(About this, I’ll say no more, to preserve the surprise.) In the main, “Secret Invasion” has things on its mind that it’s content to tease out in a pace that a Marvel film might not allow. These two episodes, by contrast, work, with a second-episode kicker that surprised me by leaning into the prickly perversity that can emerge in a “Body Snatchers” scenario. Ever since “WandaVision,” the show that started this period for Marvel, wound up ditching its novel episodic premise in time for a big climactic fight, these shows have often struggled to make the case for themselves as shows. ![]() Consider that, in the two-and-a-half years since Marvel began its project of airing series that explicitly complement what’s happening in their film universe on Disney+, its TV shows have looked for all the world like segmented feature films, albeit with a little less major-scale action and with franchise stars like Chris Hemsworth and Paul Rudd juuuust out of view. In its early going, “Secret Invasion” stands out for its willingness to go places, and its reticence to call attention to itself. Colman’s inherent cheeriness intriguingly coexists alongside, and intensifies, her character’s moral ambiguity. Similarly, Olivia Colman is, to a degree, doing Olivia Colman in her role as MI6 agent Sonya Falsworth (one half-expects her to burblingly thank Lady Gaga at the beginning of scenes of her torturing a suspect), but, well, that’s being put toward an MI6 agent who tortures suspects. The casting of Emilia Clarke as a dangerously intense figure with conflicting impulses toward her own rise to power - the sort of role she played on “Game of Thrones” and was being set up to play by the end of vexed would-be franchise starter “Solo” - is hardly imaginative, but Clarke is good at her job and the kind of actor Marvel is lucky to get. ![]() But there are, in the two episodes (of a six-episode season) furnished to critics, moments of sparky energy that distinguish this show from the movies in a good way. And, as in the past, the visual spectacle that helps Marvel earn its name seems reserved for the silver screen. Typical caveats apply: Viewers who missed the Brie Larson-led “Captain Marvel” will find themselves on Wikipedia playing catch-up, although the show does its best to situate viewers. ![]() Aided by a Skrull who’s a friend to humanity (Ben Mendelsohn), Fury attempts to hold together a cause that seems impossible, one in which the villains look just like us. Here, Jackson’s Fury grows enmeshed in a drama involving the Skrulls (an alien race who emerged in the 2019 film “Captain Marvel”) attempting to take Earth by, first, subversively impersonating human beings.
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