Television

‘Invincible’ season 2 episode 5 ‘This Must Come as a Shock’ recap/review

‘Invincible’ follows up its midseason finale with an episode that’s somehow even more explosive.

March 14, 2024

When Invincible hit the halfway point of its second season last fall, we were left with a number of huge cliffhangers:

Nolan/Omni Man was defeated and captured by the Viltrumites, who plan to execute them. They’ve also informed Mark/Invincible that he must now take over his dad’s mission of preparing Earth for their conquest. If he doesn’t, they’ll slaughter millions.
Before being taken away, Nolan tells Mark to read the science fiction books he wrote back on Earth.

Mark has a new half-brother.
Eve/Atom Eve has begun to doubt her ability to be a superhero — so much so that she’s willingly moved back in with her terrible parents.
Donald Ferguson finally figured out that he may not be completely human.

Angstrom Levy is still portaling through dimensions on a quest to kill the version of Mark/Invincible that we all know and love. He also still blames him for his freak accident, which is both tragic and frustrating.
Allen the Alien may have been lethally betrayed by someone he thought was an ally.
Deborah Grayson is ready to move past her grief.

The Sequids are coming to Earth.

Got all that? Good, because things pick up right where they left off back in November. As always, the recap portion of this review will contain plenty of spoilers. The sequence of events has also been streamlined a bit for the sake of clarity.

Hard Reckoning, Soft Landing

Invincible (Amazon Studios)

The Thraxans take the badly injured Invincible back to their capital city, where Andressa thanks him for saving her and her son. She’s devastated that Nolan was taken, but endeavors to move forward.

Over the next several weeks, Mark helps the Thraxans rebuild while they work on prepping a ship to take him home. When it’s time to leave, Andressa asks Mark to take his brother with him. Due to her people’s short lifespans, the boy would soon be without a mother — or anyone, really. Mark is understandably daunted at the request, but agrees to do it.

When Mark returns, Deborah is thrilled to see her son after his two-month absence. Her joy is quickly overshadowed, however, at the sight of her son’s purple half-brother — especially once she learns the little boy’s backstory. Mark offers to quit college and look after him, but Deborah says she’ll take some time off work while they figure things out.

Invincible (Amazon Studios)

Over at the Global Defense Agency, Donald finally decides to confront Cecil about being turned into a robot. When Cecil attempts to put him off, Donald has an uncharacteristic outburst and demands everyone leave the room. Once everyone clears out (and Donald reveals his cybernetic arm), Cecil admits that they kept his still-functioning brain/consciousness alive inside a robotic body after he “died” during the Omni Man attack.

Suffice it to say, Donald doesn’t take the news well. The pair are about to throw down with each other when they’re interrupted by the news that Mark has returned to Earth.

Intrusive Thoughts

Invincible (Amazon Studios)

Mark heads over to Upstate University, where his best friend/roommate Will reveals that he’s been placed on academic probation after being gone for so long. While that may not have been a surprise, Mark is shocked when he rounds the corner and finds Cecil glaring at him like an angry retail manager.

After the expected back-and-forth, Cecil reveals that the Guardians of the Globe nearly died saving the planet from a villain named Ominipotus — a battle which is also shown in a pair of brief flashbacks. During one of these, we see that Black Samson caught a glimpse of Shapesmith briefly shifting into his true Martian form.

*Side Note: Shapesmith would know what a Martian looks like since he fought alongside Martian Man, one of the deceased Guardians.

Things become even more tense when Mark deduces that Cecil and the GDA have been monitoring his mother and already know about his half-brother. They plan to take the little boy away, but Mark strongly insists that they don’t. Cecil agrees before cracking a remark about how much Deborah will enjoy looking after the child of her monstrous ex-husband.

Mark then goes to see Amber, who is in the middle of a study session with her new college friends. Following their awkward introduction and departure, he tells his girlfriend about the crazy events and revelations from the last two months. Amber reluctantly tells him about how she’s struggled in school since her grandfather passed. Mark is immediately wracked with guilt, but Amber assures her boyfriend that she knows what she signed on for — and that she still loves him.

Back in the Game

Invincible (Amazon Studios)

During a Guardians of the Globe training session, Robot becomes frustrated when the Immortal appears indifferent to Monster Girl using her powers (which causes her to age in reverse). Understandably, Monster Girl doesn’t appreciate being talked about as if she doesn’t have any awareness/agency. She rips into Robot for overstepping his boundaries, explains that she can make decisions about her own well-being, and storms off.

Just as Rex Splode starts making fun of Robot, Cecil appears to inform them about a potentially hostile ship from Mars that’s headed toward Earth. Black Samson uses the opportunity to point out that Shapesmith likely has valuable intel that could help them…and that he’s been hiding who he really is.

This revelation turns out to be a bit anticlimactic since Cecil and the rest of the Guardians already figured it out. It also leads to Shapeshift explaining a bit more about the backstory of his people, who used Sequids as slaves since the creatures couldn’t penetrate their skin. Shapeshift then reveals how he knocked out Rus Livingston during the recent NASA Mars mission and took on his form, thus allowing him to fulfill his lifelong dream of exploring the stars. This also allowed the Sequids to overtake the real Rus Livingston, thus providing them with the host they needed to overtake the Martians.

And now they’re on their way to Earth.

Cecil promises that Shapesmith will face the music for his selfish choices and their destructive consequences. For now, though, he and a strike team will intercept the Martian ship and stop the Sequids from reaching Earth. It’s a nearly impossible task, but Rex Splode has an idea that may significantly increase the odds in their favor.

Invincible (Amazon Studios)

Rex visits Eve at her parents’ home and gives a surprisingly heartfelt pep talk. Although she’s moved by his words into being a superhero again, she rightfully deduces that her old boyfriend also needs something.

Meanwhile, Mark comes home to find his mother having typical picky eater struggles with his half-brother. He also learns that Deborah gave most of Nolan’s books away to charity. As he’s explaining what his father said before getting taken away by the Viltrumites, Cecil shows up and tells Mark that he’s needed to stop the Sequids. Cecil also attempts to convince Deborah to let his organization look after Nolan’s alien child, but both she and Mark firmly refuse.

After telling an extremely disappointed-yet-understanding Amber that he’s going again, Invincible heads off to join the Guardians on their mission. He’s not thrilled about it, but becomes considerably happier when Atom Eve also shows up.

As the strike force departs Earth, Rex cracks a joke to Dupli-Kate and Shrinking Rae about how unlikely it’ll be that something big will come up that requires them to handle it. Sure enough, the next scene features the Lizard League (back under the command of King Lizard) breaking into a nuclear launch facility.

Worst Case Scenarios

Invincible (Amazon Studios)

As the strike force approaches the Martian ship, it detects them and fires several missiles. The Guardians’ craft is destroyed, but Eve is able to save everyone by creating a shield. She’s also able to get them inside the alien ship, where they encounter many of the imprisoned Martians. Although they’re justifiably ticked at seeing Shapesmith again, the Immortal tells them that he and his team are there to help.

Right on cue, Bulletproof kills a random Sequid, which alerts the rest of the hivemind of their location. This leads to an incredible fight sequence that once again requires Atom Eve to save everyone with an energy shield. While she struggles to hold back the avalanche of Sequids, Rudy gets out of his Robot suit and begins wiring a neuron bomb that could potentially stun all of the Sequids at once. Eve tries her best to keep the shield together, but is eventually forced to relent, allowing a tidal wave of Sequids to rush over her teammates.

Back at the nuclear launch facility, King Lizard instructs his minions to wait for the military to arrive so they can force them to meet whatever demands they have. Rex, Dupli-Kate, and Shrinking Rae arrive and engage them. Despite typically being pushovers, the Lizard League quickly gains the upper hand — with Komodo Dragon even managing to kill Duplicate before she can create more copies of herself.

Shrinking Rae manages to kill Salamander, but is eaten by Komodo Dragon. Rex Splode kills Iguana, but has his hand bitten off by Komodo Dragon, which causes the massive villain’s head to explode. As Rex laughs and cries in pain, King Lizard walks up and puts a gun to the back of his head.

In a post-credits scene, Allen the Alien awakens to discover that he’s not dead. In fact, he’s bigger and stronger than ever. Thadeus appears and reveals that he originally cut Allen’s life support off to see if his healing process would exponentially increase his strength to the point that he could face off with a Viltrumite — a risk/theory that turned out to be correct.

Thaddeus then reveals that he is also a Viltrumite. He was the only one to rebel against his people, but there could be another if Allen can recruit Invincible to fight alongside them.

The Verdict

Invincible (Amazon Studios)

If you thought the midseason finale cliffhanger was something, this packed even more of a punch.

I’m not one of those people who thinks they’re too good for superheroes from Marvel and DC (Spider-Man is my lifetime/consistent favorite), but one storytelling advantage this franchise has is how so many beloved characters can die. Even if you’ve read the comics, then you know things haven’t always played out in a 1:1 manner. The two cliffhangers in “This Must Come as a Shock” make you genuinely fearful for the protagonists…at least the ones who are still alive.

Those moments were also earned by some excellent narrative work. With the Sequid plot, we saw Eve rejoin the team (albeit temporarily) and reunite with Mark only to not be able to save her friends. Meanwhile, Rex earned just enough sympathy to rip you apart when he starts proclaiming “This isn’t happening!”

In addition to the great writing, the animation carries its part of things exceptionally well. Invincible receives a lot of praise for subverting the superhero genre, but it also goes all out on the brilliant fight/action sequences.

There were some smaller moments I wish we’d seen — like more of Mark’s time on Thraxa or what Amber and Will have had to go through while Mark was gone. I know that would’ve likely slowed the episode’s pace too much, but those aspects of the narrative still left a noticeable gap. It should also be noted that the post-credit scene’s revelations felt both too easy and plainly obvious.

Thankfully, the rest of this chapter was absolutely superb. If this is an indicator of how the second half of Invincilbe’s second season is going to go, then we’re in for a great ride.

Next Episode: ‘It’s Not That Simple’