‘Secret Invasion’ Episode 1 Recap & Ending Explained: Whose Side Is G’iah On?
Welcome to Recap & Ending Explained for the long-awaited premiere episode of Marvel’s ‘Secret Invasion.’ We haven’t watched an MCU series on Disney+ since ‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’ concluded last October. Since then, Marvel Studios decided to take more time with the next one, and after months of waiting, we have finally watched the first episode of ‘Secret Invasion,’ which promises that this series will indeed be something we haven’t seen before Marvel Cinematic Universe.
‘Secret Invasion’ is set to deal with several plotlines, out of which the majority is connected to previous events that occurred in the MCU. This is the first MCU project in which Samuel L. Jackson has the main role, and we follow him as he returns to Earth to deal with this invasion while also suffering PTSD from the Blip.
His Skrull friend, Talos, returns to help him in a fight against rebel Skrulls who want to take over the Earth. This first episode was supposed to ease us into the story, and it really did. We are already waiting for the next episode, and as we do, let’s see what happened in this premiere episode and what we can expect from the next ones.
Nick Fury returns to Earth, and things happening here are pretty bad!
The first episode is almost entirely set in Moscow, Russia, where we see Martin Freeman’s Everett K. Ross meeting with another agent called Prescod, who has a theory that recent terrorist attacks around the world have all been planned by the same group, although it may not look that way. Prescod has a theory that Skrulls are behind all of these attacks and that they’re planning a new one.
Ross tries to reason with Prescod, saying that Skrulls were their allies in the past. Prescod asks where Nick Fury is, and Ross tells him Fury is still on S.A.B.E.R. and that he can’t call him back to Earth over a mere theory. Prescod shows Ross a plan for Skrull’s next attack, saying that he’s the only one he can trust. But, the second after that, the two engage in a fistfight, leaving Prescod shot, and Ross escapes.
Ross contacts Maria Hill, asking for extraction. While running to the extraction point, Ross is chased by an unknown man. During the chase, Ross jumps off a rooftop, killing himself. Maria Hill shows up at the scene, and so does the man who chased Ross. One second later, it turns out Ross was actually a Skrull, and the man who chased him was Talos. After that, we see a pretty good-looking opening sequence.
Nick Fury returns to Earth, and he’s met with Maria, who takes him to the apartment where he meets with Talos. Talos informs Fury about rebel Skrulls, who are still upset they didn’t find a new home, so they decide to invade the Earth, posing as regular humans and using terrorist attacks to create a world war that would wipe out humans and leave only Skulls on the planet. Talos got kicked off the Skrull council, and the new Skrull who was appointed was Gravik, the leader of the Rebels.
Fury, Talos, and Maria share among themselves that Ross’ impostor tried to cover up the schematics for the dirty bomb that Gravik plans to use for the next attack. They also find out that Prescod was following a radical group that would take the blame for the attack once it happened. Realizing that Skrulls are trying to initiate a global war, Fury decides to take a walk.
In the meantime, in Washington, D.C., James “Rhodey” Rhodes is meeting with the President, informing him there’s a situation with Fury, who returned to Earth. The President and Rhodes both share their concerns since Fury’s task on S.A.B.E.R. was to build the most complex aerospace defense system (probably the precaution after everything that happened with Chitauri and Thanos). The President isn’t happy that Fury returned all of a sudden and asks Rhodes to deal with it.
Back in Moscow, Fury is walking the streets in the middle of the night when two goons grab him and put him in the van. Once the bag on his head is removed, we see that Fury is meeting with Sonya Falsworth, an MI6 agent and his old accomplice from the past. Fury wants to discuss with her this problem they’re having with rebel Skrulls, but Sonya plays dumb and tells Fury that he isn’t what he used to be, saying that the Blip took a toll on him.
In the meantime, over 300 kilometers southwest of Moscow, an unknown man is approaching the fence guarded by soldiers. From the other side of the fence, a car approaches, and we see Emilia Clarke’s G’iah coming out of it. An unknown man shows to be Skrull, who is looking for shelter. As Maria Hill explained earlier, Skrulls are immune to radioactivity, so they’re using abandoned nuclear power plants as their shelters.
G’iah welcomes an unknown Skrull to their community, and soon we see how Gravik and other rebel Skrulls kidnapped the members of the radical group Maria was mentioning to take not just their faces but their minds as well. At the same time, Fury, Maria, and Talos are monitoring Sonya’s conversation with somebody to find out that a man called Vasily Poprishchin is most likely the man who built the bombs.
Gravik sends G’iah to Poprishchin to take the bombs. The moment she leaves, Fury and Talos bust in to interrogate Poprishchin while Maria follows G’iah, who has the bombs. Talos and Poprishchin engage in a fight once he realizes that Poprishchin is also a Skrull. Poprishchin calls Talos a betrayer of his own kind before Fury shoots him.
Maria and G’iah also engage in a fistfight, after which G’iah escapes the scene. But she’s quickly caught up by Talos, who is shocked to see his daughter. Talos tells G’iah that her mother, Soren, is dead. He tries to reason with G’iah to give him the bombs, but she refuses and escapes. Although we clearly see a shock on her face after she found out about her mother.
Later, Fury and Maria are in the bar playing chess, and Maria also tells him that he’s never been the same after the Blip. One scene also shows how Fury still remembers the day he disintegrated into dust, meaning that Fury is still suffering from the PTSD caused by Thanos’ snap. G’iah returns to Gravik and gives him the bombs, although later that night, she meets with her father and tells him about Gravik’s plan, wanting to help Talos and others to stop it.
The next day, Fury, Talos, and Maria are at the scene where the attack is planned to happen. Although G’iah marked the backpacks with bombs to make them easier to track, it turns out those bags were decoys, and Gravik activated the bombs. In all the rush and panic after the explosion, Gravik quickly shapeshifted into Fury to get close to Maria and shoot her. Gravik escapes, and Maria dies in real Fury’s hands as the scene cuts to credits.
Is Maria really dead? Whose side is G’iah on?
One of the mysteries this first episode offered us is that we can’t be sure on whose side Talos’ daughter G’iah is truly on. While she’s depicted as a member of Gravik’s rebels, we also see that she tried to help to stop the attack. Although the attack was successful in the end, we don’t know if G’iah purposely provided Talos with false information or maybe Gravik sensed that she was not loyal to him, so maybe he changed the plan without her knowledge.
As for that shocking final scene, we know that in the MCU, death never means the end. But the way this was handled, we’d say the chances that Maria is really dead are, unfortunately, pretty high. This first episode showed that this series wouldn’t be the MCU we used to watch, and we can surely expect more twists, turns, and shocking situations in the other five episodes that are left to be released.
One more thing, Cobie Smulders was credited as a “special guest star” in this first episode, which leads us to assume that this first episode is the only one in which she’ll appear. Maria Hill was one of the fan-favorite supporting characters in the MCU, and we have no doubt she’ll be missed. We already miss her too.
Maria’s death surely won’t sit with Fury very well on top, given how close they were. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg with his struggles to overcome his PTSD caused by the Blip. Fury and Talos will now have a lot of new problems now that Gravik’s attack has succeeded, and it also remains to be seen what role Sonya will have in the rest of the episodes. Gotta say, this first episode really lured us in, and we can’t wait to see more.
