After the potential horrible ending of the third episode, the fourth episode of Secret Invasion had a lot of potential to be something either truly horrible or truly amazing. The fourth episode failed to be either and highlights another problem that the MCU has with their TV shows.

The grand plot is that the Skrull are invading Earth in secret and Gravik is leading the charge, but for the first few episodes he just sort of sat around, letting others do things. In the third episode he finally got his hands dirty, at least directly and while that was a shocking twist, the show completely undid the ending. Now I have no issues with people not dying, but there was nothing in the previous episodes to indicate that G’iah had snuck in and used the equipment. Yes we saw her doing some investigations in the second episode, but that was it and the hole, she did things in the background, just undercuts any tension they had built. Gravik shooting her and then leaving her body behind is also a silly thing, but she wouldn’t come back until much later if he was sticking around.

The other nugget that dropped at the end of episode 3 was that James Rhodes was a Skrull, or at least connected to Gravik in some fashion. Getting confirmation at the start of this episode was nice, if only because it just removed the entire “is he really” question. Of course, that leaves a lot of questions around when he was replaced, was it prior to Civil War, Endgame, that question has some much larger impacts on the entire MCU. The conversation with Skrohdy and Crilla was quite funny, because we got to see a character we know act quite differently. It also paired quite nicely with the conversation that Fury and Skrohdy and the subtle play the two had over a bottle of booze. The final moments of the episode, during the attack, the single shot of Skhrody sitting in the car as the action raged on around him, was quite funny.

Of course, Fury was pivotal to the episode, discovering that the woman/skrull he loves is actually working against him and was all set to kill him, it would shake a man to the core. Seeing him and Talos willing to risk it all, in order to ensure that war does not break out, there is something encouraging about that. Where the final moments fell over for me though, is that with just how easy Talos fell, sure he got shot, but we have seen the Skrull take many shots before dying. Seeing Talos lose control of his camo ability was interesting, if only because the visual impact was quite fun, but dying was not. Now I would be more concerned about the death, if Marvel didn’t do the exact same ending in the previous episode. Sure Talos is unlikely to have Extremis healing powers to save him like G’iah did, but until we get confirmation, his death is on hold for me.

All of those moments together should have felt like a more dangerous combination of events, a fake Russian ambush of the US President, the reveal of James Rhodes being a Skrull and even Fury losing the love of his life and best friend within the space of a few hours. The problem is that each time there was some semblance of danger or a threat to a character, the show just cut away to another plot point. Marvel has done this in most of their shows, characters are never in real danger, which is why the death of Maria was so impactful, but that is one moment out of hundreds. There is clearly bigger issues at play, stretching out a 2 hour movie to 4 hours of television never works, it hasn’t before and isn’t here. I recently finished watching Season 4 of Jack Ryan and that show delivered on the suspense and drama that a spy show needs. Watching this in parallel just means that when the show fails to keep its tension or mystery going, stands out compared to the show that did.

Secret Invasion episode 4 had some big moments, the problem is that those moments are never given the time to percolate and reward people for investing. G’iah being killed was impactful, undercutting all of that with a flashback to her mysterious power acquisition means that for the tension they built, they just pulled the rug out from under the viewers. The show started off strong, but has quickly become a bit long in the tooth and while the mystery of the main goal has been stated, given the shows frequency of making random changes, there is likely more at play. With only two episodes to go, there is a lot that can happen, but whether those moments make a lasting impact, only time will tell.