With the reveal that Nick Fury had a wife, or a Skrife, given she is a Skrull, there was clearly going to be some answers that were needed in this latest episode. Sadly however, we did not get much beyond a clandestine meeting in the 1990s. From there, it seemed that events were escalating very quickly, but was it a well thought out plan, or one that felt to rushed?

A warning for those reading past this point, there will be slight spoilers, around names and locations, but there won’t be anything specific regarding plot details.

While having the show open with Fury meeting with his Skrull love, or at least his Skrull booty call at that time was interesting and when it just ended, I found myself confused. What was the point of that? If it was to show how they met, then good job, if it was to establish that she had a fondness for breaking rules when she wanted something, then good job there as well. The problem is that the scene wasn’t really much of anything, it wouldn’t be until much later in the episode that things made sense. While payoffs are welcome, the scene didn’t really feel like it was setting the scene for anything to special, which is a shame as it could have been something fun. Seeing the juxtaposition of the pair in the modern time, was something nice, but it seems that domesticated bliss was not in the cards for Fury. While the pair had a heated conversation about Fury’s repeating vanishing, Blip related and not, a phone call broke up the conversation, giving Fury a reason to be suspicious.

It was at this point that things started to speed up and then made little sense, which is not a great space to be in for a spy show. Gravik and G’iah having a heart to heart about the loyalty of Brogan, who was tortured and then killed off in the last episode seemed a little tense, only for G’iah to convince the mad leader of her loyalty. While I always appreciate a good tense traitor sniffing moment, they are usually undercut by someone clearly lying, but here that was not the case. I give both Emilia Clark and Kingsley Ben-Adir big props for playing it so calmly and while we the audience knew that G’iah was the traitor, it seems Gravik was convinced otherwise. Learning that the meeting that Talos requested in the previous episode was set to take place, was interesting, as we had just seen Gravik talking about his plan to trigger an event that would summon heroes and then the Skrull would become super.

Given how the comic series had a lot of mystery around who was a Skrull, especially when the heroes were involved, I had hoped that the show was going to avoid that plot line. Nothing against it, it was a fantastic series and really shook things up, but the last thing I wanted to see here was a Skrull pretending to be a hero and being able to replicate the abilities as well. Which is why it was an interesting moment when Talos stabbed Gravik and then we got to see him heal, with the Extremis power that first appeared in Iron Man 3. There is a chance that the Skrull on the council also got powers, given the scene with them near the machine, but we won’t know for sure for a while.

The reason that things felt off for me is that Fury had obtained intel that a high level American replaced person was in London and that led to the events they were going to. The problem is that we have no idea how he got that intel, given that he was off planet for years, his spy network was disbanded and his last human support Maria Hill was taken out. Now it might be one of those things where we will get a flashback later on in the series that explains it, but for now it’s a plot hole that makes no sense. Of course the final moments of the show, with Priscilla doing her attempt at a spy obtaining something from a box, explodes the MCU with questions, if that voice is who Fury was referring to, that makes how he found out even more important.

The other plot line, the Skrull infiltrating a British submarine was intriguing and would have made for a nice season long plot, but given its abrupt ending, it clearly wasn’t meant to be anything too special. That of course lead to the red herring of the week with G’iah being shot. Now that could go either way, so I won’t speculate on the potential, I will just say though that with that and the voice on the phone, the show could really do something fun.

Secret Invasion isn’t setting the world on fire like I had hoped it would, yes there are threats and yes there are evils lurking in the shadows, but it feels like a PG spy thriller more than a dangerous one. Seeing Fury and Talos somewhat bury the hatchet was nice, but it would have been better if they had of actually made progress repairing their splintered friendship. Having Gravik discover the traitor so quickly was interesting, but it felt a little forced and of course G’iah being shot made for a potentially intriguing twist. Given we are now half way through the season, the show really needs to amp things up and provide a reason to make this super spy feel like he is super spry, because right now the show, much like its main character is limping.