The dust has settled on Secret Invasion and nobody is likely to clean it off for some time. At one point this was being positioned as Marvel Studios’ prestige adult-orientated show, ditching the capes in favor of espionage and intrigue. The reality proved to be somewhat different, with a promising start eventually cratering and with the finale now the single worst-reviewed thing Marvel Studios has ever released.
You don’t need to look hard for bats to beat Secret Invasion with online, but one of the most cutting we’ve seen isn’t angry, just disappointed. Over on r/Marvel_Studios, the reaction is neatly summed up here:
[It’s] not the slow pace, not the plot holes or even the cgi fight, but the fact that nothing gets resolved, we see consequences in the last few minutes but then Fury flies off to space and the show is done. The worst part was that there were so many good ideas that went nowhere, as a longtime Marvel fan I’m not mad about it being “bad” I’m mad because it could have been good.
It is a little mindboggling that you can screw up this badly when you’ve been given a $212 million budget for six episodes of television and a cast including Samuel L. Jackson, Olivia Colman, Ben Mendelsohn, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Emilia Clarke, but here we are.
We have our own theories on what might have happened behind the scenes, though until those in the know start spilling the beans, we won’t know for sure. We’re also darkly curious whether anything in Secret Invasion will ever be mentioned again, as after this disastrous show, we’re sure Kevin Feige simply wants to sweep it under the rug and pretend the whole thing never happened.
That said, The Marvels will almost certainly reference the show in some way, and Captain America: Brave New World sees Harrison Ford’s Thaddeus Ross replacing this show’s President Ritson. Even so, whether we’ll ever see or hear from Emilia Clarke’s G’iah again remains to be seen.