Summary
“Betrayed” isn’t as clever as it thinks, but it does commit to a surprising turn to regain some goodwill.
This recap of the Disney+ series Secret Invasion Season 1 Episode 3, “Betrayed”, contains spoilers.
Villains never really learn, do they?
When you think about it, villainous plots are always along the same lines — take over the world, eradicate the human race, and so on, and so forth. And the methods of achieving that are always similar too. Sowing discord and disruption. Turning people against each other and themselves.
You can’t have a superhero story without someone who isn’t super trying to become it. Enter the Super-Skrulls.
Secret Invasion Season 1 Episode 3 Recap
“Betrayed” begins with Gravik laying out to the Skrull Council the plan that became obvious to viewers last week in Episode 2. He’s trying to engineer Super-Skrulls — with the help of the Daltons, collected DNA samples, and that giant machine — to wipe out the dregs of humanity that don’t destroy themselves after being tricked into various nuclear geopolitical conflicts.
On that note, Pagon has given Zirksu and Beto assignments. They’re to infiltrate the British Royal Navy disguised as officers and take down a key U.N. target.
How did Nick Fury meet his wife?
More on the above soon. In the meantime, though, we mustn’t forget about the other bombshell reveal from the previous episode, which is that Nick Fury is married to a Skrull named Priscilla.
Back in the day, though, her name was Varra. Fury met his wife while she was working as one of his undercover operatives in New York, 1998, as part of a covert team that was so off-the-books is justified fraternization between superiors and subordinates. (The team was working to take down Dreykov, the villain from Black Widow, obviously with limited success.)
In the present day, Scilla isn’t thrilled about Fury’s sudden reappearance, especially not after his voluntary post-Blip retirement. One of the first things Fury asks her is if she has been in contact with Gravik, and a shady phone call implies that if she hasn’t, she has at least been in contact with somebody that she’d rather Fury now know about.
Is G’iah still working with Talos?
There’s also the small matter of G’iah’s allegiances to attend to.
Last week G’iah tipped off the police about the location of Gravik’s safe house, which he softly confronts her about in “Betrayed”. She blames Brogan, claiming he made an educated guess under torture, and while Gravik obviously doesn’t believe her, he lets it go.
G’iah isn’t very good at playing double agent. While Gravik takes her to the parlay that Talos called via Shirley, she texts crucial information about the UN attack, seemingly not sparing a thought for the obviousness of just blindly repeating information she has overheard. Gravik is already suspicious of her. It’s the oldest trick in the book to plant incorrect information and see who it gets repeated to.
The parlay is an interesting scene. I think people will be mixed on Kingsley Ben-Adir, whose annoyance at World War I-era paintings recalls Killmonger’s frustration with museums being stocked with pilfered, misrepresented artifacts in Black Panther. He’s a radical who believes, firmly, that he’s right, which all good villains necessarily must, but he’s verging on overacting here.
Gravik also has an entire cafe filled with disguised Skrulls, which makes for a nice visual when Talos lunges at him, but none of them intervene when Talos skewers Gravik’s hand to the table with a butter knife. It’s almost like they were there just for the shot of them all shapeshifting into Gravik. It makes for nice screenshots but little drama.
On his way out — oh, the parlay is entirely unsuccessful — Talos bumps into someone who hands him the burner phone G’iah used to type out information on the submarine, Neptune, from which Gravik plans to launch his attack on the U.N. delegation. Like an old spy movie!
Secret Invasion Season 1 Episode 3 Ending Explained
Since Neptune is a British sub, Fury, after making amends with Talos, calls Sonya Falsworth, who gives him the name of the sub’s commander, Robert Fairbanks, a die-hard Gravik loyalist who won’t give up the abort code for the submarine even after Fury and Talos hold him at gunpoint. When he taunts Talos about G’iah, though, Talos shoots him dead and turns to G’iah herself for the code.
Who dies in “Betrayed”?
This obviously means blowing her cover in New Skrullos. She retrieves the abort code from the real Bob, and the launch is averted, but when G’iah tries to make her escape Gravik is waiting for her. The whole thing was obviously intended to root out the traitor. In a surprising turn, Gravik shoots G’iah dead.
“Betrayed” ends with Scilla retrieving a gun from a safety deposit box. She’s instructed — by the voice of Rhodey, who is apparently a Skrull — to head to a certain location at a certain time, but when she asks to speak to Gravik, her request is denied.
You can stream Secret Invasion Season 1 Episode 3, “Betrayed”, exclusively on Disney+.
