Monday 10 July 2023

Secret Invasion: Promises

 "I'm Nick Fury. Even when I'm out, I'm in."

This isn't really a Nick Fury show, but more of an ensemble. The different factions of Skrulls get a lot of screen time, with Emilia Clarke excelling as pressured double agent G'iah and Kingsley Ben-Adir as Gravik. Olivia Colman sparkles as Sonya who, it's now clear, is basically a female James Bond. This episode is pretty damn good, more so than the first.

But there's a lot of Fury, the once-lregendary old man who may have lost his mojo, as everyone keeps musing. There's some great character stuff for him, performed to excellence by Samuel L Jackson, an actor of the very first class. We learn that there are a million Skrulls on Earth(!) via his reminiscences of Jim Crow era Alabama. The scene with hiom and Rhodey is superb. There's a lot of fascinating musing, echoing The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, on what it means to be Black in America.

The Skrull plot deepens. The council of Skrulls seems to fall in behind Gravik... and the British Prime Minister, among others, is a Skrull! This is cool. If only people could tell screenwriters across the pond that prime ministers are addressed as just "prime minister". No "Mr" or "Madam". 

There's little else to whinge about, though. I'm enjoying the wit and intrigue. Even the torture scene was amusing. And, so far, the potentially dodgy premise of refugees as baddies hasn't crossed any blatantly unfortunate lines. Here's hoping the quality continues.


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