Season Review: Invincible Season Two Part Two

Overview:

Mark “Invincible” Grayson struggles with accepting the idea that he can go home again after a lengthy tenure on Planet Thraxa realigns his motivations and priorities, both as a person and as his superhero alter ego. Mark continues struggling to reconcile his humanity and Viltrumite tendencies as he puts himself in the middle of new dangers that affect Earth and the galaxy at large. The Grayson patriarch may still be out of the picture, but Mark’s family gains a new member and with it, new vulnerabilities. Mark’s role at college and among the Guardians of the Globe face crucial crossroads, all while a brewing war between the Viltrumites reaches a bloody breaking point.

 

Our Take:

Invincible’s second season, unsurprisingly picks up right on the heels of Invincible and Omni-Man reunion and grudge match on Thraxa, while the former stays to pick up the pieces and helps heal with this disenfranchised, injured race. The Thraxan ability to forgive, forget, and move on is remarkable when so much of their planet and population lays in ruin. Yet their ethos functions as the perfect guiding light for not only Invincible’s second season, but the series as a whole, where so many people fail to look past the immediate bloodshed or believe in rehabilitation over retribution. It’s wild that in this show that the most empathetic and kind-hearted individuals are an insectile alien species rather than actual humans. However, this further feeds into Invincible’s complicated relationship with Earth – and heroism in general – and how individuals like Mark and Nolan’s killer instincts can just as likely be amplified on Earth as they can be quelled. It’s no coincidence that Mark’s extended stay on Thraxa, away from distractions and temptations, allows him to live his best life where he’s more of a hero than he’s ever been. This sets up a compelling framework for a season of self-discovery and self-destruction while Mark experiences the greatest challenges of his life. It’s electric television that’s head and shoulders above the rest of the superhero content that’s flooding the television and film industries.

Invincible’s latest batch of episodes really get to the core of Mark’s character in powerful, unprecedented ways. These episodes illustrate just how fundamentally lonely he is, despite having the entire galaxy at his fingertips. There’s a lot of personal drama between Mark and Amber as they go on to understand each other better than ever, but drift progressively further apart as a result. These human moments – including an entertaining, but all-too-brief- comic convention detour – help balance out Invincible’s more heightened spectacles. There’s still no shortage of superpowered chaos, but there’s a deeper exploration of the things that make these characters human and why they do the things that they do. 

This all beautifully culminates in an evocative superhero funeral scene. This isn’t a first for the genre, but it’s something that’s not explored nearly as often as it should be, considering the fatal nature of superpowered crimefighting. It’s yet another reminder of the very real stakes that are involved in all of this and that not everyone is going to be left standing when the season comes to a close. However, amidst all of this darkness, there’s an overwhelming message about the power of love, how it keeps the world spinning, and that nothing is worthwhile without it.

This season also engages in some creative frame narratives through the oeuvre of Nolan’s works of “fiction” that Mark discovers and vigorously pours through. In a longer season, these are absolutely the type of extra stories that Invincible would devote an entire episode to as a clever way to “get away” from the core plot, yet still present a relevant story that thematically hits close to home. This season half-commits to the idea by having lengthy spans of an episode that get lost in these sci-fi novels without ever fully committing an entire installment to the concept. In this respect, Invincible gets to explore the best of both worlds, but this slightly weakens the idea. It would certainly hit harder as its own “extra” episode, much like Allen’s story from season two’s first-half.

The second-half of Invincible’s second season, while not designed to be viewed as its own separate entity, does have its own unique flavor due to an interesting wrinkle where Mark must look after his younger-but-then-older alien half-brother, Oliver, on Earth and help him make sense of this strange world and his growing powers. In doing so, Invincible turns into a brilliant ouroboros of plotting and character development where Mark is ostensibly put in Nolan’s role from the first season where he uses his knowledge and expertise to raise this family member into becoming a hero and avoiding his own mistakes. There’s a veritable level of tension on whether Mark’s little brother is destined for destruction and if Mark — despite his good intentions — is set to screw up in the same manner as his father or if they’re able to achieve some modicum of superpowered solitude. It’s a fascinating case study in nature versus nurture and the importance of family.

This season still features plenty of generic Skeletor-esque supervillains for the Guardians – now precariously led by The Immortal – to face and battle as a team, both with and without Mark, which feeds into the show’s larger messages of commitment and cooperation. Invincible devises some clever “trolley problem-esque” scenarios where the characters must figure out the smartest way to use their powers in order to minimize the destruction and fallout as much as possible, while still accepting some degree of casualties. It reiterates that sometimes death is an unavoidable part of the job and these new episodes really hammer that point in as the Guardians collectively crumble. Their heroic antics are frequently fun reflections of both the more pedestrian side of superheroics as well as galactic turmoil that puts the entire planet in jeopardy. 

The Guardians guarantee that there are rich action sequences and copious superpowers on display across the board. They’re not bad or even unpleasant, but they definitely come across as the most tedious sequences from the season, even if they’re technically some of the busiest. They just feel like compulsory components to include to highlight how the world keeps turning without Mark and that there are still heroes on Earth, even without an Omni-Man, but they can’t make up for the fact that Mark and Nolan’s twisted story arc and character development remain Invincible’s most compelling material. There’s some legitimately enticing Viltrumite lore that these episodes build upon too, which also brings Allen back into the mix in a big way.

Invincible’s animation remains a major point of contention for its audience. These new episodes are an improvement from season one, but they still show the occasional signs of struggle. More often than not there’s the continued aesthetic of this being a Saturday morning FOX Kids cartoon that could have aired between X-Men: The Animated Series and Spider-Man, whether it’s intentional or not. There’s actually a whole tongue-in-cheek digression on the long-winded nature of animated series productions and the shortcuts that shows can take in order to rush out content where – hopefully – no one is any wiser. It’s hardy revolutionary territory that others series haven’t already poked fun at, but it’s still a fun gag, especially for a show like Invincible that’s taken so long to release an eight-episode second season. If nothing else, it’s a fun change of pace to get some clever, satirical writing that’s not exclusively aimed at deconstructing the superhero genre.

The extraterrestrial Sequids operate with waves of living flesh that feels like a cross between Venom’s symbiote, Starro the Conqueror, and some David Cronebergian body horror that really pushes the show’s visual limits in the best way possible. On top of everything else, Invincible still does vicious, exaggerated violence like no one else. There are some truly grisly displays across these four episodes that will make even seasoned Invincible fans wince. This is nothing new for Invincible, but it’s impressive how it still manages to top itself in this regard without ever feeling purely gratuitous or that its aim is ever to explicitly gross out its viewers. There’s absolutely a method to Invincible’s rampaging, manic madness. There’s nothing that necessarily tops the showdown between Invincible and Omni-Man at the end of season one when it comes to pure carnage, but these episodes get quite close and feature plenty of Viltrumite-on-Viltrumite destruction.

The second-half of Invincible season two is more chaotic, cathartic, and narratively ambitious than the 13 episodes that precede it. It juggles so many ideas at once, most of which it’s successful at doing, even if everything doesn’t get the opportunity for fitting closure. These episodes are the greatest distillation of Mark’s character and what it means to be a hero – both in an everyday and super sense of the word. If nothing else, Invincible beautifully sets up a third season that’s destined to be even more layered and thematically rich than Invincible’s first two years. Let’s just hope that it doesn’t take another two years to premiere. 

‘Invincible’s’ second season returns on March 14th on Amazon Prime Video, with new episodes airing weekly