Any avid television watcher will tell you that enjoying a good series is a very emotional experience. A well-done show will make you care about its characters, believe in a fictional world, and invest in the outcomes of events. In its partnership with Disney, Marvel Studios has proven that they know how to activate an audience, but Disney Plus’ new MCU show projects a big ball of stress onto its viewers.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Secret Invasion dropped its first of six episodes on Disney Plus yesterday, and Marvel fans were on top of consuming the content. The TV show follows Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury as he and his comrades attempt to stop a shapeshifting alien species from invading Earth and wiping out the human race. The first episode ended in absolute chaos.
Most shows involve a certain level of anxiety because characters always have to overcome some obstacle, or there would be no story to tell. Secret Invasion takes this concept into another universe of high stakes. Basically, the alien shapeshifters – AKA the Skrulls – can instantly look like literally any human they lay eyes on and access a certain amount of their memories.
Based on this concept, the characters AND the audience can seriously TRUST NO ONE. You can not trust anything anyone says or does without second guessing if they are an imposter or not. Secret Invasion completely shatters the traditional television-watching experience! Viewers are first asked to suspend their disbelief to actually watch and get into the world of the show and are presented with familiar characters that have appeared in dozens of Marvel Studios content. Normal so far.
THEN this MCU show immediately shows audiences they cannot trust their own instincts because anyone and everyone, including our beloved Marvel movie main characters, could be imposters! It’s truly impossible to tell a human from a Skrull look-a-like until it’s too late!
https://twitter.com/spectrslove/status/1671427104754286595?s=20
By the middle of the first episode, I was questioning everything I knew about the hours of Marvel content my brain had previously downloaded.
Secret Invasion is a way more mature and cerebral series than Marvel Studios and Disney Plus have ever offered. While I will be in attendance for all six episodes, I will also be bringing at least one glass of wine to take the edge off.
In addition to Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury, this MCU show also brings back Iron Man’s Don Cheadle and Marvel movie frequent Cobie Smulders.
