Secret Invasion Episode 4 Review - 6 Ups & 4 Downs
Welcome to the second half of Secret Invasion.
This week has seen Marvel Studios' Secret Invasion enter its final stretch. Throughout the MCU's Disney+ catalogue, episode four has typically been something special.
WandaVision had 'We Interrupt This Program', Loki had 'The Nexus Event', What If…? had Doctor Strange losing his heart, and Moon Knight had 'The Tomb'. Secret Invasion had 'Beloved', arguably the strongest chapter in the story since the pilot episode. This built on the foundations on the last three episodes, and while it won't go down as an instant classic from Marvel on the platform, it was certainly an improvement over the last couple of weeks.
Characters survived, characters died, and characters were missing as the show took a bigger step towards the final battle than any previously.
It does feel that the final two episodes have been left with a fair amount of heavy lifting to do, and though the ratio of Ups to Downs may suggest a less-than-stellar episode, the Downs for Secret Invasion episode four are more minor gripes than anything. Still, gripes they are...
10. Down - The Runtime
It's been mentioned over the last few weeks in the Secret Invasion Ups and Downs that the show has been something of a slow burner. With only six episodes from start to finish, it felt that by the halfway point there was still a lot of story left to tell.
Episode four turned up the action somewhat, and furthered the story more than the previous few entries, but for some reason did so in a much shorter episode. It almost feels like that story advancement was canceled out by there being 20 minutes less to watch.
The end of this episode did feel very much like an ending, in that it served as something of a cliffhanger for episode five, but even so, it was a surprise that the credits rolled so soon. It's hard not to feel a bit shortchanged, with the episode clocking in at just 38 minutes compared to episode one and two's near one hour runtime.
It's not like the series didn't have anything to fill that time with either, as there was one very big omission from the episode…