Critics’ reviews of Wednesday’s Secret Invasion finale have caused the spy thriller to become the lowest-rated Marvel Studios series to date on Disney+. The episode, titled “Home,” has a 13% rating, bringing the show’s overall season average down to 57% “rotten” on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Secret Invasion is billed as an espionage thriller pitting spymaster Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)against the rebel Skrull General Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir), whose sect of shape-shifting Skrulls has invaded all aspects of life on Earth for a hostile takeover of the planet.
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On the Tomatometer, Secret Invasion (57%) ranks below Marvel Studios series Ms. Marvel (98%), the animated What If…? (94%), Hawkeye and Loki (92%), WandaVision (91%), Moon Knight (86%), The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (84%), and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (77%). Only Iron Fist (37%) and ABC’s Inhumans (11%) are rated lower, but those live-action series were produced by the now-defunct Marvel Television, not Kevin Feige’s Marvel Studios.
While critics have praised the series as a showcase for Jackson, who has appeared in the MCU more than a dozen times since the original Iron Man in 2008, Secret Invasion also drew criticism for failing “in its aspirations to be Marvel for adults” despite its darker and more mature tone.
“Where it should be taut and elliptical, it is insistently talky and overripe with exposition; where it might have been quietly gripping, it flits between scenes of cleanly choreographed action and lethargic exchanges,” critic Dan Einav wrote for Financial Times. Wrote Rolling Stone‘s Alan Sepinwall in a series review, “If Secret Invasion doesn’t feel like mandatory viewing, it also doesn’t provide many compelling reasons to watch on its own. Strip away the superhero angle of this story, and what you have left is warmed-over John Le Carré or Graham Greene, with various Cold War clichés.”
Critic Sam Barsanti gave the Secret Invasion finale an “F” grade in a review for AV Club, writing, “As a whole, the series was a waste of time, a waste of Nick Fury, and a waste of good performances from Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Emilia Clarke, Cobie Smulders (even if she was barely here), and Olivia Colman. There was some good action, but the story just didn’t hold up.”
Will there be Secret Invasion season 2? “There are some charactersthat are no longer with us and some characters that live to see anotherchallenge. I would love to see that challenge become season 2,” series director Ali Selim told SFX Magazine. Marvel Studios has not announced a second season; Fury will return in The Marvels, which will presumably address what becomes of the Skrulls still embedded on Earth.
All episodes of Marvel’s Secret Invasion are now streaming on Disney+.
