Rebel’s Risk
We’re diving right into the thick of things this episode! We begin with Beto, the new Skrull rebel recruit, in Pagon’s office with another Skrull. They’re preparing to execute the next stage of Gravik’s plan. Beto asks whether Pagon thinks what they have planned will work. Pagon questions him in turn, examining his reasons for joining the resistance, but seems happy enough with Beto’s responses. Faith is built on risk, he ends up telling him. So, risks they will take. With the files of three British naval officers in hand, they move on their way.
Elsewhere, Gravik enters a chamber containing a ring of the machines that the Skrulls use to keep the bodies of the humans they are imitating. FXN anchor Chris Stearns, Jack Hyuk-Bin, Secretary General Sergio Caspani, and Prime Minister Pamela Lawton arrive; members of Gravik’s newly surrendered Skrull Council. Gravik tells them about the operatives he just sent to infiltrate the Royal Navy and strike a key UN target. He says that the only way they can counter the inevitable reaction is to become “Super Skrulls.” They will be “uniquely programmed weapons of mass destruction,” able to change powers, not just faces.
Gravik’s ongoing talk about the extinction of the human race continues as we see Beto and his companions, as Royal Navy officers, infiltrating a naval base and submarine.
A Wife Abandoned
On a rainy New York night in 1998, a young Nick Fury enters a small diner. Getting some coffee, a woman banters back and forth with him casually about whether he’s there to meet anyone. The woman appears to be the Skrull we saw at the end of episode 2, the woman who becomes Fury’s wife. Varra, he calls her. It’s clear from their conversation that she knows who he is, and she works with his secret group of Skrull spies. He compliments her new face, and tries to remind her that there are rules about interactions between operatives and their superiors — but she pushes back, pointing out that their unit doesn’t even exist. So, technically, she doesn’t work for him. They chuckle, smile, and sip their coffee.
In the present day, Fury is preparing breakfast at home. He’s listening to Stearns spew hatred on FXN, which his wife comments on before turning it off. She teases Fury about his cooking and hands him a coffee before bringing up her big question: what calamity must have happened to finally bring Fury home? He asks if she wants an apology for him leaving — calling her Scilla now — but she reminds him that she always knew that him being gone was part of the deal. Him staying gone, now that’s different. Especially after The Blip, when he left again, voluntarily. Fury, in turn, asks her who she has become in the time he’s been gone, and if she’s been in contact with Gravik.
Their discussion is cut short by a phone call. Scilla is vague as she speaks to the caller and tells Fury it was nothing important.
Statesman and Soldiers
Gravik enters a dim room at the compound and wakes up G’iah. She asks what’s happened. Gravik wants to talk about Brogan; someone told the cops where they were, and yet only G’iah, Pagon, Beto, and himself knew that. G’iah tries to convince Gravik that Brogan made an educated guess while he was being tortured. That he was weak. She tells Gravik, upon questioning, that she would lie if that was her. She’s a good liar. Gravik seems unconvinced, but nonetheless, instructs G’iah that she’s coming with him early in the morning.
When morning arrives, G’iah and Gravik disembark an aircraft and begin driving. Her father, Gravik tells her, has called for a parley — about her. She seems unmoved. Gravik answers his phone and confirms some details: the UN plane will be at Neptune’s coordinates, 2200 hours.
Gravik exits the car when they reach their destination, leaving G’iah behind as his driver. Keeping an eye on his departure, she pulls out a burner phone and texts the details overheard on the phone.
Meanwhile, Gravik heads inside the National Portrait Gallery. He observes a painting, James Guthrie’s “Statesman of World War I.” When Talos approaches him, he comments on how remarkable the work is, to gather up so many big men. Big men that waged war while others fought on their behalf. Statesmen, not soldiers. Gravik would prefer for his story to be the one written in blood.
They head to the museum café, where Gravik assaults his coffee with a truly heinous amount of sugar. Talos asks him to stand down and stop murdering humans. Of course, Gravik has no interest. Their tense conversation turns to G’iah, and when Gravik comments that Talos should be very grateful he hasn’t sent her back to him in a body bag yet, Talos loses his composure. He reaches over the table to grab at Gravik, only for every other person in the room to stand and turn — all wearing Gravik’s face. He’s surrounded by Skrulls.
Taking a breath, they return to their seats. Gravik has no remorse about the humans. He believes murder is all they know; look at what they do to one another. Talos warns him that he’s underestimating them — humans are their most formidable when threatened and united against a common enemy. And Talos will tell them about Gravik which will end the Skrulls’ anonymity. Gravik flippantly suggests that means G’iah stays with him. Talos stabs him through the hand and while choking him, tells him to keep his daughter’s name out of his mouth.
As Talos leaves, Gravik pulls his hand off the knife. It glows and quickly heals. Then, Gravik returns to the car where G’iah is waiting. He doesn’t speak to her.
Naval Command HQ
In a pub, Talos digs into a full English breakfast and a glass of cola. Fury enters through the door behind him. He asks if Talos is really going to eat that, but Talos is still pissed about what Fury said on the train when they last met and isn’t happy that Fury came back asking for help. Initially, Fury won’t admit that’s what he’s doing, but when Talos doesn’t take his bait (telling him that he has a lead on a Skrull high up in the government) he is forced to give Talos what he wants: he asks for help, and tells Talos that he’s useless without him.
In Fury’s vehicle, once they’ve left the pub, Talos tells Fury about the intel G’iah texted him. Fury recognizes Neptune as a British submarine, so he gives Sonya Falsworth a call. Unfortunately, she’s annoyed at him too for bugging her owl and has her hands tied, so she can’t help him. But she does give him the name of the guy who can help: Commodore Robert Fairbanks, or Bob.
Talos and Fury head to Naval Command HQ in Portsmouth. The two argue as they drive, with Fury maintaining he’s spent 30 years cleaning up Talos’ mess and Talos saying that without him, Fury wouldn’t have gotten anywhere, and he’s rewriting history. They arrive at Naval Command before reaching any real conclusion. Talos approaches disguised as the Commodore himself, but is made on the way into the building.
After taking out a few security guards, Talos and Fury make their way into the building. Fury spots Bob’s son in one of the rooms, moving on past and leaving him to his video game. He gets a call from Talos telling him he’s got him, and to come up to the second floor. He isn’t fooled, though. Bob didn’t know that no one ever calls him “Nick,” as Talos did on the call. He gets to the room and Bob has his gun to Talos. Fury bought a hostage of his own, though — Bob’s son.
Bob refuses to comply, though they do manage to de-escalate the situation enough for Bob to drop his gun and get Fury to let go of the boy. They’re both cuffed, and Fury and Talos begin trying to get a code out of Bob, the one they to abort the missile that Neptune has begun to prepare for the UN 1 aircraft — as shown on the convenient computer screen that Bob was sitting in front of.
Bob’s Last Stand
Over on Neptune, Gravik’s men are monitoring the situation and pushing the humans toward firing the missile, despite their misgivings.
Tension building, the scene switches back and forth between Fury and Talos interrogating Bob and a voice of dissent on the submarine, insisting that he wants to talk to someone else before executing the order.
Bob is unyielding and scornful, taunting Talos and telling him that he isn’t the general he once was. Gravik has merely filled a vacuum. Fury loses his patience and shoots Bob in the leg, but he still won’t budge. Talos wrestles the gun from Fury, but when Bob mentions G’iah and questions whether she is the traitor feeding them information, he kills Bob himself. As he dies, Bob changes back into the Skrull that was imitating him.
Desperate, Talos calls G’iah to ask her to get the code from the real Commodore Robert Fairbanks in order to stop the attack from taking out the plane.
“Zachary”
G’iah receives the call back at the compound. She immediately heads off on a mission to get the code, taking out two security guards and slipping into the area where the humans are kept. After passing several of the people that the Skrull Council are imitating, she reaches the Commodore. Accessing the terminal attached to his machine, she searches through his memory for the code.
Talos picks up G’iah’s call immediately. Once she’s passed on the code, he orders her to run.
Imitating the Commodore, Talos uses Bob’s phone to call communications for the sub. The codeword was Zachary, Bob’s son’s name. As the launch is aborted, Gravik’s man inside the sub tries to finalize it himself, but he’s quickly halted by the navyman who questioned him before.
Finally, mission aborted.
Traitor Out of Time
Fury and Talos finally talk a little. Fury says that it must be hard for Talos to fight Gravik, when deep down he knows that he agrees with him. Talos helps Fury understand; he’s not with Gravik, because he’s with Fury.
At the compound, G’iah manages to walk out of the building. She takes a motorcycle from the yard and quickly but calmly walks it to the gate before mounting it and using it to flee.
She doesn’t get very far before a car turns on its lights where it had been waiting in the middle of the road. Forced to a halt, G’iah waits as Gravik exits the car. Calmly, Gravik questions where she’s off to. She tries to bluff and tell him that their people need extraction, but he’s not impressed as he points a gun at her. The plane would have been valuable, but finding the traitor was essential. G’iah refuses to turn around when he orders her to.
“No. You will look at me. And you will ask yourself, are you a leader of Skrulls? Or our worst enemy?”
G’iah
Barely letting her finish talking, Gravik shoots her. He leaves her Skrull form in the dirt and drives off.
Lock Box
Fury’s wife picks up her vibrating phone, looking solemn. After gathering her bag, she takes a safe key from a jar in their home and heads out.
She makes her way to a well-guarded safety deposit box. After being left alone by security, she pulls out the key and opens it. Within, in a brown envelope, is a gun. Her phone rings again. She’s given a time and location — Saint James’ Church, one hour — before she asks to speak to Gravik. She’s denied, and the caller hangs up.
Secret Invasion releases new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+. Don’t forget to check out Nerds & Beyond for recaps and updates!
