The Last Line of the Invincible Finale Was Ad-Libbed

Just a day after Amazon’s Invincible, based on the comic book series by Robert Kirkman with artists Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley, earned an addition two seasons, the first-season finale dropped — and oh, boy, was it a ride. The episode was almost exclusively taken up by a fight between Omni-Man, now revealed as a murderer, and his son, the titular hero. In the context of the episode, Omni-Man reveals that the Viltrumites (the alien race he is part of) are actually galactic conquerors, and his role on Earth is to prepare humanity for invasion and soften them to the idea of becoming part of the empire.

Invincible doesn’t like that idea, and virtually the whole episode is an epic battle between the father and son. It’s bloody and savage, but after the fight is over, we still get a few minutes of resolution and setup for future seasons.

Spoilers ahead for the season finale of Invincible.

The final moments of the season feature an organic being making its way toward Earth — with the fear that it might be Omni-Man coming back for more. Allen the Alien shows up instead, and he and Invincible share a conversation in space. At the end of it, Allen asks Invincible what he plans to do next. When Invincible says he plans to finish high school, the season cuts to black, and then Allen adds that he doesn’t know what high school is.

That last joke wasn’t in the comics, and according to writer Robert Kirkman, he’s pretty sure that Allen actor Seth Rogen added it in the booth.

“The ‘finish high school,’ that was a line from the comic book series, and I thought that it would be a somewhat optimistic way to end the series, and also to kind of bring it back down to earth,” Kirkman explained. “They’re sitting on the boat. They’re having a conversation. There was just this globe-spanning fight with his father, and it’s like, “But oh yeah, you know, try to get back to that boring, mundane high school stuff.” I thought it was a cool line. The additional line after that, I’m 99% sure that was ad-libbed by Seth, because he did a fair bit of ad-libbing during the dialogue here and there. We kept a lot of it, because it was great — because he’s Seth Rogen. We were just really taken with that, and so I just thought it would be a fun little thing as we were cutting to black to have that happen. But yeah, no. It seems like a good palate cleanser and a good way to kind of relax after that episode.”

From The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, and based on the Image/Skybound comic of the same name by Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley, Invincible is an hour-long, adult animated superhero show that revolves around seventeen-year-old Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun), who’s just like every other guy his age—except that his father is the most powerful superhero on the planet, Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons). But as Mark develops powers of his own, he discovers that his father’s legacy may not be as heroic as it seems.

Invincible stars Sandra Oh (Killing Eve), Seth Rogen (This is the End), Gillian Jacobs (Community), Andrew Rannells (Black Monday, Girls), Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2), Mark Hamill (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Walton Goggins (Justified), Jason Mantzoukas (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Zachary Quinto (Star Trek), Mahershala Ali (Moonlight), Melise (The Flash), Kevin Michael Richardson (The Simpsons), Grey Griffin (Avengers Assemble), Khary Payton (The Walking Dead) and more.

You can stream the whole first season of Invincible on Amazon Prime Video.