Secret Invasion: Home

 "That's real one-term president stuff!"

So I gather this finale is widely disliked. Well, I loved it. And I think the issue here is that I see Secret Invasion, and I know I keen banging on about this, as Marvel doing John Le Carre style spy stuff- which is very different from James Bond spy stuff. John Le Carre's spies are not glamorousalpha males; they are tired, aging men who have lived too much of their long lives in a world of grubby deceit.

That's what we have here, and why this is such a briulliant little character study of old spy Nick Fury, whose deceptive career has bled into, and interrupted his home life. The moment where he kisses Priscilla wearing her Skrull face is a deep and very much foreshadowed moment between the two of them, yes: but it's also symbolic of Fury's yearning towards truth and reality.

This is a superb finale. Throughout we are given constant misdirection as to where Fury is and where Sonya is. Sonya gets to be the cool one- as I've said before, she's from the Ian Fleming school of spying, gurest starring in a John Le Carre novel.

We get an awesome set piece fight between two Skrulls. We get a bigoted US president outlawing all aliens, a contemptible act, and very Trumpian. Yet we get Sonya establishing an understanding with Gi-ah and the Skrulls. A lot may be being set up here. And Fury, of course, will return in The Marvels.

Don't be put off by the naysayers, I implore you, Think John Le Carre, and watch this.

Secret Invasion: Harvest

 "It's really just a matter of taste. Cake or death."

Oh boy. Not that things have been uneventful so far, but it's all kicking off. Gravik is becoming truly unhinged, not only wanting armageddon for humanity but not caring how many Skrulls die in the process... and, courtesy of his superpowers, he survives an attempted revolt. At this point he commants his underlings by fear alone, not loyalty.

But Gravik appears to be winning, and Fury is on the run again, the footage of someone wearing his face murdering Maria now released to the world, and possibly a bit of a comment on deepfakes. Oh, and I misunderstood last episode: Gi'ah survived her execution via genetic jiggery-pokery.

Sonya continues to be awesome, best James Bond ever. MCU, can we have more Olivia Colman please? I'm so glad that we end, and head into the finale, with Fury and Sonya together. This truly is superb spy drama in the style of John Le Carre, not only in terms of plot but in terms of Fury as a world-weary central character, old and wizened. Nick Fury is... a sort of George Smiley, weird though that sounds.

Apparently this isn't as successful as Marvel would have liked. But it deserves to be.

Secret Invasion: Beloved

 "You are delusional!"

Yes, I know. I'm breaking my rules here, blogging the same series consecutively to catch up. But things have clicked and I'm in love with a show which I believe is misunderstood- it's Marvel does John Le Carre and a tour de force from Samuel L Jackson, an actor of the very first class, in that context. People who don't get it need to see the BBC's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and imagine that Karla is a green alien with pointy ears with a comic book history embracing cows and speakeasies. Anyway...

This is superb, spellbinding telly. We begin with Fury learning, through a carefully planted bug (on his own wife!) that Priscilla is in league with Rhodey… and (quite the bombshell, although something like this was coming) Rhodey is a Skrull, and the mole on the inside who is integral to Gravik’s plot to assassinate the President and blame it on the Russians. Suddenly it makes sense why Rhodey is acting as he is.

The scenes between Fury and Priscilla are exquisite, with Jackson giving us an acting tour de force as he confronts her. There are layers to their conversation, harking back to the flashback earlier. Suddenly, they both shoot, in the world’s most romantic shootout… and both deliberately miss. Ah!

We end with the big set piece as Gravik’s plans are carried out and the President saved. It’s sad to see Talos die, but at least he never knows the heartbreak of knowing Gi’ah is gone. Was he right? Will humanity justify his faith? We shall see.

This continues to be superb, underrated telly.

Secret Invasion: Betrayed

 "Well, I never cared much for golf, so,,, I'm thinking I might as well take up revenge,"

And with that, it suddenly clicks. I can see what Secret Invasion is trying to do, and why not everyone gets it. But I think I do: it's the MCU does the spy genre. But not as in James Bond... well, a bit... but far more in the sense of John Le Carre.

So many lies, so many games, so many betrayals, as per the title. Indeed, so many layers of betrayal. Gi'ah to Gravik. The rebel Skrulls to humanity. Priscilla to Fury, as we suspect from early on and is confirmed at the end. Yet... didn't he betray her through neglect, too? Heartbreakingly, we get to see them young and in love in 1998.

But what's so very Le Carre is how sordid it all seems, despite Sonya being there, on purpose, to represent a more fun side of the genre. What Fury and Talos do is not fun or glamorous; it grinds them down right into old age. And the scene in which Talos points out how him and his mates have guided Fury's career is quietly devastating... but not as devastating as Gravik catching and shooting Gi'ah, having suspected her all along. It was all a trap. Yes, Gravik want to engineer human nuclear extinction while a new race of "Super Skrulls" (hah, of course- harbinger of a certain quartet?) takes over what's left... but today's nuclear gambit was all to flush out Gi'ah. So she gives her life, on her father's say so, to save humanity. Has Talos thus been betrayed?

Brilliant telly.

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.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

 "The Beast? Wait, there's a beast?"

 This was, until tonight, the only Star Wars film I hadn’t seen. And it was very far from being a disappointing  postscript.

This is the second of two films in what must surely be an abandoned attempt to produce a series of films outside the narrative. And it's a shame. No, Alden Ahrenreich doesn't remotely convince as Han Solo. But this is nevertheless a magnificent sci-fi heist film, Woody Harrelson is brilliant, Emilia Clarke is nuanced and alluring, and Paul Bettany (he who has recently so impressed in WandaVision) makes a splendid crimelord.

Ron Howard may, on occasion, give us a little much in the way of a subdued colour palette. But he gives us a solid action film which may well have no illusions of intellectualism, but does the job well. Han's origin is given to us satisfyingly, with Chewbacca's introduction being particularly clever. There's a real sense here, too, of a criminal underworld being semi-tolerated by the Empire. The nods to what is to come are, perhaps, a little too indulgent, but surely we can forgive that.

What leaves a big impression, though, is Phoebe Waller-Bridge's performance as L-37, the sadly doomed droid liberation activist. The character hits a nerve- are all the fleshy characters in the Star Wars universe, rebels included, bastards who evilly enslave sentient AO's? Free the droids!

Terminator Genisys (2015)

"Bite me!"

"That is a very immature response."

Ok, I started off resenting this film for its retconning earlier films, some of which I liked, and for Jason Clarke not being great as the future John Connor. And the first ten or fifteen minutes are seemingly just a version of the first film, as amended by its events:the beginning of the film hardly impresses. And yet it wins me over. Hugely.

Why? Simply put, it wears its timey-wimeyness lightly and has fun ith it and, most importantly, it has heart. And that's not something one would necessarily expect of a Terminator film.

The film starts to turn around as soon as the leather jacketed Arnie turns up,,, and kills his naked future doppelganger sent by Skynet. And we get a witty script where Arnie ("Pops") gets to insist that he is "old, not obsolete"- a delightful touch. And I love how Kyle Reese is sent back in  time to a 1984 which has already been changed by a Terminator being sent to kill Sarah Connor eleven years earlier. Interestingly, we never do get told who sent "pops" back.

Wonderfully, there's a constant theme of the helpless fatalism of living on  set path in a future that's already been written versus living in an unwritten future- and we get a happy ending, where Sarah and Kyle get to live and be happy together, and yet Sarah still has a kick-ass metal dad who will literally murder Kyle if he hurts her. As a father of a daughter, I find this the happiest possible ending. plus, we get a (bizarrely) American accented Matt Smith (credited as "Matthew") as Skynet. Best Terminator film since 1991, despite the cheeky recon.

Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 2 ("The Kingsroad")

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone."

I blogged the first episode of Game of Thrones on 18th September 2015 so... yeah. There won't be quite as long before episode three. Promise.

I'm still getting a handle on the setting; this is a fantasy world with only light fantasy elements- so far we've seen dragon eggs but dragons appear to be semi-mythical, and dire wolves seem not to be overtly supernatural. It's a gritty, realistic mediaeval world which is obviously going to focus on the power games surrounding the eponymous throne, and I've heard that this is based on both the Wars of the Roses and the Anarchy of the twelfth century. But Robert Baratheon is certainly no Henry VI; I'm not sure how strong a king he is but he appears laddish yet weighed down by kingship. I suspect he's not all that long for this world, given the apparent premise of the series.

Daenerys is interesting in the sense that she's getting a lot of screen time and her situation- marital rape in the context of semi-forced marriage- is horrific and surely would not be depicted so prominently if she were not eventually to end up powerful and fortunate in spite of it. Her brother claims Robert's throne. Hmm.

Meanwhile, Robert's only son Joffrey is a right little sod, as his behaviour towards Arya and her poor friend illustrates. Sansa is happy enough to marry him, but then she'll be queen. She's so motivated towards this that she's ready to lie under oath about her sister. But I suppose that being queen- a glorified womb- is the best a woman can hope for in this society. Certainly Arya's tomboyish ways are a fascinating way to explore the theme of what we can't really call feminism.

And then there's Tyrion. He's still a sot and a shagger, but there's a more intellectual side, too; he may be a semi-outcast just because he's a dwarf but, crude and direct though he is, he isn't shallow. And his relationship with the literal bastard Jon Snow (not yet a Channel 4 newsreader) is interesting. Jon, a very naive bastard, is off to devote his entire life to guarding the northern walls from whatever lies beyond, which none of his legitimately born relatives would presumably stoop to. Ned is proud but, when he says That "When we next meet, I'll tell you about your mother" I'm left suspecting that, one way or another, they won't ever meet again. Let's see if I'm right.

Meanwhile Catelyn Stark is keeping watch over the thankfully not-dead Bran but, after being attacked, she's off to tell her husband about her suspicions regarding the Lannisters. And, while she's away, Bran wakes- and he knows too much. Why do I get the feeling that the immediate future of the Stark family is not set to be a happy one?

Absolutely superb telly, this.

Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 1 ("Winter is Coming")

"Do the dead frighten you?"

Doctor Who starts again tomorrow. Yay! And I'm blogging so many other series at the moment, some at an embarrassingly slow pace- Sherlock, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, Marvel's Agent Carter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Grimm, the Quatermass serials, Daredevil, and Penny Dreadful. There's nothing else for it: I'm going to have to start blogging another long-running series.

A few words before we start: you know that feeling of missing out on an important piece of popular culture by not being there at the start? And then, year by year, the season's roll along and there are more and more episodes to catch up on. And yet... how can I call myself a geek if I don't at least make an effort with Game of Thrones? Breaking Bad can wait. Especially as the first episode features a beheading, incestuous sex and a dwarf receiving a blow job.

I start out almost completely unspoiled; I'm trying to read the novels at the same pace to see how things diverge, but at this point I know nothing except the "red wedding", a massacre of unknown characters at someone's nuptials which I know will occur at some point. I also know that it's loosely based on the Wars of the Roses and will be looking for signs of this. Other than that I know nothing. So let's start.

It's an HBO show, so we can expect quality, and it certainly looks awesome. The cast is impressive, too: there are only so many tags at the bottom there and I've not been able to include the likes of Roger Allam or Donald Sumpter.

We are in the land of Westeros, ruled by a King Robert I. This land looks like mediaeval Europe and peoples' names are almost, but not quite, English. We begin in the northernmost province of Winterfell, ruled over by Lord Eddard Stark, played by Sean Bean in his native Yorkshire accent. It's a nice conceit, done consistently, to have the "southern" characters speak RP while the northerners speak in such a way as to make it very clear that this planet has a North.

We're clearly meant to feel that ominous tidings are afoot. Demonic and undead creatures are seen at the northern edge of the world, while Eddard Stark keeps banging on about the fact that "Winter is coming" which, I suspect, is meant to be both literal and metaphorical.

Plotting and skulduggery is rife at court, with the king's "hand" having recently been murdered, probably by Queen Cersei's brothers, Jaime Lannister and Teyin Lannister who is, incidentally, a dwarf (a short human, not the bearded, digging kind), and received said blow job. The king (and entourage) this visits Eddard to offer him the position, which he eventually accepts in the full knowledge that he is headed into a pit of vipers. 

He certainly has: Eddard's younger son Bran, seeing Cersei and Jaime, who are twins, shagging each other, is suddenly defenestrated to death, which is not a phrase I've ever had previous cause to use.

Meanwhile, across the sea, Luke's Prince Viseys, who also claims the throne. He's a thoroughgoing bastard, and we are most certainly meant to think so: his first act in the programme is to force his sister to marry a brutal and lecherous warlord.

This is pretty faithful to the novel, looks good and is very fast moving. I'll need a while to get to know the characters but this is a promising start.