulls would need to impersonate to make this happen. On their way to Portsmouth, Talos peels back some of the specific bitterness the OG Skrulls feel toward Fury, recounting how, in their view, they essentially made his career at S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury half-deflects; Jackson’s performance remains a highlight of the show, here for the way he’s able to convey both affection for his friend and colleague and a stubborn refusal to fully concede to his version of events.

That prickly chemistry continues as Fury and Talos confront Fake Bob Fairbanks, and the show unveils another shocking revelation: The writers seem to genuinely think it’s very funny to have Fury repeat the name “Bob” with contempt. (If you’re not Mad Men, it’s gonna sound like cheap kiddie-movie screenwriting.) After a brief hostage standoff involving Fairbanks’ son (which, unless I missed something, doesn’t make a ton of sense, given that Fairbanks, you know, isn’t actually Fairbanks), Talos loses patience and shoots the imposter. He then calls G’iah and has her extract the password to abort the mission from the real Fairbanks’ memory, which necessitates some smash-and-grab on her end — and her going on the lam, having blown her cover.

She’s not on the run for long. Rather than constructing a suspenseful sequence from her attempt to escape, she just … falls off her motorcycle when Gravik’s car intercepts her on the way out of the Skrull base. Turns out having Neptune launch on the U.N. target was secondary; nice to have, sure, but not as important as the mole operation Gravik was actually conducting. The Neptune mission fails, but the mole mission does not: Gravik has ferreted out G’iah and shoots her dead. Would it kill the excitement of this bold development to point out how deeply and easily Secret Invasion has been conforming to an unfortunate MCU trope in which women characters (particularly any with moral shading) are killed off more readily than the men? G’iah’s story had so much potential, and now it’s likely going to serve as a motivator for Talos: This time it’s personal, etc.

The end of the episode gets more personal, too: We return to Varra, who visits a safety deposit box to retrieve a gun and seems to place a call to somewhere in the vicinity of Skrull HQ: “I need to speak to Gravik,” she says. “Yeah, well, you’re talking to me,” replies an unknown voice on the other end of the phone. It’s a suitably intriguing ending to a swiftly paced, compelling, and still kind of disappointing episode, with a clear takeaway: Varra needs to watch her back — which, as a Marvel woman without godlike superpowers, might as well have a target on it.

Secrets, No Lies

• Fury Fashion Watch: In our first disappointing week of monitoring Fury’s sartorial choices, he pretty much sticks to generic skulkwear, though he does wear the hell out of that turtleneck, a staple for any professional skulker’s wardrobe.

• Last week it was “caca.” This week Talos asks Fury about humans’ willingness to clean up dogs’ “poop.” Is there a reason this show about hardened spies murdering each other can’t use the word “shit”? Would it be too alienating for the many 10-year-olds delighting in Nick Fury’s antics?

• Some strange cuts throughout this episode, like the insistence on showing Gravik from two different, brief angles when he gets back into the car with G’iah.

• Before she’s revealed as the Skrull traitor, G’iah tries to reassure Gravik that the mole must have been Brogan — which sounds plausible, because frankly, Ted Brogan has never seemed all that trustworthy, even if he did play a bit of minor-league ball in the ’80s.

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