Invincible Season 2 Finale Recap - Episode 8 Explained

Invincible Season 2 has led to a major climatic showdown in its finale, as Episode 8 "I Thought You Were Stronger" sees Mark finally take on Angstrom Levy, the dimension-hopping villain he helped create in the Season 2 Premiere. 

Fans of the Invincible animated series who didn't read the comics couldn't have known just how weird and twisted Mark's battle with Levy would be. Even those who read the comics might be surprised by some of the Easter egg references and cameo crossovers the animated version pulls out – including the role that voice actor Josh Keaton (The Spectacular Spider-Man) plays! 

Beyond the fight with Angstrom Levy, the Invincible Season 2 finale had a lot of deeper character arcs and themes (trauma, identity) to pull together into a cohesive point. So, did Invincible Season 2 stick the landing in Episode 8? Or will Season 3 need to improve upon what this season did (or didn't do)? 

Judge for yourself after examining our breakdown of all the big and small moments that mattered: 

Invincible Season 2 Finale Recap (SPOILERS) 

Fit to Die – The episode opens with Nolan/Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons) making a jailbreak from his galactic prison. Nolan dismantles a squad of mech suits, and an alien military squad, before Viltrumite General Kregg (Clancy Brown) arrives, impressed to see that Nolan is back on his feet and at full strength. According to Kregg, that means Nolan is fite to stand trial and be executed under Viltrumite laws and customs. 

(Not So) Fun Run - A stocky kid is taking a jog around Mark Grayson/Invincible's (Steven Yeun) neighborhood, listening to the tune of Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" on his phone. As Mark comes flying home to face Angstrom Levy in the background, the jogger kid stops running because he starts to feel nauseous, coaching himself not to give up, because improving his fitness will make him...

[Cue Invincible Title Logo] 

Who Are You? - Mark finds Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown) holding his mom Debbie's (Sandra Oh) throat in his hands, threatening to snap her neck and kill Mark's infant half-brother, Oliver. Angstrom gives a cryptic monologue questioning whether this dimension's Mark is a risk-taker or more conservative in his heroism. Angstrom loses it when Mark doesn't remember who he is (just like some of the Season 2 viewing audience, ironically enough) since they only met briefly during the Season 2 premiere's climax. Levy tosses Debbie and Oliver to the floor, but when Mark tries to attack, he gets transported through one of the villain's portals.

Jurassic Talk – Mark finds himself in a dimension ruled by talking dinosaurs. A pack of T-Rex-Raptor dinos are dumbfounded to see a surviving homosapien, thinking them extinct. The dinos quickly turn from intellectual curiosity to bestial hunger, as human is a long-lost delicacy for them – especially one that flies on invisible wings. Mark tries to make a hasty escape and jumps through the first portal Levy opens for him. 

The Amazing Spider... Guy – Back in his home dimension, Levy comments that Oliver only exists in Mark's home dimension, marking it as distinctly different. Levy tosses Oliver away and Debbie makes a leaping catch to save the baby, while Mark attacks Angstrom and... ends up getting ported again. This time, Invincible lands in a dimension with a Spider-Man variant (with an "A" insignia, presumably for "Arachnid") who is having an alleyway fight with a Doc-Ock variant ("Prof. Ock"). Invincible accidentally tackles Prof. Ock, but mistakes the not-Spider-Man as a villain – until Pro. Ock recovers and surprise attacks Mark, while Spider-Guy (voice of Spider-Man voice actor Josh Keaton) cracks wise about the mix-up. 

Identity Crisis – Back at home, Levy loses it on Debbie for "lying" to Oliver that things will be okay, but then brings Mark back for another round of fighting. He threatens to send Debbie and Oliver to a horrific place if Mark attacks again. Mark changes tactics and tries to reason with Angstrom, reminding him that he was originally a good man, who wanted to save Invincible from the Mauler Twins. Anstrom's brain clearly starts to unravel, as memories from all the different variants he absorbed all collide, forcing his original, benevolent self to feel the pain of all the Levy's who suffered under the fist of "Evil Invincible" variants. With so much pain and trauma clouding his thoughts, Levy gets enraged all over again starts another round of attack, sending Mark off to another dimension. Levy starts to remember how he sacrificed himself to save Mark in the Season 2 premiere; however, he also remembers horrific lives where evil versions of Mark killed him and his allies – or one particularly dark universe, where Invincible slaughtered Angstrom's son in front of his eyes. Levy sees other visions of where his wife, fellow policemen, and fellow humans all died in the Viltrumite War. The montage of realities reveals just how many Mark turned evil in, and why Angstrom cannot let the feud go: too many versions of himself can never let it go. 

Walking Dead – Mark gets warped back to his house, and tries the new strategy of simply avoiding Angstroom's portals. However, Levy takes out a knife and throws it at Debbie and Oliver, forcing Mark to catch it in midair – and tumble into another Portal. Mark arrives in a dystopian version of his neighborhood and hurls the knife away in frustration. That sounds alerts the horde of zombies in the area, who all come looking at Mark as a tasty meal. Back at Mark's house, Debbie fights against Angstrom, cutting him with a broken shard of glass; Mark is brought back through portal and used as a battering ram against Debbie and Oliver, barely dodging in time before he gets ported away again. 

Hard Logic – Debbie tries a new tactic: getting in Angstrom's head. Angstrom comes at her saying that in many universes, Debbie joined Nolan and Mark in destroying the world; Debbie counters that Angstrom is unraveling because in this universe he became the villain instead of Mark. That line of logic makes Angstrom snap, and he literally snaps Debbie's arm in half, manically threatening to make her, Mark, and Oliver all "hurt." 

Let's Do The Timeline Warp Again! – A montage shows Mark stranded in multiple different dimensions. At a campfire talk with strangers, he reveals that he's been through so many portals and experienced so much variation in time that he can no longer keep track of how long he's been lost, or what's happened to Debbie and Oliver. We see Mark fighting cavemen; encountering Episode 5 villain "Omnipotous" in some energy dimension; talking with (an offscreen) Batman about the questionable name he chose, and finally, a tattered and battered Mark in a Mad Max-style wasteland, thrashing speed-demon raiders. Mark gets the jump on Angstrom when he finally opens another portal, and when he sees the state that Debbie is in, he loses it, flying Angstrom out of his house at super speed. 

Final Blows – Angstrom reveals to Mark that the body augmentation he underwent in various dimensions was intended to make him Mark's physical match: Levy intends to beat his rival to death with his own bare hands. Fisticuffs get thrown across more strange dimensions, until Angstrom finally comes in for the kill, strangling Mark in the sand of a decimated wasteland. When Angstrom again threatens Debbie and Oliver, Mark finally stops keeping the Nolan/Viltrumite side of himself in check: in a rage he beats Angstrom into the ground and then beats the villain's face into a bloody smear. In the blood-soaked silence, Mark starts to have a serious mental breakdown, trying to rationalize the monstrous thing he's just become – namely, his father. Mark whispers "I Thought You Were Stronger," to the corpse of Angstrom Levy, shocked at his own power. 

Grim Aftermath – Cecil (Walton Goggins) and the GDA forces finally arrive at Mark's house to care for Debbie and Oliver. No one knows Mark's status, but Cecil focuses on getting Debbie to a medic. In the wasteland, Mark is still walking aimlessly, practicing his alibi for explaining what happened to Levy; instead, he breaks down again, admitting out loud to himself that he wanted to kill his foe – he just didn't know the rage he let loose would do it. Mark starts to panic for real when the hopelessness of getting home sets in; he has to give Angstrom the "W" for their fight because even in winning, Invincible has still lost so much. 

Prison Buddies – Nolan is being beaten by General Kregg, who clarifies that the Viltrumite Council's rules ensure Nolan has to be alive to stand trial – but bruised is fine. When his Viltrumite guards beg him (out of respect) not to resist, Nolan stands up on his own, despite his injuries, and assures them he doesn't fear his fate. While being walked back to his cell, Nolan passes Allen the Alien (Seth Rogen) in the hallway and gets a telepathic call: Allen allowed himself to be detained by Kregg's lieutenant Anissa so that he could locate the prison and find Nolan. Allen promises they will talk soon. 

New Way Home – Mark is still losing it in the wasteland, trapped in a cycle of moral debate about killing Angstrom, while also chastising himself for going so crazy he's talking out loud to himself. A solution presents itself when a portal opens and the Guardians of the Globe come flying out – only not the Guardians Mark knows. These Guardians (Atom Eve, Robot, Monster Girl, Bulletproof) are older versions of Mark's allies – twenty years older, to be exact. It's explained that in their dimension Mark stayed missing for two decades after his fight with Levy, and bad things happened. Robot refuses to say too much, for fear of breaking the timestream, but he opens a portal to send Mark home. Mark is joyous, thinking he would've died without the Guardians, but Robot assures Mark that he does survive the wasteland in another timeline  – but that Mark wouldn't like what that survival did to him over time. Before Mark can leave, Atom Eve (Gillian Jacobs) stops him, confessing that the Eve in his timeline has feelings for him,and that he needs to either be with her, or let her know he won't be with her and let her move on. Mark is shocked as he enters the portal; when he's gone, "Robot" removes his head to reveal it's actually Rex Splode (Jason Mantzoukas) in a robot suit. Rex chastises Eve for the whole 'risking the timeline' thing, but Old Eve isn't having it.

Back Home Again – Mark gets back home to find his house in shambles. Comms with Cecil and the GDA kick back in, and Mark heads to the Pentagon to see his mother. Debbie puts on a brave face – which she needs when Mark has an emotional breakdown in her arms. It's noted that Oliver doesn't have any visible injuries to speak of after the encounter with Levy, hinting that Mark's brother has a considerable level of power. 

Grief Debrief – Mark is still doing circles around his own moral compass, but Cecil tries to talk him off a literal ledge. He assures Mark that he's not Nolan, but Mark points out that Cecil wasn't in the wasteland when he killed Levy, so he doesn't really know how much like Nolan Mark's becoming. 

Don't Fix What Ain't Broken – At Guardians headquarters, Monster Girl/Amanda and Robot/Rudy finally have the "talk" about Rudy's obsession with curing Amanda's monster curse, before she de-ages too much from the transformations. She asks that he be more humane and compassionate, rather than analytical. Amanda also goads Rudy into asking her out on a date, which she accepts.

Dead... Alive?! – In the Arctic tundra, The Immortal (Ross Marquand) is seen coming back to his 'Shack of Solitude' with several days' worth of fish on his back. Inside the shack, Immortal finds Dupli-Kate waiting for him. Kate confesses to being so scared of seeing duplicates die over and over that she kept her original form hidden from everyone, living life through copies. When Kate starts to break down, Immortal grabs her in a big, tight, hug, telling her it doesn't matter what she did or why, he's just happy she's alive. 

Tomb Raiders – Two women are seen pulling an Indiana Jones on an ancient Egyptian temple. Once inside, they track  the one girl's explorer father's path to a big coffin where he died, after releasing the spirit of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. The pharaoh is quickly thrown off by the fact that the two potential human vessels in front of him are both women – a gender he cannot inhabit. The women both look at him and let him know how rude and sexist he is.

Major Character Arc Climax – A montage set to the tune of Michael Kiwanuka's song "Final Days" shows Mark doing pained speed-bursts of flight, replaying old memories of his dad (and Season 1 footage) and the complicated role Nolan has had in his life. Mark spies on his ex-girlfriend Amber (Zazie Beetz) from the sky, but leaves before she sees him. Back at home, Mark and Debbie watch their house being rebuilt, with a neighbor on a bike legitimately worrying that the "gas leaks" at Mark's house and the GDA safehouse across the street are indications that his house will explode next. Debbie and Mark finally get to return home, and it's not the same. Debbie is haunted by the violence that Angstrom Levy did to her; when she finds Mark sitting up on the roof at night, she joins him for a talk. Mark confesses he's leaving college because it's pointless: his life is about becoming a stronger, better hero – not keeping up the illusion that he can have a "normal life." Debbie hugs her tear-soaked son: she doesn't agree but she understands. 

If You Ever Need A Shoulder – Mark meets Atom Even on the bridge to stare at the city. Eve enthusiastically hugs Mark and offers the comfort of her shoulder to cry on. Mark starts to make the romantic gesture of holding her hand and acknowledging their mutual feelings for one another – but he stops short. Eve hugs him and states that Mark doesn't deserve what life has dealt him. Mark accepts her shoulder and cries on it. 

Prison Bros – Allen the Alien is put in a cell near Nolan. In a telepathic conversation, Nolan confesses to something shocking: he's developed true human empathy and regrets what he did to the people of Earth and his family. Allen tries to talk Nolan down from marching into death, leaning on his obligation to stop the Viltrumite Empire from inflicting that kind of pain across the universe. Nolan seems to get a spark of life from a sudden realization: he deeply misses Debbie. 

[End Credits Roll]

Invincible Seasons 1 & 2 are now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Season 3 is in the works.