S01.E06: Home

[Stardancer Supreme]

After sitting in this episode for a while, I can now say that this show disappointed me. For every loose thread tied sloppily, there were far more unraveled ones that might be possibly be handled in The Marvels?

They just shot the MCU continuity fairy in the face.  So Rhodey was snatched from the hospital as he recovered from Civil War? Was the Agent Ross we see in Wakanda Forever a Skrull or did he get snatched while on the road with Okoye? Of all of the world leaders that were replaced, Gravik decided to leave the US President alone? You would think that one of the bigger world powers you should have in your pocket, no?  There was only 2 "important" MCU characters who were replaced? 

Told y'all we wasn't going to see Carol or any of the other Avengers.

Ugh. I don't want to think too much on this show or I will pick it to pieces.

[Chicago Redshirt]

There are a couple reasons I could see why the Skrulls might not try to replace the President.

1. It could be too risky to try to get the President alone and try to make the swap. A president almost always will have an entourage of people watching them, and for a long con to work, you have to spirit him away to a lair where he can be put in a pod so that the infiltrator can access his memories. 

2. Even if making the swap were feasible, there's a risk of exposure. If a bad-luck injury or something were to reveal the infiltrator's nature, it would put the world on alert more if the President were revealed to be a Skrull more than a close advisor, even an Avenger like Rhodey.

3. One plan that the Skrulls seemed to have to set WWIII off was by having it seem like the Russians assassinated the President. So for that plan to work, you need actual dead President since a Skrull corpse would revert to its true form. And there's no point in replacing someone you're going to have killed. Better to have someone close to him to step into the vacuum you've created.

[Affogato]

Fury comes across here as a real villain. Self centered, petty. He used the skrulls, including actual children as assassins (not just stuffing envelopes for the fundraising banquet), to further himself in his position in Shield. I assume he left them on their own during the Hydra thing but called upon them to gather the Harvest, which was a violation of the Avengers, since it was certainly done without their knowledge.  I'm also unclear, at this time, what fury's job is going forward and why anyone currently would think he was a key player. Maybe the Kree don't know any better. Sophia, G'iah and possibly Varra have kind of written him off, I think.

G'iah probably went to meet with Gravik to tell him he was right and to get incredible world ending superpowers.

Who were the bodies lying on those gurneys?

 

4 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

3. One plan that the Skrulls seemed to have to set WWIII off was by having it seem like the Russians assassinated the President. So for that plan to work, you need actual dead President since a Skrull corpse would revert to its true form. And there's no point in replacing someone you're going to have killed. Better to have someone close to him to step into the vacuum you've created.

Now would be a really good time for someone to kill him, preferably someone human.

 

[Raja]

14 minutes ago, Affogato said:

Fury comes across here as a real villain. Self centered, petty. He used the skrulls, including actual children as assassins (not just stuffing envelopes for the fundraising banquet), to further himself in his position in Shield. I assume he left them on their own during the Hydra thing but called upon them to gather the Harvest, which was a violation of the Avengers, since it was certainly done without their knowledge.  I'm also unclear, at this time, what fury's job is going forward and why anyone currently would think he was a key player.

That has been in question since the helicarrier came back in The Age of Ultron and then the  Whedons were pushed out.  Spider-Man Far From Home and the Infinity War post credits certainly point to Fury having power and know to the public despite S.H.I.E.L.D.  being gone.

 

Going forward he seems to be the human neutral face, with a Skrull wife, of Skrull and Kree talks while one of the most powerful nations on Earth along with Wakanda and the New Asgardians natural abilities leading a fight to hunt down Skrulls, and "all aliens" 😲  Earth.

[Affogato]

32 minutes ago, Raja said:

That has been in question since the helicarrier came back in The Age of Ultron and then the  Whedons were pushed out.  Spider-Man Far From Home and the Infinity War post credits certainly point to Fury having power and know to the public despite S.H.I.E.L.D.  being gone.

 

Going forward he seems to be the human neutral face, with a Skrull wife, of Skrull and Kree talks while one of the most powerful nations on Earth along with Wakanda and the New Asgardians natural abilities leading a fight to hunt down Skrulls, and "all aliens" 😲  Earth.

Rhodey fired him as head of SABRE, so I assume at some point he was put in charge of SABRE, one might theorize as an attempt by powerful Skrull to get him off Earth. That would put him in that position as a diplomat and negotiator, but I'm sure they can find someone better suited to the task. I suspect Varra will end up with Sophia and G'iah as the girl team set to right earth, although I'm really not sure who they are fighting for. I still have a suspicion sophia may end up being a Kree.

[paigow]

Everyone typing Sophia MEANS Sonya... Right?

[Morrigan2575]

That was massively disappointing.  The whole series was meh but the finale just sucked.  The fight scene was ridiculous, especially how they managed to cycle through everyone's powers masterfully without any issues.

We now have a Skrull that is probably the most powerful being in the universe. 🙄

I was really looking forward to it even after bland/block of wood Emelia Clark was cast but, it was a major letdown.

As others have said, the best parts were Olivia Coleman as Sonya and, Telos/Fury's friendship. 

ETA: Who had the ice power? Was trying to figure out the Ice Sword 

Edited July 29, 2023 by Morrigan2575

[Raja]

49 minutes ago, Morrigan2575 said:

 

ETA: Who had the ice power? Was trying to figure out the Ice Sword 

The theory is that the ice beast that crashed to earth in Thor 2 might have the genetic abilities of the Frost Giants. Crossing over to CSI maybe some blood transferred to Thor and some Skrull S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent collected it as part of the harvest 

[Kel Varnsen]

Man Fury kind of sucked in this. Where was the guy from Winter Soldier who was many steps ahead of anyone and pretty much willing to do anything needed to get the results he wanted. Ok sure the blip changed him, but even if it changed his personality it shouldn't have made him stupid. All he did pretty much this whole series was react to what other people were doing.

And I am still annoyed by the crappy excuse as to why Fury and CM couldn't find the Skrulls a home. That planet that Thanos retired on was right there. And Carol knows about it. Not to mention why are the Kree just coming to the table for treaty talks now. What the hell has Carol been doing for 30 years?

Also one weird little thing, I noticed that when fake Rhodey got shot, there was purple blood on the wall before his body shifted back to normal form. I get it is a cool looking visual but it kind of suggests that to find out if someone is a Skrull you just have to draw some blood.

On 7/27/2023 at 12:42 PM, Affogato said:

Fury comes across here as a real villain. Self centered, petty. He used the skrulls, including actual children as assassins (not just stuffing envelopes for the fundraising banquet), to further himself in his position in Shield. 

That is actually the kind of Fury I wish we had seen more of in this show. It's the same guy who ordered Natasha to blow up a building to kill one guy, even though it meant killing kids. 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Kel Varnsen

[Linderhill]

1 hour ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Also one weird little thing, I noticed that when fake Rhodey got shot, there was purple blood on the wall before his body shifted back to normal form. I get it is a cool looking visual but it kind of suggests that to find out if someone is a Skrull you just have to draw some blood.

exactly my thought.  Maybe its from 15 years of watching Supernatural with regular tests to check for demon possession, shapeshifter or leviathan presence, it just seems like there was a easier of detecting Skrulls.  Sam and Dean regularly sliced open their arms or hands, easier than cutting off fingers or guessing.  Fury should have kept Goose the flerkin since they can apparently tell who is a Skrull too. 

[Raja]

1 minute ago, Linderhill said:

Maybe its from 15 years of watching Supernatural with regular tests to check for demon possession, shapeshifter or leviathan presence, it just seems like there was a easier of detecting Skrulls.  Sam and Dean regularly sliced open their arms or hands, easier than cutting off fingers or guessing.  Fury should have kept Goose the flerkin since they can apparently tell who is a Skrull too.

My frame of reference would be Star Trek Deep Space 9 and their war against the shapeshifters who went much further than Skrulls could, at least visually with no mind reading technology. The Klingon method of just taking blood seemed humane compared to Sonya kneecapping  and traumatically amputating body parts. I wonder if she was ever wrong like the vigilantes who assassinated the actual Prime Minister

[greekmom]

Ok just so i am clear, who were in those pods? Skrulls learning to be human??

[Morrigan2575]

58 minutes ago, greekmom said:

Ok just so i am clear, who were in those pods? Skrulls learning to be human??

Kidnapped humans, meaning there were more skrulls placed in key positions 

[Kel Varnsen]

17 hours ago, Morrigan2575 said:

Kidnapped humans, meaning there were more skrulls placed in key positions 

 

Which itself is kind of weird since if the Skulls meant business so much that they wanted to start a global nuclear war, why not just kill the hostages. Keeping them alive just increases the risk that one gets free and blows up your whole plan. Like they are good with killing millions of humans, but Rhodey and Shooter McGavin, we won't kill you.

But this show had a lot of stupid and this episode was no exception. Which is too bad since I was really hoping it would be the MCU version of Andor. Because thinking about the big fight at the end, I can accept that Fury might have gathered all those DNA samples after various battles. But why would you keep them in one mixed up sample like some kind of super DNA fruit punch. 

Plus once the Gravik had the sample how did the Skrull computer know who's DNA was in it. It seems like to do that you would need another DNA sample to compare it to. In which case why did they need the one from Fury?

Edited July 31, 2023 by Kel Varnsen

[tennisgurl]

So the writers of this show said "remember that false ending at the end of She-Hulk where they were making fun of big stupid CGI fight scenes? Lets do that, but seriously!" I feel really bad because I very much consider myself a Marvel apologist who will find things to like in just about everything they put out and has overall really enjoyed their Disney+ shows, but this was just really bad. It had so much potential and some good parts, mostly Talos/Fury banter and Sonya being awesome, plus some decent characterization for Fury, but everything just fell apart. I don't even hate this show, I really just do not care. I actually forgot about it for awhile and didn't watch until almost a week later, that's how little I care. 

We finally get some actual insight into Gravik's motivations, which could have been really useful for the rest of the show as he has cackled away throughout the whole show, although its pretty rich watching him rant about how much he hates that Fury got him to kill a guy who had a family when he is about to kill MANY people with families along with their families. This whole conflict just doesn't make sense to me and it never had. I can guess and try to fill in the holes, but I really shouldn't have to use my imagination to understand the very premise of the entire show. Why was it impossible for Fury to find a planet for the Skrulls to go on? Why did they have to live in secret when humans have been used to alien for years? Why did they jump so quickly to Kill All Humans just because they're mad at two particular humans? This whole conflict just feels so contrived, especially for where we are in the cannon of the MCU.

The ending is giving me some very bad Supergirl flashbacks as we head into a "evil politicians and angry mobs attack aliens in obvious metaphor" situation, which I hope the show walks back soon because it sounds so not interesting, especially in the way its being handled in this episode. I know that the president announcing that all aliens are bad now and should be shot on sight is a terrible idea, but I certainly wouldn't blame people for being wary of Skrulls. They did manage to infiltrate multiple governments and they did try to wipe out all life on Earth so that they can take over, not helped by the fact that we hardly saw any Skrulls that weren't down with this genocide plan. The only Skrulls we saw being really against it was Talos (and his dead offscreen wife) and the one woman on the Skrull counsel. Even G'iah only turned against the plan when it directly affected her family, not because she decides that killing people is bad. No one comes off as all that likable here, not the president who's condoning murders or the Skrulls who tried to commit even more murders. 

I guess this means that G'iah is the most powerful person on the planet, whatever. I cant believe we exchanged Maria and Talos for her, I was so hoping that they would be revealed to be alive but of course not. I'm also really disappointed that only two people (who we already knew were Skrulls) we know are actually Skrulls, this was a great opportunity to really shake things up and they just blew it. I hope that Rhodney hasn't been a Shrull for too long, it would really suck if all of those great moments he had in Endgame weren't him and that someone has to tell him that his best friend is dead. 

When I see Kingsley Ben-Adir now, all I can see is Alien Invasion Ken. 

Edited July 31, 2023 by tennisgurl

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 7/29/2023 at 7:46 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

Man Fury kind of sucked in this. Where was the guy from Winter Soldier who was many steps ahead of anyone and pretty much willing to do anything needed to get the results he wanted. Ok sure the blip changed him, but even if it changed his personality it shouldn't have made him stupid. All he did pretty much this whole series was react to what other people were doing.

And I am still annoyed by the crappy excuse as to why Fury and CM couldn't find the Skrulls a home. That planet that Thanos retired on was right there. And Carol knows about it. Not to mention why are the Kree just coming to the table for treaty talks now. What the hell has Carol been doing for 30 years?

Also one weird little thing, I noticed that when fake Rhodey got shot, there was purple blood on the wall before his body shifted back to normal form. I get it is a cool looking visual but it kind of suggests that to find out if someone is a Skrull you just have to draw some blood.

To be fair, Fury wasn't many steps ahead of Hydra in Winter Soldier. He was in fact many steps behind them for most of the movie. He didn't know that Hydra existed. He didn't know that Project Insight was a near-genocidal project that would have wiped out a large number of trouble-makers and didn't see any potential problem with the next-gen helicarriers having the armaments that they would until a) Steve pointed out that it's pretty sus on its face and b) Hydra turned on them. 

If you take away his mystique and the cool points he gets by being played by SLJ and focus on what Fury is shown knowing/doing, MCU Fury's high points are a) bringing together and manipulating the Avengers b) surviving an assassination attempt on his life in Winter Soldier c) helping provide support to the Avengers in Age of Ultron and...that's about it. 

As far as we know, Fury and SHIELD were non-factors in Civil War, had no idea that Wakanda was anything more than a simple African country one step above poverty until Black Panther revealed the truth, had no idea that Draykov survived Widow's assassination attempt AND built up over the next 10 years a massive network of Widows, did not pick up either the fake Mandarin from Iron Man 3 or the real Mandarin from Shang-Chi, had no idea that there's an underwater nation with tons of vibranium...I'm sure there are other lapses in knowledge that it would seem Fury/SHIELD must have had for the various movies and series to work.

I wish the show had explicitly and truly said why Fury and Carol apparently did zippo to find a home. There was the explanation from Gi'ah-Fury that he knew early on that it was not possible, but it's unclear if that is something he told her to say, something she just guessed and believes to be true, something she made up on the fly, or what. It's meaningful (to me anyway) if Fury was definitely conning them from early on, if Fury made efforts to find them a planet but got discouraged at some point, if Fury was continuing to make efforts to find a planet but things were just going slower than ideal, or what. Similarly, what was involved in finding them a planet? Is it just finding them a place with a Skrull-friendly atmosphere that is uninhabited? Was there a political dimension to it? Are the Kree still at war with the Skrulls in the 2020s? Are the million Skrull refugees on Earth all the Skrulls there are? How many Skrulls are there? A better series would have at least touched on some of these issues. We don't know if the planet Thanos was on, or any planet, could sustain 1 million Skrulls, let alone (if the Skrull population is roughly that of Earth's humans, which I would have to imagine it would be) nearly 8 billion.

Yes, they have the out that Skrulls cannot maintain human form when injured, and their blood becomes apparently alien when it is shed. But absent inflicting injury, unless the president was not just bluffing, we have not been shown a way to easily detect a Skrull from a human. And injuring someone until they bleed isn't exactly convenient.

23 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

 

Which itself is kind of weird since if the Skulls meant business so much that they wanted to start a global nuclear war, why not just kill the hostages. Keeping them alive just increases the risk that one gets free and blows up your whole plan. Like they are good with killing millions of humans, but Rhodey and Shooter McGavin, we won't kill you.

But this show had a lot of stupid and this episode was no exception. Which is too bad since I was really hoping it would be the MCU version of Andor. Because thinking about the big fight at the end, I can accept that Fury might have gathered all those DNA samples after various battles. But why would you keep them in one mixed up sample like some kind of super DNA fruit punch. 

Plus once the Gravik had the sample how did the Skrull computer know who's DNA was in it. It seems like to do that you would need another DNA sample to compare it to. In which case why did they need the one from Fury?

The reason to keep them alive is that the Skrulls need them alive to continue to do good job of impersonating them. The machines apparently allow the Skrulls to draw on the humans' memories so that they can then fool longtime friends and family of the real humans for long-term imitations and replacements. 

I guess we just have to handwave that in addition to the actual samples of the Avengers and others, the Harvest also contained a map of what was in each sample that the Skrull computer could read. 

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

This whole conflict just doesn't make sense to me and it never had. I can guess and try to fill in the holes, but I really shouldn't have to use my imagination to understand the very premise of the entire show. Why was it impossible for Fury to find a planet for the Skrulls to go on? Why did they have to live in secret when humans have been used to alien for years? Why did they jump so quickly to Kill All Humans just because they're mad at two particular humans? This whole conflict just feels so contrived, especially for where we are in the cannon of the MCU.

The ending is giving me some very bad Supergirl flashbacks as we head into a "evil politicians and angry mobs attack aliens in obvious metaphor" situation, which I hope the show walks back soon because it sounds so not interesting, especially in the way its being handled in this episode. I know that the president announcing that all aliens are bad now and should be shot on sight is a terrible idea, but I certainly wouldn't blame people for being wary of Skrulls. They did manage to infiltrate multiple governments and they did try to wipe out all life on Earth so that they can take over, not helped by the fact that we hardly saw any Skrulls that weren't down with this genocide plan. The only Skrulls we saw being really against it was Talos (and his dead offscreen wife) and the one woman on the Skrull counsel. Even G'iah only turned against the plan when it directly affected her family, not because she decides that killing people is bad. No one comes off as all that likable here, not the president who's condoning murders or the Skrulls who tried to commit even more murders. 

I too wish they had developed things more and dislike that they leave it to us, the fans, to extrapolate from their germs of ideas. But here I go:

Earth is aware generally of the existence of aliens, but most of their awareness is confined to "bad" aliens -- ones like the Chitauri, the Dark Elves maybe, Thanos and his minions who do not look like us humans and who have posed a threat to Earth. Yes, they are aware that Thor and the Asgardians are aliens. But they are generally good aliens, and he and his people look like us even if they are not human. The average human probably is unaware or under-aware of good aliens who look non-human like Rocket and Groot, and bad aliens who look human like Loki or certain of the Kree.

The Skrulls' cry to want to be able to live somewhere "in their skin" is one that resonates with me. At the same time, it makes sense to me that Fury would not have suggested that they reveal themselves before the Battle of NY, because as he alluded to in this series, particularly as a Black man, he knew how humans would have reacted to the notion of people from other planets with different skin. And after, it was doubly important because even after the notion of alien life existing had been breached, the notion that it was that particular form of alien would be extra scary after the only well-known aliens had represented a threat. 

I don't think the jump to "Kill All Humans" was so quick, and I don't think it's just because they are mad at Carol and Fury. It's been basically 30 years in MCU time since Skrulls came to Earth. That's a long time for absolutely no progress as far as we know in finding Skrulls a forever home. And during the 30 years, the Skrulls have had a chance to learn about human history plus had a front-row seat at some of humanity's behavior. They've seen and heard about plenty to come to the conclusion that humanity's self-destructive anyways, so might as well speed up the process and get a forever home. 

And it makes sense to me that a charismatic and twisted/psychologically damaged leader could and would attempt to play on that. But it also would have been better to have shown more of the politics from the Skrull side of things. Like it seems like there are probably better alternatives than "Let's usher in WWIII!" that Talos or someone else should have put forward and some more display of why it seems like a majority of Skrulls weren't willing to consider them, or why they weren't willing to just carve out a home in irradiated Russia or really, wherever they wanted. Given their advanced tech, their shapeshifting abilities and the fact that very few people know of their existence, there have to be a half-dozen ways to carve out a better life for all million of them than killing 8 billion people.

And even if you accept that "hey, might as well kill 8 billion people" is an objective that it makes sense for Skrulls to pursue, there's really no need for them to go for this Rube Goldbergesque version of the plan of escalating tensions a little here, a little there, and hope that the humans eventually nuke each other enough to wipe themselves out. 

They could simply capture/impersonate enough people at enough nuclear powers simultaneously to order those strikes or create meltdowns immediately. There's really not much that Fury or SHIELD or whatever intelligence agencies could do if the bad guys just decided "OK next week, we're going to cause a bunch of nuclear meltdowns at plans globally."

Thanks for bringing up Supergirl. TBH, I hadn't made a connection between that particular brand of anvil-dropping of "aliens are illegal immigrants and they are good" and this show. Then again, I was distracted by other issues with the show. And I would say as mediocre as these writers are, they occasionally had their moments and were generally better than those on Supergirl (or at least, were less one-dimensional with their politics.)

[Kel Varnsen]

39 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

To be fair, Fury wasn't many steps ahead of Hydra in Winter Soldier. He was in fact many steps behind them for most of the movie. He didn't know that Hydra existed.

Well he did better there than he did in this show. He knew something was up since he contracted those mercenaries to hijack the SHIELD ship. And he knew at a certain point he needed to talk to Steve in private. Plus his SUV had better security features than his damn house.

I did also see it pointed out somewhere how it was kind of dumb that Fury didn't want any Avengers fighting his battles for him, but he was ok with getting G'iah to fight his battle for him. How is that any better.

Quote

Yes, they have the out that Skrulls cannot maintain human form when injured, and their blood becomes apparently alien when it is shed. But absent inflicting injury, unless the president was not just bluffing, we have not been shown a way to easily detect a Skrull from a human. And injuring someone until they bleed isn't exactly convenient.

I don't know, some kind of pinprick test for someone say if they want access to the president doesn't seem that unreasonable.  

It is also weird that the Skrulls stayed secret for so long, if they shift back when killed or seriously injured. Like in the 30 years since CM none have been killed in public in like a car accident or something?

[Affogato]

19 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Thanks for bringing up Supergirl. TBH, I hadn't made a connection between that particular brand of anvil-dropping of "aliens are illegal immigrants and they are good" and this show. Then again, I was distracted by other issues with the show. And I would say as mediocre as these writers are, they occasionally had their moments and were generally better than those on Supergirl (or at least, were less one-dimensional with their politics.)

Living by replacing people in the society is not a positive immigrant activity, especially when everyone learns you capture the originals and keep them in pods, for information purposes. It is not the same as being from Argentina and living with your head down because you don't have papers.

If this is what they have done on other planets, no wonder no one wants them as neighbors.

18 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

It is also weird that the Skrulls stayed secret for so long, if they shift back when killed or seriously injured. Like in the 30 years since CM none have been killed in public in like a car accident or something?

The MCU is full up with weird phenomena.

[Quark]

Overall, I did find this show quite mediocre. Olivia Coleman was easily the best part and I hope we see more of her in the future.

Gi'ah did absolutely nothing for me.

[silverstream]

Did I miss something, or was Fury's reason for not calling in super-powered help (if you disregard G'iah) really that he'd made this mess himself so he'd also have to clean it up himself? That kind of explanation works if you've accidentally spilled something, not when you've caused an international incident where the bodies are piling up and humanity might be facing extinction! I realise the true reasons are story-telling/actor-availability-related, but they could have thought of something better. As others have pointed out, Fury comes off really horribly here.

On 8/1/2023 at 1:25 AM, Chicago Redshirt said:

Yes, they have the out that Skrulls cannot maintain human form when injured, and their blood becomes apparently alien when it is shed. But absent inflicting injury, unless the president was not just bluffing, we have not been shown a way to easily detect a Skrull from a human. And injuring someone until they bleed isn't exactly convenient.

Considering that that one guy's finger turned Skrull when Sonja cut it off but the guy himself didn't, I'd guess there's a fair even chance getting some fingernail clippings or simply cutting off some hair would do the trick.

I had to laugh at the last scene, when Fury calls for his transport up to the S.A.B.E.R. ship and then just stands their chatting with his wife while the transport beam is already on until the poor sap at the controls gets impatient and sends the elevator down to him anyway.

Edited September 11, 2023 by silverstream
One of these days I'll remember to check for spelling mistakes...