Secret Invasion director: “I don’t feel bad about mixed reviews”

Last week, Marvel wrapped up its latest Disney+ show: Secret Invasion, about Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) trying to stop a rebel band of shape-shifting Skrull aliens from destroying the world and ruling over the ashes.

The results, generally speaking, were bad: Secret Invasion is currently the worst reviewed MCU series. I reviewed it on this very site, and while the show wasn’t unwatchable, it just wasn’t particularly exciting or interesting. “It was fine” is probably the nicest thing that could be said about it.

Director Ali Selim remains blissfully ignorant of the show’s middling reception, as he admitted to Variety that he doesn’t read reviews. “For me, I view all the storytelling work I do as a dialogue with an audience,” he said. “When the show is finished and put up on the screen, that’s my half of the dialogue. And the audience then starts their half of the response to it.”

"I don’t feel bad about mixed reviews. If you had unanimously good reviews, every movie would gross $10 billion, trillion dollars, right? [Projects] resonate with different people at different times for different reasons, and Marvel has a very devoted — even rabid — fan base who have expectations and when their expectations aren’t fulfilled, they move in the other direction; they give it a thumbs down.I don’t know — is it our job to fulfill their expectations? Or to tell the story that we’re telling? So, it’s a tricky thing. I would love it if everybody loved it, but I also don’t have that expectation myself, so I feel great about the response to it."

Well, I guess ideally a Marvel show would both fulfill audience expectations and tell whatever story it was telling. I think a lot of people would argue that Secret Invasion didn’t do either.

Mrs. Nick Fury

That said, I did like some things about Secret Invasion, including the relationship between Nick Fury and his Skrull wife Varra (Charlayne Woodard). The relationship was something that Selim prioritized, and it showed.

“Ultimately, the scene that I pushed for and really enjoyed is when Nick Fury kisses Varra at the end,” Selim said. “That is releasing the sense of ‘other’ in himself that has been a constraint or a prejudice. It’s opening up the world to conversation, if not all out love and embracing. It’s the very last scene of the series, and it really feels like that’s what it’s about.”

On the other hand, Selim seems less enthusiastic about some of the fight scenes, which also showed. “The fight sequences become mathematical, mechanical, precise,” he said. “‘Did we get it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Move on.’ It comes together later in edit, and then you congratulate your mathematics and your mechanics; you don’t congratulate the emotional resonance.”

How long had James Rhodes been a Skrull?

One of the five cast members in Secret Invasion was Don Cheadle, who played Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes. Rhodey has been a part of the MCU for many years now, and Secret Invasion revealed that he’s actually a Skrull in disguise!

We saw the real Rhodey in a hospital gown at Skrull headquarters in the season finale. How long had he been a Skrull? According to Selim, the real Rhodey was kidnapped around the time he got a spinal injury in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. That means he has a lot of catching up to do.

“And, from there, does it have to be definitive, or is it more fun for the audience to go back and revisit every moment, every Rhodey moment and look at it with a different lens now that they think, ‘Oh, he might’ve been a Skrull there.’ And make the decision for themselves, or it’ll be answered in Armor Wars,” Selim told ComicBook.com.

Will there be a Secret Invasion season 2?

Armor Wars is an upcoming Marvel movie, because Marvel always has something else in the pipe. Might there be a Secret invasion season 2 on the way?

Selim said he characterized the final episode as a “season finale” rather than a “series finale” but hasn’t heard anything definitive about new episodes. “I don’t know anything about Season 2. I think there’s some great threads that could be run down. But is there a Season 2? I have no idea.”

If there is a second season of Secret Invasion, it could follow up on the ending where G’iah (Emilia Clarke) and Sonya (Olivia Colman) make a deal to help protect Skrull refugees. “I was deeply moved working with Olivia Colman and Emilia Clarke, and this thing that’s left dangling at the end of sixth [episode] is really inspiring to me. So, we’ll see where it goes.”

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