Secret Invasion was a huge crossover event in Marvel Comics that spilled into just about every title. It stunned readers and upset some relationships that had been going on for years as characters were forced to wonder who that they knew was really who they seemed and who was a shapeshifted Skrull. You can’t quite match the impact and complexity with a six issue tv series, but they did a good job with some great fake outs and added a few fun new characters. The series comes to a close with “Home,” which has been the driving goal behind what most of the Skrulls were doing. As this is the finale and getting published later than I had hoped, there will be spoilers along the way.

The finale starts off with a slightly ominous call between Fury and his semi-estranged wife. Priscilla seems worried, and the general tenor of Fury’s comments make that a very understandable reaction. After this, we see the beginning of an infiltration of New Skrullos as the man with one eye uses one of the older tricks in the book to distract and then drop the guards. While this goes on, “Rhodey” keeps spinning lies and deceptions to the President. At this point, the impostor isn’t even being that subtle, and if the President had a single advisor able to offer good advice, this wouldn’t be happening. I do wonder how much effort the Skrulls put into isolating the most powerful man in the world behind the scenes.

In the radiation-soaked New Skrullos, Fury is feeling the effects of the atmosphere as he traces radiation and scarfs down pills. Playing her part, Sonya Falsworth does some psy-ops with not-Rhodey. It’s clearly working as he starts freaking out. I’d feel bad for him if he wasn’t such an obnoxious twit. As it is, it’s kind of fun to watch.

While a far-from-healthy-looking Fury finally finds Gravik and things continue to go downhill fast, “Rhodey” insists on moving the President to a new location, baffling the Secret Service and medical staff. During this chaos, a very smart Sonya takes her time and stalks the security team, taking them out one by one. I really think she’s my favorite character in this series. It’s nice to see the Falsworth name, which has a long and distinguished history in Marvel Comics, is being upheld well here.

Gravik is in full supervillain maniacal monologue mode, boasting to Fury about how well he’s done and how helpless Fury is now. Gravik also airs some of his grievances, and, in fairness, I have to say he has some valid points. Much like Karli in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the bad guy’s motivations make sense and it’s not hard to see how they got to the point they’re at. Not that killing innocent people, or even just people you happen to disagree with, or your own people, are good ways to go, but the reasoning makes sense. In response to this, Fury makes a surprising confession, referring back to Infinity War. The spymaster also makes a surprising offer, seemingly giving Gravik all he wants as long as agrees to something that is out of character for Fury to be offering in the first place.

Things start in a series of really quick cuts at this point, bouncing around between the different action scenes. Rhodey is falling apart, and this unnerves the President enough that he makes a demand the Commander in Chief shouldn’t have to. There’s going to be a lot of paperwork involved for certain agents if they survive what’s coming. As Gravik beats on Fury, Falsworth deals with Rhodey in a snarky yet professional way that shows just how great a character she is. I really hope we see more of her after this series. Gravik finally realizes he’s been played when the process he’s been dreaming of works a bit too well.

Brief aside time here, feel free to skip this paragraph if you’re not interested in comic book history. In the comics, the Skrulls have fought a lot of different groups, but quite possibly most often the Fantastic Four (who sadly don’t exist in the MCU yet, although they are supposedly coming in the future). After losing battle after battle to the human heroes, the Skrulls took steps to try and level the playing field. They managed to create the Super-Skrull, one of their own with all the powers of the Fantastic Four, enhanced slightly more than the heroes’ own abilities. So the concept of Skrulls managing to adapt to someone else’s powers isn’t new, just not an easy or inherent thing for them to do.

The Fury Gravik has been fighting turns out to be a shapeshifted G’iah. So, while Gravik got all the powers he wanted, he also gave them to her since he insisted on dragging “Fury” along to see Gravik’s triumph. As the world edges closer to war, and Falsworth urges the President to think about what he’s doing, G’iah and Gravik engage in a massive fight that’s a lot of fun to watch and a sort of trivia contest as it goes, each using assorted powers from throughout the MCU. As these two slug it out in truly unique fashion, Falsworth reasons with the President, and her calm and factual approach does a better job than pseudo-Rhodey’s by now paranoid-sounding panic. Finally, G’iah wins at about the same time Falsworth, in her usual direct way, definitively proves Rhodey is a Skrull.

A triumphant G’iah frees many Skrull prisoners, including a few familiar faces, although I must admit I have some questions. If the fake Rhodey got the cybernetic enhancements after Civil War because of Rhodey’s back breaking, wouldn’t the blood turning color issue have come up? I guess it really depends on exactly when Rhodey was kidnapped, although the real one, the one G’iah rescues, clearly has that injury but not the enhancements. Unfortunately, sometimes a hero’s work can be undone or diminished by the politicians. The President has been through something traumatic, but his reaction isn’t close to anything Fury, Falsworth, or G’iah would have hoped for.

Fury and Priscilla get a scene that sort of reconciles them, but not exactly a happy ending. I’m a bit disappointed by it, but the choices each make are understandable. It’ll be a bit clearer once we see what Fury has been working on, but I believe we don’t get more detail on that until The Marvels comes out. As of this writing, the Writers’ and Actors’ strike are still going on, so it’s anyone’s guess when that might be. G’iah, for her part, takes the first steps towards an alliance that could be a really dangerous pairing that may yet cause the President to regret his decisions.

Things end with a lot of surprising scenes. The President’s rash decision starts having a lot of consequences, some what he probably wanted, and some very much not. One thing the MCU does is show, in a sadly accurate fashion, the way humans tend to react with fear and hatred to something that’s different. Fury tries to appeal to the President, but he’s not really in the mood to listen. I wonder if he’s got his own version of PTSD fueling his decision-making progress. While that part of things went badly, Fury gets some good news on a few fronts, both on the personal level and that of interstellar politics. The scene ends with Fury presumably returning to SABER (which I have a lot more questions about) on a few positive notes. And we know he’ll be back in the next movie at the very least.

What I Liked: The G’iah versus Gravik fight was amazing. They squeezed a lot into a few minutes, and did a great job of it. I was glad to see some people I recognized among the freed hostages, and sad not to see a few others. Sonya Falsworth is a fantastic character, and Olivia Colman did an amazing job with her. Fury and G’iah’s plan had some flaws, but it worked out well enough.

What I Didn’t: I’m still not happy about Maria Hill. She deserved better than this. I have several unanswered questions, but the MCU has earned my patience and faith in giving them time to answer them. I think they could have played up the suspense about who was a Skrull and who wasn’t a bit more, even with only six episodes to work with.

I really hope we’ll see some of these characters again.

I’ll give the episode a 4 out of 5, and the series a 3 out of 5. The MCU Earth gets more different from our own each time there’s a big event. It will be interesting to see what the results of all this are going forward.