TL;DR – This episode felt like it was just moving things around to get them ready for the rest of the season

Secret Invasion Review –

Well, I was not sure how people would take the first episode of Secret Invasion, and wow, did the internet rip them apart. I think part of that was justifiable with those awful AI opening titles, and others less so, given I feel like a lot of it was just a significant tone shift than what people were used to. But after being much stronger on it last week, the follow-up was a bit more disappointing.  

So to set the scene, in 1997, in Brixton, London, two years after the events of Captain Marvel, the Skrulls are back on Earth after finding no home. Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) promises those who had made the trip that if they help him on Earth, he will find them a new home. Thirty years later, we see the aftermath of that broken promise, forgotten in the time of the Snap. As people, including Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), lies dying in the square after the successful terrorist attack in Moscow and Fury is bundled into an FSB car as the Russians start arresting all those they think carried out the attack. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

One thing that I think stands out more than any other is just how fundamentally different the world of the MCU is to our current climate. The wild state of affairs where the world supports Russia and its march toward war feels very alien today. It is almost as far as you could have gotten, but we got hints of this in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. I want to think that this was the plan to show the world is still destabilised after they all blipped back in if Spider-Man: Far From Home hadn’t revealed the opposite.

While I was mostly disappointed by the episode, a couple of moments stood out. The first was the standoff between Fury and Rhodey (Don Cheadle) as Rhodey tries to bring Fury in, and Fury is trying to get Rhodey to understand just how much danger they are all in. Then there was Sonya Falsworth (Olivia Colman) interrogating a Skrull in a deeply friendly yet going-to-cut-your-finger-and-burn-you-alive way.

However, the rest of the show was just moving people around to get them in position going forward. Fury and Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) had to have a falling out, G’iah (Olivia Colman) had to have some more questions about who they work for, and Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) had to take control of the Skrull Council. While narratively fine, it felt more like an exercise in working through some sort of to-do list rather than creating a compelling narrative.

In the end, do we recommend Secret Invasion: Promises? Well, there were one or two moments that stood out this week. However, overall it all fell a bit flat for me. The narrative was bland, and they made a big deal out of Maria Hill dying, so much so that I assume they will be alive at some point.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Secret Invasion yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Secret Invasion
Directed by – Ali Selim
Written by – Brant Englestein & Brian Tucker
Created by – Kyle Bradstreet
Based On – Secret Invasion by Brian Michael Bendis & Leinil Francis Yu
Production/Distribution Companies – Marvel Studios & Disney+
Starring – Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Charlayne Woodard, Killian Scott, Samuel Adewunmi, Christopher McDonald, Katie Finneran, Emilia Clarke, Olivia Colman & Don Cheadle with Cobie Smulders, Irmena Chichikova, Saverio Buono, Seeta Indrani, Christopher Goh, Giampiero Judica, Vladimir Kolishkin, Ben Peel, Anna Madeley, Michael Epp & Mark Bazeley