CHARLAYNE WOODWARD | Eye for an Eye (1996) dir. John Schlesinger

Did you fall in love with me or the face that puts you at ease? SECRET INVASION — Home (Episode 6) ››› Charlayne Woodard as Varra ››› Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S01E03 The Turk

— SECRET INVASION, SEASON ONE.

Resurrection, 374 Screencaps.

Promises, 399 Screencaps.

Betrayed, 394 Screencaps.

Beloved, 361 Screencaps.

The Harvest, 348 Screencaps.

Home, 326 Screencaps.

All in GALLERY. Like or reblog if it was useful, every interaction shows us that we should keep making screencaps for y'all ♡

quarterfinals (week 9)

descriptions under the cut

charlayne woodard -> appeared in 6 episodes over 8 seasons as sister peg, a nun that was really for the people. gets killed by jenna in smoked (rip).

robin williams -> appeared in the season 9 episode authority. plays a man who pretends to be a police officer and gets another person to commit sexual assault by talking him into it on the phone.

SECRET INVASION | 1.04 "Beloved" dir. Ali Selim

Nell Carter, Armelia McQueen, Ken Page, Charlayne Woodard, and André De Shields perform "Black and Blue" in Ain't Misbehavin' (1982).

Secret Invasion of Actors!

I know it is more fashionable to attack Disney, but I'm finding the writing and acting in Secret Invasion top notch, especially Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, and Charlayne Woodard.

Charlayne Woodard's conflict is low-key, but it's always present. As one of the new characters, she's the one I'm the most interested in.

Don Cheadle gives us just enough falseness in his acting choices to tell us about the character he's playing without giving anything away.

And Samuel L. Jackson. The emotion turmoil that he brings to what many would call a morally gray character is refreshing on every level. Finally, a story states you don't get to be a ruthless schemer and then be able to shrug off the consequences of being a ruthless schemer with a soulless, funny quip. Nick Fury has funny quips, but the audience is never allowed to forget that his life consists of using people for the greater good, and that means you can never really be with people.

I just felt someone should point this out.

Promotional stills from the fourth episode of 'Mayfair Witches', titled 'Curiouser and Curiouser'.

SECRET INVASION

S1E5 — Harvest

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SPOILERS!

Opens in a hospital hallway; the president is wheeled into ER, and Fury tries to get to the president’s subconscious and tells him to not trust Rhodey. Fury takes up sentry outside the double doors.

Gravik gets back to base, and KO’s a would-be rebel for daring to speak up against him.

Back at the hospital, not-Rhodey gets accosted by Fury, and makes it clear to the ex-Director of Shield that there’s little to be done, stuck between a rock and a hard place. Not-Rhodey’s con-men aim their guns at Fury as he heads toward the ER doors.

The title credits roll.

Place card, London. Sonya shoots a Skrull in his office demanding information.

Back at New Skrullos. Some mutineers get a jump on Gravik, quite literally, but he’s stronger than them and defeats them. Gravik is enraged and kills Beto in front of base camp; they’re horrified.

Fury speaks with G’iah, and she reveals that Gravik has this thing called The Harvest. Fury says he’s going to Finland. But why Finland? He does not elaborate.

Sonya interrogates a couple. The woman and her husband are both brought out; he momentarily takes her hostage, Sonya mocks him and sends a bullet through his head.

G’iah takes a moment with her father Talos, and heads to Priscilla’s place. G’iah breaks in easy.

Not-Rhodey tells the president about Gravik’s plans.

Gravik calls Fury, who gets on a plane.

G’iah and Priscilla set fire to Talos’ funeral pyre for a final goodbye, and reflect.

Priscilla talks of facing down those who want her dead; speaking of the devil, they come blasting down her door, guns ablaze. The unexpectedness of it is really something. There is a shootout; several henchmen meet their deaths.

At the immigration desk in Finland, the woman has a wanted notice for Nick Fury taped near her desktop.

Fury is disguised as a man named “Kerhonen”, and when safe, he takes off the identity mask we more or less saw last in CATWS. The photostatic veil, they called it. Also known as the “Widow’s Veil”. He meets with Sonya in her car, and she drives them off.

Place card, “294 KM from the Russian border”. Fury and Sonya discuss Gravik’s plans. The “Harvest”, Fury says, is as follows: “Nearly every Avenger spilled blood in the Battle of Earth. Even Carol Danvers. In the aftermath, some were went in to collect that DNA. Some with the ability to blend in. Nobody knew about them but me and the collectors, led by…” Gravik, says Sonya. Fury agrees: “Which is probably where he got the idea for the Super Skrull machine.”

Fury and Sonya arrive at an old cemetery with Fury’s name on it. Which is interesting, considering that he’s got another one somewhere else; last we saw that one, was at the end of CATWS. Here, Fury’s headstone reads: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Sonya looks at the headstone and asks whether he has others. Fury confirms that yes, he’s “got these all over the place, you know? Dead men need options.” Which is true. Nobody’s been able to get their hands on him yet. Fury says that he chose Finland because he and Priscilla used to honeymoon there. Weird place to have a gravesite, but if it’s far enough away for anyone to not ask any questions, then it has done its job.

Fury goes into a mausoleum to get ready. He’s got his jacket, gun, and eyepatch in three different caches. He walks out, saying, “It’s time, let’s finish this.” Feels like a semi-fourth-wall break, because next episode is literally the last episode. The title music plays at his exit.

Thoughts: Also another dark episode full of people operating in the morally grey area. The little callbacks to past MCU projects, like CATWS, for instance. Interesting episode all round.

If you want me to apologize for being gone, Scilla, just say so. SECRET INVASION — Betrayed (Episode 3) ››› Charlayne Woodard as Priscilla Fury ››› Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury

And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

Secret Invasion - Excellent performances and interesting ideas squandered with mediocre execution....

I was actually pretty psyched for Secret Invasion when the trailers came out. I didn't feel there was a whole lot of hype around the show but I was looking forward to it. After the fairly jokey nature of recent MCU, I was looking forward to the pivot towards more darker material, similar to TWS, and TFATWS. Now I didn't think TFATWS was great but it was solid and TWS is arguably my favorite MCU film to date and the trailers for Secret Invasion definitely felt like they were more that tone.

Having seen the series, it really feels like Marvel just don't have a handle on how to pace and structure their tv shows. Secret Invasion, at 6 episodes and such an intricate storyline, had no business being a slow burn show with a rushed ending. This should have been a fast paced paranoid thriller. Maybe all of it should have been set within a very short window of time. Instead, as a lot of these MCU shows have done, there are episodes where very little happens, and then there are episodes where a lot happens and it feels rushed. Given that this is now a common occurrence in the MCU tv shows, it seems obvious that the writers don't have a handle on how to pace these 6 episode series. Also, this show was oddly small for a show that was about something so big. There was a lot of sidestepping to try and explain why Fury was the person who had to be the one who stopped Gravik and why he couldn't involve some of his powered friends. While the explanation works up to a point, when the world is on the brink of WWIII, the explanation starts falling apart. Then there are certain relationships that are very essential to the emotional weight of the show, which have far too little screen time for us to really care. The marriage of Fury and Priscilla/Varra is a bond that is brought up throughout the back half of the season, but the truth is that it is treated with a sort of reverence in the show which it has not earned from the audience, which is a damn shame because Jackson and Woodard do some excellent work in their scenes together. Then there is the whole ending of the show. While they do shake up the status quo a bit, which I hope will be followed up in the next Captain America movie, there are some very dumb decisions taken as well. For example, the decision to make G'iah into a superpowered being who is ridiculously overpowered is something that will be a ramification the MCU will have to deal with for a while. Maybe they will have this make more sense in a future MCU project, but for now, it does seem strange that they made such an OP character all of a sudden. Also, the bait and switch in the finale cheapens a very fine scene. The entire scene between Gravik and Fury was actually very meaningful, but having Fury be G'iah all along makes that scene loose its emotional value because we don't know if that is what Fury feels.

The damn shame about the show is that there is actually a fair amount of stuff that is actually pretty good. There is some excellent acting work in the show. Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Olivia Colman, Don Cheadle, and Charlayne Woodard all do some excellent work on the show. The actual story of the show is interesting because we actually do genuinely see that the Skrulls have very legitimate grievances against Fury. He is a man who used the Skrulls as agents, gained power within SHIELD as a result, but did not find a new home for the Skrulls and did not have the courage to admit that finding a new home wasn't possible. And then he deserted them on Earth and went to Saber. The resentment built up in the Skrulls is totally understandable. And Jackson does an excellent job showing a much more brittle and guilt ridden man, as opposed to the confident operative we have seen in the past. His dynamic with Talos is one of the highlights of the show. Ben Mendelsohn was insanely likable as Talos and his death was honestly one of the most gut wrenching deaths in the MCU. Olivia Colman just looked like she was having a ball of a time and boost of witty energy whenever she's on screen. Don Cheadle does some of his best work. The scenes between Fury and Rhodey, both before and after Fury find out that he's a Skrull, are impeccable. Kingsley Ben-Adir does a lot to make Gravik was a very understandable villain, even though his backstory is half baked and told rather than shown. Similarly, Charlayne Woodard is excellent, even though her character gets the sort of reverence from the show which is never earned by the writing. The scenes with her and Jackson are excellent and they are able to get that "married for a long time" feel despite barely any setup. Emilia Clarke is a bit of a mixed bag. She's forced to be rather stoic throughout most of the show, so she doesn't get to stand out despite being a significant part of the show.

The tone and story of the show is interesting. The idea of infiltration and creating paranoia is a good concept and when the show leans into that, its pretty good. But the show then also tries to be a bit too big for its boots by introducing super Skrulls and attempting to start WWIII. So it sometimes feels like the showrunners and writers aren't sure what show they are trying to make.

All in all, this isn't a bad show, but it had potential to be much better. If executed right, it could have been up there with MCU's best. Its a show that actually had some major character deaths like Maria Hill and Talos, and at least seems to have rattled the status quo of the Earth and not every thing is settled by the end of the show, but the execution of how things led to that point felt a little lacking. I would say this ranks around a 5 to 6/10.

*SECRET INVASION SPOILERS*

I've been thinking about episode 3, and I have major thoughts and questions about it.

Was the kid human, or was that SkrullBob's skrull child masquerading as the real Bob's kid?

If the kid was a human, why did SkrullBob care so much about him being harmed? Gravik's group's whole deal is death-to-all-humans. Why does SkrullBob care about this kid? When SkrullBob took on real Bob's memories when he replaced him, did those feelings transfer over, or had SkrullBob been at that post for so long that he got attached to the family all on his own?

The humans in those fracking pods are all going to die, right? Skrulls are resistant to radiation, humans... not so much. At best, all those humans will leave those sites with major cancers.

MAJOR SPOILER: Is Rhodey in one of those pods? Will the radiation damage happen to him?

When was Rhodey switched? If it was any time before Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I'm going to be mad. It would hurt so many meaningful moments in the MCU if he was a skrull before then.

The gun Priscilla retrieved from the safe deposit box couldn't be an ordinary gun. She's a spy. She's married to Fury. She'd have easy access to firearms. This gun has to be linked to something serious to be held in those safeguarded conditions.

Why did she get the gun? It sounded like she believes in Gravik's cause and is possibly working with his group, but she looked a little nervous at the bank. The phone call made it sound like she was being threatened or manipulated into getting the gun. Maybe that was just me reading it that way, though.

Speaking of reading something, did the show intentionally make it seem like Talos and Fury were an old married couple? They spent a ton of the episode straight up flirting. Even most of the straight guys I saw react to the episode were saying that Talos and Fury should just kiss already. We can't all be crazy. "Help me, Talos. I would be lost without you." ... "I'm not with Gravik 'cause I'm with you." About as subtle as a sledgehammer.

I think we all know G'iah isn't dead. They wouldn't waste Emilia Clarke's time like that or get our hopes up for her future in the MCU. She's an amazing actor for Marvel to get, and it makes zero sense for them to kill her after 3 episodes. Episodes we don't even see her in much. I think they're going to make her Abigail Brand. My fan cast for Brand was Charlize Theron, but that's not happening for obvious reasons. Reading the Astonishing X-Men comics, I could practically hear her delivering Abigail Brand's dialog. If they do choose to make Emilia Clarke Abigail Brand instead, I'm positive she'll do a great job.

I know there were a bunch more questions and thoughts in my head about episode 3, but that's all I could think of right now. I'm a fan of the comics run, so I was very worried about this show. I'm less so now.

playoffs (round 5)

descriptions under the cut

charlayne woodard -> appeared in 6 episodes over 8 seasons as sister peg, a nun that was really for the people. gets killed by jenna in smoked (rip).

carol burnett -> appears in the season 10 episode, ballerina as a black widow with a weird relationship with her nephew (matthew lillard).