Moscow, Present Day
Marvel’s Secret Invasion begins with an ominous voiceover. “Imagine a world where information can’t be trusted.” A man in a hat and long coat walks through dark streets to an unassuming building and heads inside. The voiceover continues. We can only trust the people around us. But what if those people aren’t who we thought they were?
Inside, there are lots of computer screens covered in maps and news sites, and newspaper clippings cover the walls. Within is Agent Prescod, who seems to be the one giving the worrying voiceover. The man from the street — Agent Ross — asks him what he’s talking about.
Prescod looks flustered and sweaty as he speaks of worldwide tension, five global terrorist attacks in the past year; he thinks they’re all connected.
Ross is unconvinced, asking if Prescod really believes the same people are behind everything. “Not people,” Prescod answers, “Skrulls.”
Skrulls are shapeshifting aliens that S.H.I.E.L.D. has known about for 30 years, but according to Ross, there’s only a handful on Earth. If he’s going to go to Nick Fury with this, he needs more than theories.
Prescod hands Ross a tablet with data on another attack. One he believes will “set the world on fire.” Prescod reveals that he stopped filing reports, not knowing who he can trust any more. Except Ross, of course — right? Prescod looks at Ross again, filled with paranoid suspicion. When Ross says he’ll take the data to Fury, Prescod attacks him. They tussle, but Ross manages to shoot Prescod before he suffocates him.
Ross slips out into the street. Sensing that he’s being followed, he calls for an extract. Agent Maria Hill tells him to get to the metro station. Ross runs, followed by a man shouting in Russian. He jumps from the roof of a building in desperation, landing in front of Hill’s car.
She immediately raises her gun at the man following him while Ross, bleeding and dying, crawls across the ground.
His pursuer complies, and shapeshifts into another person — a Skrull — that Hill recognizes known as Talos. She asks him about Ross, and he says that Ross isn’t one of his — he’s one of them.
As he dies, Ross transforms into a Skrull.
Fury Returns
A spacecraft lands in a forest. Out steps Nick Fury. Once the ship has departed, an SUV pulls up. Fury limps toward it, and is welcomed back to Earth by Hill.
She takes him to a safehouse where he meets with the Skrull, Talos. Seeming like old friends, Fury and Talos discuss how Fury has been “different” since The Blip. Talos, it turns out, was a member of the Skrull council, but he’s been kicked off. The Skrull — including the one who impersonated Ross — are angry that Fury has not yet made good on his promise to find them a new planet. A new councilmember, Gravik, is preying on the rage of young, displaced Skrulls. Even Talos daughter, G’iah, has disappeared, enticed away by the rebellion. Gravik is somewhere in Russia, hiding in an abandoned nuclear facility. Prescod intercepted plans that indicate Gravik is going to use a terrorist group called Americans Against Russia as a front for a bomb that will start a war between the U.S. and Russia.
Agitated, Fury rises and says he’s going for a walk.
The War Machine Turns
In the U.S., James “Rhodey” Rhodes aka War Machine, intercepts President Ritson with some bad news: Fury has left S.A.B.E.R.. He was working on a complex aerospace defense system, and he just left. Rhodey lets him know that they also intercepted an encoded message from Hill to Fury, and she is also now AWOL. Ritson tells Rhodey to handle it.
Back In Moscow
Fury walks through the streets of Moscow, taking in the locals at night. Some of them stare at him. After he’s distracted by a little girl with a ball, two men jump him, hood him, and drag him off.
When the hood is removed, Fury is sitting in front of Sonya Falsworth, a high-ranking MI6 agent and sometimes friend. The two banter about her mediocre thugs before putting their cards on the table: Fury wants her help with the Skrull rebellion, and with getting intel about a heist in Kazakhstan that seems connected. Sonya, however, is doubtful that Fury is up for the task, echoing Talos’ earlier sentiments that he hasn’t been the same since The Blip. While they talk, Fury surreptitiously installs some tech in the eye of an owl statue.
312km South of Moscow
A man approaches the fence of a military-looking installation in the forest. Two guards challenge him and ask what he wants. His response: “Home in my own skin.” A woman pulls up in a car, exiting and approaching the gate. She orders him to show his true form. The man does so, revealing his Skrull face. He is welcomed into New Skrullos.
In the car, the woman questions him. His name is Beto. He can’t remember the last time he ate. She offers him a blue fruit from the glove compartment of her car — Skrull produce. They grow only Skrull foods in New Skrullos, and drink Skrull wines. Whatever dangers he faced getting there, she tells him, were worth it.
The woman — G’iah, Talos’ daughter — takes Beto deeper into the facility. They walk past many Skrull, even children playing. She tells him that they are 500 strong now. Beto asks if he has to be part of the resistance, and she tells him no. Those who don’t want to fight stay at the compound. But warriors get to leave, keep their human forms so that they are harder to detect, and are well rewarded by Gravik. Eventually, they reach a guarded door, and G’iah tells Beto to wait. He questions what’s behind the door. “Victory,” she tells him.
Beyond the door is a long line of humans strapped to machines. A circle of Skrulls wait around a kneeling warrior recruit. After repeating a mantra about what he wants — “Home in my own skin” — the Skrull is introduced to his new form: a member of the terrorist group, Americans Against Russia. He shifts, taking the man’s face. Then the terrorist is strapped forcibly to one of the machines and subdued, and the Skrull takes his mind.
Vasily Poprishchin
Back in the safehouse, Fury, Talos, and Hill watch a projection of a discussion Sonya is having, thanks to the spy tech Fury installed in her office. She is convinced that the Skrull threat must be significant, or Fury would not have returned. She believes there are only a handful of people in Moscow capable of building the bomb that the rebels are planning to use. Her money is on former Chechen rebel Vasily Poprishchin. He has a gallery in Moscow.
Fury, Talos, and Hill argue about going to the gallery and incapacitating whatever operatives Sonya will already have there. Talos is concerned about harming Sonya’s people. In the end, Fury wins. Gravik, he says, thinks mercy is their weakness. Its time Talos proved him wrong.
The Gallery
G’iah watches as Gravik meets with a man named Pagon in a café. The man relays to him that Fury is in town, but they don’t believe he’s a threat, washed up and limping as he is. Gravik says they will go tomorrow, and they won’t stop until Earth is theirs.
On the way out of the café, Pagon summons G’iah. He leads her to a car and hands her a wad of cash. She’s to take it to the address provided, give it to Poprishchin, and take the bags he gives her to the Moscow safehouse. G’iah wordlessly complies.
Outside Poprishchin’s gallery, G’iah sees two MI6 agents. As she slips inside to avoid detection, Fury checks in with Talos — who is disguised as one of the MI6 agents. He neutralizes the other, and confirms to Fury that they’re all set. Inside the gallery, G’iah approaches Poprishchin with the cash. As she escapes with the bags he provided, Fury and Talos enter the gallery from the back. Poprishchin questions what they want. “Some damn good answers,” Fury tells him.
Meanwhile, outside, Hill exits the SUV. She lets Fury know she’s spotted a person of interest and is perusing on foot.
Back in the gallery, Poprishchin isn’t being helpful. He lies several times in answer to their questions, which pisses Fury off. When Talos steps in and roughs him up a bit, Poprishchin recognizes him as a Skrull — because he’s one too. Talos tells Fury not to shoot, but the fight escalates and in the end, Fury takes out Poprishchin. Talos is upset, both at Fury and at Poprischin’s last words — that Talos is betraying his people.
Hill is following G’iah. She heads into the subway and Hill follows, losing her for just long enough that G’iah gets the jump on her. They fight, but G’iah overpowers her. Talos comes to the rescue and Hill points him after the escaping Skrull. He gives chase, raising his gun in warning until G’iah finally comes to a halt. Father and daughter are reunited, but it’s not a happy moment. Slowly lowering his gun, Talos begs her to hand over the bomb Poprishchin gave her. She refuses. He tells her that her mother is dead, and her last words were “Find G’iah.” G’iah is obviously affected, but she overpowers him and escapes with the bomb.
Once she reaches a hidden doorway, G’iah stops and cries.
A Game of Chess
Fury enters a bar in Moscow, heading to the back to meet Hill. They play chess as they talk. Hill asks honest questions: why he left Earth, and why he came back. Eventually he answers. He had a crisis of faith, but it followed him up there. And he owes it to Talos. Hill asks if he owes it to someone else, but he doesn’t answer. She confesses that she also believes he isn’t the same since The Blip, and she thinks he isn’t ready. He should be sure, before someone gets hurt.
Later that night, we see Fury alone, sitting on a metal bed, thinking about The Blip.
Father and Daughter
In Gravik’s office, G’iah hands over the bomb. She tells Pagon that she was followed, but doesn’t identify her father. She suggests they postpone the strike, but he declines. Thanks to her, they have the bait.
Later, a middle-aged Russian woman summons a taxi. She gets in and is driven away. By the time the taxi pulls up in a hidden alley, she has shapeshifted into G’iah — and the driver is Talos. He’s happy that she came to see him, but doesn’t pull any punches about her working for her mother’s killers. Visibly affected, she gives him information on the attack — that it will be tomorrow, that Gravik has at least 100 operatives, and there will be three couriers including herself. She’ll mark the bags with infrared spray.
Vossoyedineniye Square
The next day, Fury, Hill, and Talos stake out the square where the attack is to happen. They spot G’iah, and thankfully she has marked the bags with infrared as promised. They track the bags through the handover and split to follow the other couriers. The square is busy, filled with revelers celebrating Unity Day. Suddenly, Fury is confronted by the girl with the ball — the same one he saw before Sonya’s thugs took him in. She leads Fury across the square, changing forms several times. She’s a Skrull.
Hill and Talos reach the couriers, and find that the bags are decoys.
Fury catches up with the Skrull he’s following just in time to see his final form — it’s Gravik. Fury raises his gun, but it’s too late. Gravik lifts his hand and presses a button, detonating the bomb.
The square ignites with at least three explosions. Fury chases Gravik but loses him in the smoke.
Hill is helping scared and injured people. Fury shouts to her — or so Hill thinks —and she approaches him. Wordlessly, “Fury” raises his gun and shoots her in the torso.
The real Fury sees himself ahead and pursues, but another explosion goes off. Briefly, Fury sees that the other him was actually Gravik, but he disappears again in the chaos. Fury runs to Hill, but it’s too late for him to help her. He comforts her and tells her that it wasn’t him that shot her.
As Fury cradles Hill’s body, hands grab him from behind.
Secret Invasion releases new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+. Don’t forget to check out Nerds & Beyond for recaps and updates!
