Warning: the following article contains spoilers for Secret Invasion.
The trailers for Secret Invasion never pulled any punches about the series’ tonal shift from the rest of the MCU, which brought the franchise from safely accessible romps to a much more grounded, intriguing slow burn of a show that packs most of its punches with dialogue.
This all came to a sizeable front, however, in the second, most recent episode; as far as the eye could see, Samuel L. Jackson and company had an absolute gold mine of dialogue to jump into and swim around in, whether it was Fury reminiscing about his childhood or us finding out that Gravik is actually quite fond of dogs.
But it was Fury’s scene with Don Cheadle‘s Rhodey that took that particular cake. During their deliciously tense back-and-forth in the middle of an empty tavern, it became as apparent as ever that this isn’t the same Rhodey we’re used to seeing, and the meaty discourse on racism that the two of them built together proved again that Secret Invasion isn’t the Marvel property we’re used to seeing.
In a recent interview with Variety, Jackson was all too happy to dive into the nuances of that attention-demanding scene, reflecting on conversations he had with the show’s writers and ultimately arriving at a place where the eggshells that Fury and Rhodey were walking on specifically, were out in the open for us to see, so to speak.
Rhodey and Fury have risen to this place where we have a certain amount of power, even though we’re better than the people who have power, we still got to suppress ourselves in a specific way. And Marvel’s not afraid to let us explore that.
Indeed, Secret Invasion looks to be proving itself as the MCU’s answer to Andor after just two episodes, and while just six chapters feels tragically short for a story that’s just heated up in a big way, we reckon the narrative meat will only be that much thicker as a result, so bring it on.
Secret Invasion is now streaming on Disney Plus. New episodes will release every Wednesday until the series finale on July 26.