Secret Invasion (Disney+)

Samuel L. Jackson gets a long-awaited showcase series, which uses Marvel characters to create a modern-day espionage/terrorism thriller. Calling to mind The Thing, the show uses the shapeshifting abilities of the Skrulls, along with their refugee status, to combine fantastical elements with potential modern-day social commentary. But does it deliver on all that promise? A late game twist is promising, but I had a pretty mixed reaction overall. Did you watch Secret Invasion on Disney Plus? And if so, what did you think?

Trying to figure out, "What should I stream tonight?" Come back to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for the best TV recommendations for what to watch on streaming platforms. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the show, and mention a movie or TV show you want me to cover (and I will). Subscribe for future episodes.

Reach out to us @BenamorDan (Twitter), watch_this_tonight (Instagram) or @watchthistonightpodcast (TikTok).

Watch This Tonight is a movie recommendation podcast and TV recommendation podcast, produced by Voyage Media. You can find other Voyage Media podcasts at voyagemedia.fm

Thanks for listening.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.

(00:22):
I'm a producer, writer of filmand television and now a podcast producer.
And despite having every streaming service,I never know what to watch. So
anytime I watched something good, Italk about it on this show. This
way, you'll never have the sameproblem I do. I watched this tonight.
There's always something good to watch.Let's get started. Today. In
the show, we are talking aboutthe new Disney Plus series Secret Invasion.

(00:44):
So I was excited about this showbecause it seemed like I had the potential
to be a bit more grounded,which is kind of what I'm into.
I think that when I had JackAustin on and we talked about all the
different Marvel properties, I think thiscame up. It's a really interesting premise.
It's so basically it is that there'san alien race called the Scrolls,
and the Scrolls are here on Earthand Samuel Jackson promised to get them a

(01:10):
new planet. They're basically like refugees, but it's taken a while and they're
starting to get pissed off, andthere's a faction of the Scrolls that are
like the extremist faction of the Scrollsand they've decided, well, we're just
going to take this planet because it'staken too long to get us our own
planet. So that's an interesting setup, and the opening sequence I think it's

(01:30):
pretty good. You know, definitelyplays on kind of like the thing vibe,
where you know, you never knowif the person you're talking to is
or is not a Scroll because theycan the key element of the series that
they can make themselves appear like anything. They can look like anyone. They
can sort of you know, theycould be anybody. They could be your
best friend, your wife, yourbrother, or your kid. They can

(01:52):
make themselves appear like that, right, So that really sets up a pretty
useful device for an espionage spot.I kind of, you know, paranoid
thriller type of thing. And Iwas excited because also it's a big showcase
for Sam Jackson. You know,he's front and centering the art. It's
like, this is gonna be theSam Jackson show. Great, I'm in

(02:14):
and I watched the first half hourand I gotta be honest with you,
I turned it off and I wasnot going to do this episode. And
then I went on Twitter and Ijust typed in Secret Invasion because I was
like, am I being too hardon it? And I saw a whole
bunch of tweets about the end ofthe episode, which I will not spoil
until the end of this episode,and I said, all right, I'll
go back, and I finished it, and I do think the second half

(02:37):
of the pilot kind of picks upsome steam. What was a real surprise
to me though, in the firsthalf of the pilot was that Sam Jackson
seemed bored. You know, Ihave done I have been involved in enough
films where I know the actor waskind of just showing up and like,
wasn't that into it. And youcan sort of tell, like there's some

(03:00):
actors where if they're not feeling itfor whatever reason, and it might be
maybe they're not getting paid enough money, maybe they don't like the script,
maybe that particular day something happened,maybe they don't get along with the director
or whatever it is. You cankind of tell when they're sort of not
that into it, And the firsthalf of this it just seemed like he

(03:21):
wasn't that into it. It justseemed like he was sort of like,
you know, planning a vacation inhis head or something. Like doing his
grocery list. Like, Sam issuch a great actor, a legitimate,
lay stellar actor, and I wasso excited for him to have the showcase.
And I almost wonder if it's likebecause they have him doing a lot
of stuff in the first half thatis a bit expositional, and I wonder
if maybe that was the issue.It doesn't seem like they've given him again

(03:45):
in the first half that really strongemotional kind of material to bite his teeth
into, and then in the backhalf they give him a little bit more
of that. So there's a momentwhere he's sort of interrogating someone that ends
up being a Scroll, and youcan tell he's like having fun, like
he's sort of it's the energy ispicking up. It seems like he's he's

(04:09):
being playful, but in a scarykind of way. And it's also that
particular scene is one of the betterscenes of the episode because it has some
real moral ambiguity. There's something thatSam Jackson does the end of that scene
that's sort of not cool, likehe Ben Mendelssohn plays like the good Scroll,
like the scroll who's like part ofthe you know, trying to help

(04:30):
out the humans kind of thing,and he's there and he's almost like Sam
Jackson's partner in the show, andhe tells Sam not to do something,
and then Sam does not listen tohim, and it really does have a
moment of moral ambiguity, and Ilike, you know, it's also you
can understand the motivation of the scrolls. You can understand why they would be

(04:50):
upset. Like I like that.I always like when the villain has a
motive where you're like, man,I would totally I might do the same
thing if I was in the villainposition. That's something that works really well
in the first Black Panther film.I think it works well here. So
it has great elements, but Iwanted more. I really wanted more from
this pilot, you know. Ithink that the it's so this is there's

(05:13):
so much you could do with this, and there's so much opportunity to comment
on issues in the real world,and I just felt like it didn't totally
get there for me until the ending. I'll wait a second before I spoil
it. This is a really goodcast. Ben Mendelssohn, Amelia Clark.
You know, it's it's well directed, it's well shot, it's well acted.

(05:36):
It's an interesting world. Again,a lot of positive elements. But
if you look at this which Ithink it has been well received, I
think people are liking it. Icouldn't help but have this feeling of like,
is this what is good now?Is this what we're sort of happy
with? Is something that's like,yeah, it's pretty good, It's like,
it's not. I think about Irecently rewatched the first Mission Impossible film,

(06:00):
and I think the difference between thatfilm and some of the later Mission
Impossible films is relevant here. Thefirst Mission Impossible film is very nervy and
weird. It's a weird it's ithas a real edge to it, and
it's it's sort of yeah, it'slike left up, it's strange, it's
it's not it's not sort of cleanum. Where it's later films, there

(06:23):
is a generic quality to them,meaning that we're not really like exploring the
dark soul of Ethan hunts, right, We're just sort of it's it's fun,
it's action. The lines of who'sgood and who's bad, you know,
I think are mostly pretty clear.It's not it doesn't have that sort
of weird edge to it. Youknow, if you go back to the

(06:44):
First Mission Possible film. A lotof the lines of dialogue are really good,
and it has this sort of cynicismto it. I don't know,
it just has it feels like ithas more on its mind, is what
I'm saying. And and I feellike there was such opportunity for that here.
And it's not like you can't dothat within a genre show. I
mean, we just we just sawthat with Andor Right and Or very similar

(07:06):
situation where you're telling a show it'sa genre show, but it has opportunity
to comment on real world stuff.And and Or from episode one made choices
that you know, you could seethose things Ron's mind. And I think
the jury is still out on secretInvasion from what I understand. The second

(07:27):
episode also ends in a crazy way. And I'm going to get to the
spoiler now I've been teasing here ina second. So look, I want
to give them the benefit of thedown, right, because even Game of
Thrones, if you go back tothe Game of Thrones pilot, it's kind
of slow, like it was.I think I was on the fence where
I would watch another episode of Gameof Thrones, and the end of that
episode of the pilot was so crazy. You were like, all right,

(07:47):
I'm gonna watch another episode, andthen it really clicked into gear. So
you know, I've only seen thefirst episode. It is entirely possible that
this finds its footing in the secondepisode. That's pretty common, and I
think a lot of shows have thatsituation. It's very difficult to especially the
first half of the pilot, justcome out of the gate storm and hot
like that. That's not an easything to do. So I am cautiously

(08:11):
optimistic, but I would say thisis definitely a mixed recommendation. And now
I got to talk about what happensat the end of the pilot. So
if you haven't seen the pilot,stop listening, or if you haven't seen
it but you don't care, ifyou haven't spoiled, you can keep listening.
And if you have seen it,keep listening. Okay, end of
the pilot. So we have thissequence which is very reminded me a lot

(08:31):
of blowout actually kind of like abig crowd scene. And then Sam Jackson
shoots my name is Kobe Smolders.Great name. It's always hard for me
to remember exactly Kobe Smolders. Apologiesto Kobe Smolders. He has Kobe Smolders,
so he shoots her at the endof this pilot and then we obviously

(08:54):
it's a scrull that's you know,looking like him that did it. But
it's a big choice because the waythey set up the pilot, you expect
her to be an integral element ofthe show. Obviously, her character has
a long lineage in these Marvel properties. So it's a big choice and it
lands. It feels big, andit's it gives Sam something emotional now to

(09:18):
play going in episode two, whichhe kind of didn't really have that much
in episode one. So it's promising, you know. I like the choice.
I also I wonder if it's almostlike, you know, Marvel now,
it's been going on for so long, I'm sure some of these actors
are ready to like do other things. So I wonder if it's like,
you know, if you're the Marvelexecutive, You're like, all right,
well, these seven actors are tiredof doing Marvel movies. Let's just bring

(09:41):
them in the Secret Invasion for anepisode to kill them off. I do
wonder if that might be part ofthe calculus there. But yeah, look,
I'm definitely gonna watch another episode.I love Sam Jackson. I want
to see Sam Jackson fly and bethe focus of a series. And I
gotta think that it was just thatkind of wobbly first half of the pilot,

(10:03):
you know. I gotta give hima mull again for that. So
I'm hopeful we'll see what episode twois like. I'm very curious to know
what you think. Did you enjoySecret Invasion? Do you think it came
out the gate strong? You thinkyou showed up on the fence. You
can always reach me at benamore Danon Twitter, watch The Night on Instagram,
watch The Night podcast on TikTok,or you can join on our Facebook
group. That is the episode fortoday. Thank you so much for listening.

(10:26):
Until next time, Bye bye,