The Secret Invasion is over. But the story of the Skrulls will continue. The gritty spy series came to a close with Episode 6 on Wednesday (July 26). With plenty of deaths and a declaration of war, we have received answers that have long been on our mind since Secret Invasion started six weeks ago.
(If you haven’t watched the series yet, there are spoilers ahead.)
Gravik (Kinglsey Ben-Adir) meets with Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in an abandoned radioactive power plant. Fury is in bad shape, coughing and weakened. Gravik finally puts all his cards on the table for Fury. He has been so fed up with how Fury didn’t hold up his end of the bargain in finding a new home for the Skrulls all this time. For Fury, he tells him it’s “it’s easier to save the lives of eight billion people than it is to change their hearts and minds” about the Skrulls. Post-Blip, Fury admits that he felt relief when he “flaked off” in the Blip (as seen in the post-credit scene in Avengers: Infinity War). He was tired of fighting and finally found a way out. He wasn’t the same brave Fury he once was, but the only reason he came back to Earth was for Gravik.
Fury’s Failures
Fury felt responsible for Gravik since he was the youngest Skrull on his team. Because he failed him and his people, Fury brought Gravik what he’s been after — the Harvest. The Harvest contains Carol Danvers’ (Brie Larson) DNA along with the blood of several Avengers, as well as Thanos’s forces. Gravik’s team collected it at the scene of the final battle in Avengers: Endgame, where everyone spilled blood. Fury wanted to make an exchange: go to some other planet and wipe out some other species. “I don’t give a damn,” Fury tells Gravik. “Just leave Earth the hell alone and leave it now. Call off the strike and save your people.”
Meanwhile, President Ritson (Dermot Mulroney) is still in the hospital. With Rhodey (Don Cheadle) in his ear, pressuring the declaration of war against Russia, Sonya (Olivia Colman) intervenes. She gives Rhodey a call to warn him that Fury has lost his mind and is coming for the President. After Gravik takes the vial and tests its legitimacy, he activates it to absorb its powers with Fury in the chamber with him. Only Fury turns out to be G’iah, who has also taken the Harvest. Both of them now have incredible powers. As the two battle to the death, Sonya’s warning of Fury coming actually happens. Since Ritson is dazed and confused about who to trust, a standoff leaves the real Fury no choice but to kill the fake Rhodey and expose him as a Skrull.
Closing Chapters and Beginning New Ones
Once Fury returns to his destroyed home, he apologizes to Priscilla (Charlyne Woodard) for not being there for her. She asks him again if he loves her or “the face that puts you at ease.” Fury reassures her that he loves her and wants one last chance because now he’s leaving. Without hesitation, Priscilla says goodbye. Wondering if she can ever find a way to forgive him, she keeps a cool head and says she knows where to find him.
G’iah has now acquired all these special abilities, piquing Sonya’s interest. She meets her and offers her resources; the Skrulls will need her, now that President Ritson has declared war on them. Sonya says she’s “a friend of a friend,” and her people need a leader. Of course, G’iah’s defenses are up because of what happened to Talos (Ben Mendelsohn). Sonya suggests they “leave love and friendship out of it,” unlike Talos and Fury. Instead, they will use each other so they can both be safe.
Closing the episode, Fury appears in front of a misty field with a bright beam of light shining through the center, which is how we saw him early in the series. Priscilla arrives and tells him she’s going by her birth name now: Varra. Fury gives her good news from S.A.B.E.R.: the Kree are open to peace talks with the Skrulls. Not trusting this this, Varra says, “Kree make peace. Reminds me of that old joke. What do Skrulls call good luck? Bad luck.” Despite that, Fury wants Varra’s help in becoming the Skrull diplomat. “We’re better together,” He says. “Well, at least I am.” He wants her to come with him, and she agrees, shifting into her Skrull form. The two profess their love for each other as they are and board the spaceship hand in hand. This sets things up for the upcoming The Marvels film, due out on November 10.
All six episodes of Secret Invasion are now streaming on Disney+. Keep scrolling below to see how the series changed the Marvel Universe.
There's At Least One Super Skrull
G’iah now has the powers of lots of heroes and villains. When we see Gravik reading that the blood of Captain America, Gamora, Thanos, Captain Marvel, Abomination, Mantis, Cull Obsidian, Drax, Korg, Hulk, Thor Odinson, Valkyrie, Winter Soldier, are in the vial, he says, “It’s pure. You really wanna die.” After he turns the machine on to merge with the powers, Gravik’s Skrull form attacks Fury, but he blocks the punch with what turns out to be Hulk’s arm and punches him into oblivion. We then see it’s not really Fury, but G’iah. “You killed my mother. My father,” she says to Gravik. The two have an epic fight using these new powers and she stabs him in the chest with an ice arm. They use Captain Marvel’s powers to go airborne, and after Gravik thinks she’s knocked out, G’iah uses Mantis’ powers to make him sleep and crash head first back down. After G’iah rocks the classic superhero landing to end the battle, he says she’s just like her father. Just like “them,” she corrects him and blasts a huge hole through Gravik, killing him.
Rhodey and Ross Were Replaced By Skrulls
Following her battle with Gravik, G’iah goes back to the Skrull compound to free the hostages. Among them is the real Rhodey and Agent Ross (Martin Freeman). G’iah tells a weakened Rhodey that he’s been held hostage “for a long time.” But how long? Rhodey’s personality was obviously changed in Secret Invasion, but it’s hard to tell how long the Skrulls that took over him and Ross were impersonating them. Has Rhodey been a Skrull since the first Iron Man? Does he know anything about superheros? Was it ever him in the War Machine armor? Does he know that Tony Stark is dead? Have we ever known the real Ross? Was the ally of the Wakandians a Skrull the whole time? Was Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine married to and divorced from a Skrull (and if so, did she know it? She seems to know everything).
Ritson Started A War
When Ritson addresses the American people about the motorcade attack, he reveals it was solely the work of the shape-shifting, alien-born species known as Skrulls. He reveals he will be presenting to Congress for immediate emergency authorization to designate all “off-world born species enemy combatants.” He then declared: “We know who you are. We know how to find you. And we will kill every last one of you.” With this kind of call-to-arms, he’s making the dire mistake of not distinguishing between those who want to leave peacefully and those who don’t. Following his announcement, Fury tells Ritson he took a bad situation and made it worse. “That’s real one-term-President stuff. But we have to act now.” As people are getting dropped for being Skrulls, Fury warns that the President’s “hit squads” are now inspired to kill the Skrulls who still want to help them. They are killing innocent people of power with no proof they are a Skrull, or putting themselves in danger of getting killed off by the real Skrulls. Ritson tells Fury that if he wants the Skrulls saved, he’s got to get them off his planet. With this war launched against Skrulls, will Ritson get killed off or be a one-term President like Fury predicted? In the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World, Harrison Ford is set to play President Thunderbolt Ross, so it’s got to be one of those two outcomes.
