We weren’t ready for this show.

Reminiscent of the time WandaVision took the world by storm with its first two episodes, Secret Invasion never allowed us to breathe. From the very beginning to the very last few seconds, Secret Invasion proved that we are in for one really wild ride here. Our minds will be consistently confused and manipulated as some of our favorite characters are taken over by Skrulls and create chaos. So let’s cut all the vague statements and let’s get directly into the most prominent moments of episode 1. As with all reaction episodes, go ahead and listen to the corresponding podcast, where you get our raw reactions to the episode. You can start listening by hitting the podcast button and finding your listening platform of choice or listen live in this blog post by hitting play on the link provided.

Agent Hill and the Ending

I can’t begin this blog without talking about debatably the most important part of the episode, which was that extremely uncalled-for and painful ending that took Agent Maria Hill away from us. Now if you were anything like me, you were likely expecting her to turn green and to find out Fury had put together she wasn’t who she said she was. Yet, I think we all knew the second we saw one Fury turn into Gravik that it was, in fact, game over for our favorite agent. Quite frankly, there are only about three reasons I can think that they chose to do this not only in general but also so early in the show.

The first simply is that Marvel wanted to prove this show is not to be taken lightly and that they aren’t afraid to let their punches fly in an attempt to make a dark, Winter Soldier-level storyline again. And quite frankly, they succeeded. While we obviously already saw how serious the Skrull invasion truly already was throughout the rest of the episode, Marvel wanted to prove that it wasn’t just going to be about body snatching. There are serious threats walking among everyday, normal people, and if you didn’t get that by the fact the Skrulls were pretending to be terrorists and were killing innocent people, then you were going to get it by seeing Maria Hill bleeding out in the streets of Russia.

The second reason is also quite simple: it happened this early because Fury needed to be given motivation. Throughout the entire first episode, everyone around Fury is calling him out for looking worn down and like he isn’t actually ready for the fight that is sitting at his doorstep. While he obviously argues against this, as fans, some of that have been here awhile know that these statements are true. Fury isn’t himself and the only way to get him there was going to be to lose someone who means everything to him, his right-hand man. Moving forward, this will be the impetus that drives him because this war just got to another level of personal for him.

The final reason Maria faced death is simple: Cobie Smulders has been playing Agent Hill since The Avengers in 2012. That is 11 long years of one character, who has touched quite a few of the most important projects to date. But she also is the type of character who was never really the main focus and so she could be called in really whenever to reprise her role. Honestly, Cobie might just be done with playing the role and want to focus her attention elsewhere instead of getting random calls from Marvel about spending 3 minutes in their next movie. With SHIELD falling ages ago at this point and other organizations and heroes taking the places of the ones who came before, it might have just been time to say goodbye to Agent Hill and pave the way for new storylines to take her place.

Either way, no matter what the reasoning was, she will be missed. She was one of those characters that you could rely on to show up in projects and make an impact, no matter what. It was definitely not on my Maravel 2023 bingo card to lose Maria Hill but unfortunately, here we are. Now we have to hope Fury will do the one thing he does best: avenge her.

Agent Ross’ MCU History

Switching gears, let’s go to the beginning of the episode which I think left many of us possibly just as shocked as the ending did. Agent Ross being revealed as a Skrull might not have initially given many a reaction, but when it finally dawned on everyone that it opens the question about how long he’s been a Skrull, well, suddenly we all are a whole lot more worried. My personal theory? He was at least a Skrull during Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. As much as I don’t want to take the focus off of the immensely well-done movie about grief over T’Challa and also Chadwick, quite frankly, I could see Ross having been a Skrull throughout the whole film, and here’s why.

Agent Ross is one of the few people outside Wakanda who the Wakandans actively trust. This means that he has access to not just them, but their royal family, and having access to them means the possibility of having openings to free vibranium right under their noses. As a Skrull army, it would make a lot of sense for them to want someone on the inside there who could get them a valuable resource that could be used for weapons during their takeover of Earth.

Taylor brought up a great counter-point in our episode about how a Skrull would also want to be involved in the CIA and while I don’t disagree, take a moment to remember how much Ross struggled between his duty to the CIA and alliance with the Wakandans. Now, a normal person would say this is a typical response and doesn’t in any way make it seem that he could be a Skrull just from that but I ask you to think about how a Skrull who took over Agent Ross’ body might also react in that situation. As I explained above, Ross was in a great position with one of the most affluent countries in the world with the best power and weapon supply. A Skrull put in the position to choose between the CIA and that would also be having an existential crisis over which one is more important to be associated with, especially if they aren’t currently in full contact with their leadership. Obviously, it’s a theory, but if Wakanda Forever proved anything to us, it’s the fact that everyone wants what the Wakandans have, maybe even including the Skrulls.

Fury, the Blip, and Skrulls

It was no secret entering this show that we would be seeing Fury struggle with the effects of the Blip. We saw several clips in the trailers and even some released footage that showed everyone around him telling him how he clearly wasn’t the formidable Fury we always knew. But the great part in all this is we are preparing to see him as a character have his first real character arc, so let’s get into trying to understand what that might look like.

We know the basis of the show is simple. Fury, Captain Marvel, and Talos all promised the Skrulls in the 90s that they would find them a new home. Let’s say theoretically Captain Marvel is off in the galaxy doing side quests but still actively looking. That leaves Talos and Fury on Earth with the remaining Skrulls. Fast forward to 2018, half the universe was snapped out of existence, including Fury and we will get to the effects of the Blip on him in one second. But upon his return, Fury left Earth, leaving the Skrulls high and dry and this doesn’t include the Skrulls who weren’t snapped and lived 5 years on Earth without Fury. So yeah, they’re angry with him and I don’t blame them, yet the question we’re still asking is why did Fury leave?

Our thoughts, which we actually do align around is that Fury couldn’t take the failure that was solidified when the Snap took place. Think about it and take it all the way to the beginning. Fury was the person who was experimenting with the Space stone and called Loki to Earth and from there, it all pretty much went downhill. Yes, he assembled his heroes who added more heroes to their roster but at the end of the day, his heroes failed because they fell apart before the biggest threat came and where was Fury? When the Avengers were destroying a German airport, where was he? And by the time Fury even knew Thanos was actually here, it was too late because he was dusting away. Fury, Director of SHIELD, where Hydra grew right underneath him, failed again and again. He was so sure he could take the threat by the horns and stand his ground but the Snap proved he couldn’t. To come back 5 years later with most of his heroes gone and one of his favorite agents, Natasha, dead, well that’ll screw with someone and their ability to feel they can control the outcome when threats come knocking.

This is likely why he ended up in space, trying to create a new first line of defense for Earth and invasions from up there, but he also likely couldn’t handle the reality of what being on Earth brought to him. Memories and failures were surrounding him and not to mention, he is technically supposed to be dead. But to the Skrulls, Fury abandoned them yet again and left them now stranded on this planet that they never really asked to be on. While Fury struggles to find his footing again, the Skrulls are taking matters into their own hands. It’s going to be exciting to see how the rest of this plays out throughout the show.

Whose Side is G’iah really on?

The final big moment of this episode was our reintroduction to G’iah, Talos’ daughter who we see spends her time with the Skrull revolutionaries. Clearly, she is estranged from Talos under the understanding that it has something to do with her mother up until Talos confirms her mother’s death. In doing so, we see a shift in G’iah and she decides to ‘help’ her father by feeding him insider information about the attack the revolutionary Skrulls have planned. But it raises the question of: did G’iah really do it to help her father, or to corner her father, Fury, and Hill inside the bombing location, making them bait for Gravik?

We threw out from the start that G’iah would at some point turn good, and although I predicted it would be from Talos’ death, her mother’s death is just as good of a reason. As explained in the show, G’iah’s mother died at the hands of the revolutionary Skrulls, so that would be enough to shake anyone into questioning their loyalty to the cause. I believe that G’iah was truly trying to help her father, but I also think that people like Gravik don’t trust her regardless. She is Talos’ daughter, no matter what side she is standing on, the revolutionaries are not likely going to be quick to believe she fights with them. If you noticed, Gravik’s right-hand man seems to be a little more forceful with her when sending her on the initial mission to get the bomb. There appears to be some degree of distrust already, so it wouldn’t have been shocking for the Skrulls to have lied to her or misled her on purpose, indirectly then misleading Fury and the gang.

The other possibility is of course that she purposefully led her father into a trap and that she knew the bombs were already planted rather than in the bags. If this holds up, we won’t be seeing any double agent G’iah for the time being as she is still very loyal to the cause. However, I do think it’s hard to fake a reaction like the one she had to losing her mother and while I think she is angry and disagrees with her father, that doesn’t necessarily mean she wanted to lead him to a possible death chamber.

Episode 2 Predictions

What could happen in the next episode? Let’s begin with the Agent Hill situation, as there are a lot of thoughts floating around this. Obviously, we didn’t see her turn green and I doubt Gravik would have killed one of his own men, especially one in deep cover as Hill. If we assume she’s dead, Fury could pull out some crazy tricks like he did with Agent Coulson. Yes, I’m saying Fury might do the whole Kree blood thing on Hill, but I don’t think the chances are high. As I explained earlier, there are some solid storyline reasons as to why she died and quite frankly, Fury took off and left the body. There’s no telling how long between life and death and the supplies that are needed would take to gather in order to pull this off, but it’s worth sharing.

On top of this, there’s of course the possibility Hill isn’t actually dead or that there was a Skrull impersonating her at points throughout the episode. In episode 2, I wouldn’t be shocked to have it revealed to us that another Skrull who is helping Talos and Fury was actually the one who took the shot and the cameras just cut before she turned green. The problem with this show? We aren’t going to be able to confidently declare anything for a while.

We obviously are also on board with thinking episode 2 is going to see a change in Nick Fury, with him starting to show signs of the old Nick we all knew. We know from trailers he takes this fight to heart, and after Hill’s death, this is the perfect moment. This will be likely when we see him begin his team-up with Falsworth and run into Rhodey, as these feel like solid episode 2 moments that run directly in line with what we saw in episode 1. The Fury we know is coming back, just slowly.

That wraps up the very first episode of Secret Invasion. If it wasn’t clear through this post or from the podcast episode, this show is already so good. We are hoping this energy continues through the next episode, which will be out this Wednesday. As always, you can catch our reactions to the second episode two days after the episode drops, so make sure to keep an eye out for that as well. Lastly, our July newsletter will be arriving in emails on July 1st, so use this link to sign up so you get it. This month is all about the top 5 most interesting characters to be Skrulls. Make sure you guys are keeping up with all this great content from both Marvel and us, as Marvel just blew your mind, so let’s talk about it.

Image: “Secret Invasion Episode 1”, Fran Ruiz, Space