The third episode of Marvel’s new Disney Plus show Secret Invasion, about the takeover of the Earth by the Skrulls, was filled with significant revelations about true alliances, loyalties, and identities.
The spy thriller-inspired show has done a great job of holding onto the information the audience is anxious to uncover, while slowly letting us in bit by bit. In the third chapter of the six-episode series, we learned more about two original, and rather mysterious, characters — Varra and Gravik.
Although there is a Skrull-Kree hybrid character named Varra in Marvel comics, her iteration in the cinematic franchise is her own person. Firstly, she is married to Nick Fury and uses the human name of Priscilla. Fury has known Varra since the ’90s, as one of the Skrulls Talos invited to Earth as refugees under the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent’s protection. They eventually fall in love and start a life together.
Gravik, on the other hand, is the show’s antagonist — set on the extinction of the human race after Fury failed to procure a new home for the Skrulls. He’s highly violent and apparently unremorseful as a leader. The ending of episode 3 confirmed everyone’s suspicions that Varra is in contact with Gravik, and possibly working with his extremist movement — in the process betraying Fury.
Did Varra and Fury raise Gravik together?
Where this web of alliances might become more personal is in the connections between the trio, and fans have theorized they could be more than just former collaborators. There’s a possibility Varra and Fury raised Gravik together, which would justify Varra’s duplicity. Maybe the humans they replicated and borrowed memories from were mother and son themselves (there is the question of their American and British accents, but that could easily be explained away).
We are shown Gravik’s arrival on Earth in 1997 at the start of the second episode of the show. It’s Varra who introduces the young Skrull to Fury, and they appear to be close as she informs Fury Gravik’s parents were killed in battle with the Kree. Gravik managed to escape by piloting a ship all on his own, which makes Varra think he could be a useful addition to the team of Skrull spies Fury is putting together. The older man then establishes a connection with Gravik and welcomes him to the team. What exactly happened in the three decades that followed we don’t know yet.
The pieces will start to fall into place as the last three episodes of Secret Invasion drop on Disney Plus every Wednesday.