Secret Invasion episode 2 recap. The Secret Invasion release schedule has us waiting a week for episode 3, so let’s go over all the juicy details of this week’s chapter. Warning, spoilers ahead.
The premiere episode of the new Marvel series left us with a huge twist: Gravik killed Maria Hill. Poor Cobie Smulders, all that press just for one episode and an unceremonious death.
It also answered the questions, who does Emilia Clarke play in Secret Invasion, is Agent Ross a Skrull, and when does Secret Invasion take place? Additionally, we now know the exact motivations behind the members of New Skrullos, and they’re a little gray. So, let’s get into it with this Secret Invasion episode 2 recap.
You’d expect the shocking death in the final minutes of the premiere to hang heavy over episode 2, providing a dark cloud hopefully raining gravitas. Disappointingly, there’s not much of that. We see Fury at Maria’s memorial, however, and he speaks to Hill’s mother.
She warns Fury that whatever he’s up against better be worth the cost. To be honest, many of the people who were a fan of this supporting character might feel that the fridging wasn’t worth it.
Instead, the episode focused more on how we got to this tense moment: we learned through conversations between Talos and Nick that Talos hasn’t exactly been forthcoming. Fury knew about the Skrulls still on the space station he has spent time on post-snap, but as for how many Skrulls live on Earth, it’s way more than he believed.
Nick is concerned and tries to reach out to an unreceptive Rhodey, who is higher up in government than ever (and in a ‘firing Nick Fury’ kind of mood). The conversation goes terribly, and Rhodey doesn’t take Nick seriously. Leaving Nick without high-flying allies.
As Nick sits with Talos on a train carriage, we’re given some insight into Fury’s childhood. He recounts a story from his youth where he lied to his mother through his teeth about a girl he was involved with, and makes reference to the racism he grew up with when he’s reminded of public transport journeys they would take together. This is one of the only times in Samuel L. Jackson’s long MCU stint we have been given personal information about the secretive spy.
Talos listens with a receptive ear, but the conversation goes sour when they get back to business, with Fury effectively kicking Talos out of the train and not wanting to be near him, reasoning that he obviously can’t trust his friend when it comes to the Skrulls, who Talos understandably can’t help but instinctively protect to some degree.
Before he leaves, Talos makes a good point about how Fury has essentially used the Skrulls on Earth for his bidding with little in the way of returns for them as refugees. They’ve not got much choice but to help, and the ethics here are getting complex — as they should in a series about such things.
The series rings of Captain America and The Winter Solider series, which also dealt with angry oppressed refugees who had turned to extremism under the leadership of a young radical. Gravik, the more we see of him, seems to be darker than the Karli Morgenthau from the aforementioned story, however.
Meanwhile, Olivia Colman’s character Sonya is torturing a Skrull for information. He pleads for her to stop, saying if he divulges anything he will be killed by his own people, but Sanya seemingly has a stomach for this stuff, and eventually wrings some information out of the foot-soldier.
Gravik, who has been portraying himself as a man of the people, is revealed to be more of a man of the cause when he and another Skrull mount a rescue op to retrieve their captured comrade. Realizing the man left behind let some things slip to Sonya, they put him down. Gravik does the dirty work himself, the Skrull with him looking less convinced that it was necessary.
This moment calls back to an earlier moment in the episode where there are some whispers at the New Skrullos nuclear base. Some people are not entirely convinced Gravik is the man to be following without question, but for now, the majority support him.
And now he’s more powerful than ever after Skrull leaders granted him unique political standing within the Skrull network. He can now act at his discretion without the backing of the others, who are not-so-subtly threatened with violence so they don’t oppose him.
Who makes up this Skrull committee? They’re a bunch of ‘human’ world leaders who have been replaced by Skrulls, indicating we’re much further into the invasion than the first episode let on.
The end of Secret Invasion episode 2 was a shocker, like the first; we meet Nick’s wife: Priscilla Fury (Charlayne Woodard). Similarly to Hawkeye, whose family unit he only told the likes of Natasha about, Fury has personal relationships he keeps mostly hidden.
We see him enter a home and make his way to the kitchen, where he shares a passionate kiss with her. Here’s the thing though… she’s actually a Skrull! And if that’s not enough, Gravik has New Skrullos’ scientists working on Super-Skrulls by splicing the abilities of Groot and other MCU heroes into the body of a single Skrull. Things are going well, then.
That’s episode 2! Check the Secret Invasion release schedule to see when episode 3 is out. We’ll be recapping that here, too.
In the meantime, we’ve got fun explorations of SABRE explained, the best Disney Plus shows, and the best TV series of all time, and we’ve also gone over the 5 key differences between the Secret Invasion TV series and comics.