Was holding off writing about ‘Secret Invasion’ because I really hoped that it will turn around in an unexpected way. It did not happen.
Is it good? Is it bad. That’s really depending on what you want from the series.
‘Secret Invasion’ marketed itself as an espionage series. Surely the advertising trailers made it look like so. However, what I felt being delivered was completely something else.
I understand that the series wanted to be a journey about Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury. I am totally fine with it. However, further short-changing characters that have already been short changed in the MCU to lift up Fury is not the way to go in my humble opinion. There are lots of way to make Nick Fury feeling isolated and desperate, but for me definitely not in a way that they did in the series.
An espionage series is all about ‘Who is? Who isn’t?’. However, for me, the so-called plot twists were so predictable that they failed to deliver the ‘What the?’ moments I was looking for. The only times that happened was about the last thing you wanted to see happening, aka the short changing of characters through out its 6 episodes run. Throughout the 6 episodes run, I felt like that I am watching a series that turned from try hard to not even trying.
I am not saying the performances were bad. They were not. Samuel L Jackson is as expected good. New comers Olivia Colman and Emily Clarke also delivered and established great new characters for the universe. Ben Mendelsohn was as good as ever. However, there were only that much you can do with thin ice materials that you tread on. For me, as the episodes get shorter and shorter in run time, my patience with the series follows. Now that it is over, I am relieved. Relieved not because Nick Fury saved the day, but relieved because I don’t need to tune in again next week.
I never have the false or fool’s hope of the brilliant cast of the Marvel’s Agents of Shield will show up. So, I was not disappointed with the series because of that. I was disappointed that such a series with high potential became a lacklustre toothache series that I grew less and less care about. You know certain characters were Skrulls already before they were even revealed, and that completely defeated the purpose of this espionage series about shape shifters. When your selling point turned up to be nothing special what else do you have to keep your audience interested in? And for the final episode, it feels like all the laundry are now out on the line, suddenly thunderstorm came, lets grab all of them and put them in the basket before they get wet again. Yup it wrapped up and looks like dry and done, but it is just a mess in the basket looking completed.
I wanted to like ‘Secret Invasion’. I wanted write good things about ‘Secret Invasion’.
I just couldn’t find one single angle for that.
