Review: Invincible “This Was Supposed to be Easy”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Mark and Eve try starting a business to make money for an apartment, starting with defending the prison holding Multi-Paul, but a local villain situation begins to unfold outside of their control.

OUR TAKE

After several episodes focusing on things happening out of the solar system and dipping into alternate timelines, it’s nice to have an episode that feels a lot more…local. In the case of Invincible, that means finally checking back in with Titan and paying off a plot thread left all the way back in the first season. Well, to be honest we’ve had little check ins throughout this season starting when Multi-Paul, Dupli-Kate’s brother, was arrested, but this is the episode that really brings that all home, including with how Titan took over for Machine Head as running his city. Only now, he’s being pressured by Machine Head’s higher up, Mr. Liu, and deciding he won’t play ball and wants out of this life he’s set up for himself, which ultimately ends up with Machine Head getting his power back, aside from Titan still maintaining control over the city he helped build up since he was in charge. Oh, and meanwhile Mark and Eve are navigating new lines of work, potentially getting an apartment, assessing their current relationship, and looking after Oliver as he continues to grow at an astonishing rate. It all feels so personal and…well, normal compared to everything else going on. Not that that was bad or anything but it’s nice to narrow focus for a bit.

THIS is the kind of shit I LOVE about superhero universes, where even the smaller scale conflicts can involve stuff like a robot autotune man grabbing power from a dragon while a rock dude looks out for his family. The balance of these sorts of plotlines is what stuff like the MCU and Young Justice juggled with but ended up drifting away from as time went on, but Invincible still manages to feel lived in and real despite, or possibly because of, it being a fully original property of homegrown characters that can also wear its influences from the Big Two on its sleeve whenever it feels like it. There’s been a lot of mud thrown at this season but this episode is a reminder of why I’m really glad to have a show like Invincible running right now, and hopefully with no signs of stopping any time soon! And considering every episode, including this one, manages to pack in so much story every week, having three left in the season still feels like so much more is coming our way.