Did we just see Nick Fury suit up? Was it kind of epic?

Even though the episodes have gotten shorter, they have left no stone unturned in their delivery of important plot points. In fact, I have to say I enjoy having the important things in less time than having lulls in the story just to make longer episodes. Yet, the important things keep growing in this show, as we see more team-ups taking place between G’iah and Varra and Fury and Sonya, both in an attempt to go against Gravik’s will. Then we have Gravik himself, who appears to be losing control not just of his people, but himself. We have a lot to discuss here, but as always, start with our new podcast episode with all our initial reactions. You can find your listening platform of choice by clicking the button below or start listening live by hitting play on the link provided.

Gravik Loses Control – What Now?

Very early into the episode, we see Gravik murder his right-hand man, Pagan. I think this is the moment, right from the get-go, that we all knew something was going wrong with him. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way rooting for Gravik, but he has been relatively collected and calm the past times we’ve seen him. He has been a force that Fury honestly wasn’t likely going to beat alone, as Fury himself accidentally created this perfect storm of a person. Yet, it didn’t take much from this episode for most fans to start throwing out theories that Gravik is losing control due to his super enhancements, yet it is a twist we didn’t see coming.

Extremis alone is known to be fairly unstable within the human body and about 90% of those we’ve seen with Extremis before have lost control of it. I highly doubt that the Skrulls were able to stabilize it fully and that doesn’t factor in the Skrulls having different DNA than humans. This being said Extremis alone could be creating this new level of violence in Gravik and enhancing whatever feelings he’s been having but pushing down. On top of this, he has another super enhancement and knowing him, is going to attempt to have a third, which is actively making changes in his DNA and making him more volatile. But what does this all mean for the story?

As I said, Fury’s chances of beating Gravik before were genuinely low. Gravik remained too many steps ahead of him. Yet, not only is Gravik no longer playing the long game, he is losing control of himself and his people. We see the Skrulls attack him, a solid attempt although definitely futile, as they are tired of Gravik’s lack of care for their lives. From the beginning, Gravik didn’t appear to care much about the Skrulls themselves, just achieving his mission of taking out the humans. But now Gravik is a threat himself, killing those who question him and giving his people up to be murdered. His ego and the power he feels now are what are making the choices for him and his people no longer worship at his feet. All this being said, not only has it now shown Gravik’s weakness, it has left him standing alone, as the Skrulls won’t defend him. In fact, I theorize that G’iah will come back to the Skrull people and they will instead stand with her as they watch their old leader destroy everything he built himself and self-destruct (possibly literally).

An Adventure with G’iah and Varra

As we are on the topic of G’iah, let’s discuss her scenes from this episode. We know she communicated with Fury, as he directed her to Varra for a proper Skrull burial of Talos, which also yes, confirms our bestie is dead dead. The burial itself was quite beautiful and once again enforced how the Skrull people have begun to lose some of their customs in the process of trying to acclimate to Earth. This is what I have been saying drives G’iah, the desire to keep things like this alive and so I think it makes sense to see her show that there are things she was either never taught or has forgotten as her people scattered. It also goes to show how many Skrulls have been killed in the fight for Gravik’s cause and how few, if any, have gotten an actual burial.

What comes out of this is that Varra and G’iah both have crossed Gravik and that means Gravik must cross them off, literally. He sends people to take out Varra, clearly not knowing G’iah would be there as he believes she is dead. I had thought we might be fairly done with Varra, but as she is now with G’iah, I believe she may play a key role in the finale. I wouldn’t be entirely shocked if she gave her life to save someone else’s, a theory I believe I had from pretty early on. G’iah is going to play a key role in taking down Gravik, as she is his biggest competition among the Skrulls and is also so far the only Super Skrull besides him on the board. It’s only fair to assume Varra will then follow her into that battle, with the possibility of backing Fury in the end.

The Harvest

Some may be surprised I waited this long to crack into the worst part of the episode. And by worst, I mean just not fun to think about or know exists. The Harvest could have been anything and naming the episode after it meant that whatever it was it would be important. However, never could I imagine that Nick Fury had Avengers blood collected after the Battle of Earth and stored away. It has given us a few answers, but has mostly left us with more questions, mainly: why?

The one answer provided by sharing this information is that we have a little more confirmation of the timeline of events between Gravik and Fury. Their estrangement is relatively recent, as Gravik was one of the Skrulls Fury had collect the blood samples. Not only did Fury clearly trust him enough, but it also confirms that their relationship was still in a positive spot post-Blip, which makes sense. The tear in the relationship took place 100% then when Fury left for SABER, which is when we can now say Gravik began to start his revolution.

Yet as I said, we’ve been left with a lot more questions than answers on this one. Why would Nick Fury collect the Avengers’ blood? Are all of their blood samples in that one bottle or are there other vials? What was the intended use of the blood? How did they even collect it? What was the thought process in thinking that this would be okay? Unfortunately, we don’t have answers right now but we can make some theories out of it. First and foremost, from the looks of it, all the blood is in that one vial, which is why they’re calling it the Harvest and why Gravik wants it so bad. There’s a strong likelihood that if Gravik were to take it, he would end up pretty much imploding himself, his own ego and need for power being his eventual downfall. As for why Fury did it in the first place, it wouldn’t be too far out of the wheelhouse of the MCU to be considering cloning or at least recreating heroes who may have fallen. I mean, I think the world would love to have Tony Stark back up at the plate. It could also be pretty much a massive surge of power to heal Avengers, something that could really be intriguing considering in Agents of SHIELD, Kree blood is what Fury was experimenting with in the hopes to revive a fallen Avenger. It could be a really solid way of bringing in/picking up that storyline.

My main hope is that this show ends with the Harvest being destroyed, although it being brought in on episode 5 worries me that it could become a bigger player moving forward. Keep in mind, shows like TFAWS dealt heavily with Super Soldier serum made from Steve’s blood, so something like this isn’t far out of the wheelhouse of a future plotline.

Fury and Sonya Make Buddy Cop 2

It’s not fair to say that Fury has replaced Talos already, but he definitely has made up with his friend Sonya and has recruited her for his next Buddy Cop adventure. We see the two of them begin their journey together after Sonya takes down several Skrulls herself. As a girl boss, she followed the lead on the doctor who was helping to create the Super Skrulls, while Fury had the Harvest and the other piece of the puzzle. It’s not hard to see how the two of them are cut from the same cloth, so their official team-up shouldn’t be too surprising to anyone. But the larger question at hand is how will Sonya continue to be involved and where might we see her again after all this is said and done?

Taking down Gravik is too personal for Fury to allow too many people in on that part of his mission, but we’ve seen that Sonya is quite skilled at finding and taking down Skrulls on her own time. That’s where I think we will see her mostly in episode 6, helping to stop the Skrulls who still passionately believe in Gravik and his cause. While some have chosen to fight against him, we know not every Skrull is going to disagree with his new way of doing things. Otherwise, this won’t be the end of Sonya in the MCU, since I actually think she would make and probably already is good friends with people like Valentina, head of Sonya’s sister agency, the CIA. Valentina is still rumored to be in this show and as she hasn’t appeared yet, it seems episode 6 is going to have to be it. We will have to see what the final episode brings, but Sonya will appear again and I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if it’s in something like Cap 4 or the Thunderbolts.

Nick Fury Has Suited Up and Maybe Even Called Help

The final few scenes of the fifth episode were pretty awesome, as we saw Nick Fury officially suit up. Now some people might have not been impressed, but there’s something really cool about watching Nick Fury become the version of himself that we know best. We just spent 5 episodes seeing Fury be told that he isn’t at the caliber he used to be and lose two of his closest friends in the process of finding himself again. So the suit-up wasn’t just a suit-up, it was his official return and helps us to know Nick Fury isn’t going anywhere. Which is definitely good to know, as he makes his next appearance in the Marvels already this November.

Yet the suit-up may have been overshadowed by the fact Fury makes a call in which he says “It’s time. Let’s finish this,” which has left fans in a frenzy. If you are anything like Taylor and me, you just assumed he was calling Gravik to tell him it was time to finish this little back-and-forth they’ve been doing. However, it wasn’t until I went on Twitter after the fact that I saw many fans throwing out theories about who Fury might be calling in. So since I’m not one to shy away from a good theory debate, I am beyond happy to go down that rabbit hole and throw some names into the mix if Fury was in fact calling someone other than Gravik. There are three options as far as I’m concerned:

• Daisy Jones aka Quake – If Marvel wants to bring in Agents of SHIELD to their official roster, this show would be one of the better options to do it with. Daisy is an Inhuman and is one of the more prominent characters in the show who packs quite the punch. She would be a solid ally to have going up against Gravik the Super Skrull.
• One of the Marvels – We’re throwing this out for the main purpose of connecting this show directly to The Marvels. The show is likely going to connect regardless in other ways, but Kamala, Monica, or Carol showing up would greatly solidify it.
• G’iah – If it’s not Gravik that Fury is talking to, then I think the most likely option is G’iah. He is likely telling her that it’s time they go after Gravik together as Fury probably knows the same thing we do, which is that the Skrulls respect G’iah. She is the most natural leader for them and taking down Gravik would solidify that position for her.

Conclusion

Rarely have the MCU shows so clearly lined up an ending for us, or at least a solid battle won before the next one needs to be fought. It makes me eat my words from episode 4, where I pretty passionately didn’t think Fury would be able to defeat Gravik. Although to be fair, Fury is only going to be able to defeat Gravik because Gravik has allowed himself to get out of control. Either way, the finale is sure to bring some new crazy things for us to talk about, so don’t miss it, this Wednesday. Our episode breaking it down will then follow on Friday, so keep up with it all as Marvel just blew our mind, so let’s talk about it.

Image: “Secret Invasion Episode 5,” Matt Purslow, IGN