Review: Invincible “Give Us a Moment”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Nolan arrives on Earth with Allen to recruit Mark and another hero in their fight against the Viltrumites, but Nolan must reckon with the broken and scarred friends and family he betrayed.
OUR TAKE
After a neat but rather weightless episode last week, one might expect the following episode to be a light ramp up to the direct fight against the Viltrumites with some somber acknowledgement of Nolan’s first return to Earth since the season one finale. Well, we kinda got that, but turned up to eleven, with all that implies. The first half of this episode alone is basically punctuated by Nolan trying to tell people who used to be in his life that he plans to make amends for everything he’s done, and all of those people telling him to certain degrees that he can’t because he did way too much bad before. The closest comparison I can think of would be Endeavor from My Hero Academia, who simultaneously did less and also worse than Nolan. Nolan never abused his family, but he did lie to them for a long time and kill a ton of people in a short amount of time. The highlight of the episode being, as many have pointed out, Sandra Oh’s brilliant performance as Debbie reading Nolan the Riot Act. And as hard as it is to hear that some of the people he once relied on will never be in his life the same way again, it’s hard not to acknowledge that he is doing a lot to break what is, for him, centuries of indoctrination to help stop a galaxy wide threat, as well as his own people. Like anyone coming back from a destructive low point, Nolan has to carry on despite the pain caused by his actions and their consequences, but perhaps he can prove to his sons that he can be a hero one more time.
And if that were the entirety of the episode, it would easily be a nine out of ten, but then we have the other half dealing with the first counterattack by the Viltrumites, as well as Mark’s rematch against Conquest. Kinda crazy how, in terms of episodes, Conquest only first appeared a handful of episodes ago, but now he’s back for a rematch and, ultimately, his death at Mark’s hands as he slowly chokes the life out of him. Though he definitely proves to be persistent as he dies, managing to punch straight through Mark’s torso and unspool his intestines like yarn. Mark will…PROBABLY be alright, it is his show after all, but holy crap, what a way to end the episode. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the proper introduction of Tech Jacket, genderbent for this adaptation after being a guy in the comics continuity but changed to a girl so her character didn’t blend too much in with Mark like the original version did. We still have three episodes left as things only continue to escalate, but hey, another Viltrumite down means they just have to kill like forty eight more! Easy peezy!
