Summary
The best episode of Secret Invasion yet provides tension, solid character development, and a surprising demise.
This recap of Secret Invasion Season 1 Episode 4, “Beloved”, contains spoilers.
I’ve seen a fair few people complaining about Secret Invasion, describing it as boring and such, and I wonder what show they’re watching.
Don’t get me wrong – nobody’s claiming this is peerless television, and the idea that it would end up being the MCU’s equivalent to Andor still feels a little ridiculous. But as the season has gone on, and especially in the fourth episode, “Beloved”, I really got the sense of a confident, high-stakes series that is thoughtful about both its characters and its audience.
Secret Invasion Season 1 Episode 4 Recap
“Beloved” follows on quite neatly from two of the major cliffhangers in Episode 3, but it also introduces a much more pressing threat against U.S. President Ritson, and potentially kills off a major character at the last minute, so let’s address all these things in turn.
Is G’iah alive?
Last week’s episode ended by suggesting that Gravik, who had figured out G’iah was the traitor, had subsequently shot her dead. This week’s episode walks that decision back by revealing that she quickly turned herself into a Super-Skrull the moment before she left New Skrullos.
Her new abilities, the extent of which we’re not entirely aware of yet, include healing, so she’s able to survive the gunshot. Gravik, at this point, thinks she’s dead.
Despite having turned against Gravik, though, G’iah is still more radical than Talos, and thinks his plan to just blithely keep helping humans with their problems until they grant the Skrulls amnesty is delusional. And, frankly, she might be right. The possibility of her new Extremis powers turning G’iah into a villain is very high.
What does Rhodey ask Priscilla to do?
Speaking of extremists, we also learned last week that Nick Fury’s wife, Priscilla, is also a radicalised Skrull in league with Gravik. She arranged a meeting with Rhodey at the tail end of the previous episode, and she meets with him here in a church, where he gives her the assignment of killing her husband.
Before this, though, we get another flashback that’ll become relevant later. In it, Fury and Priscilla bond over the Raymond Carver poem “Late Fragment”. We have an entire article about what this poem means in relation to Secret Invasion, so go and read that if you’re interested.
The words of that poem resonate in the present-day. Since Fury had Priscilla bugged and overheard her entire exchange with Rhodey – realizing at the same time that War Machine is a Skrull – he’s ready for her when she returns to their country home to execute him.
Fury and Priscilla have a conversation that’s loaded in more ways than one. During it, Priscilla reveals how she gained her human form, from a doctor who was dying of a congenital heart defect in exchange for three promises – to bury her at sea, to continue being a daughter to her parents, and to never hurt Nick. Having kept only two of those promises, Priscilla joins her husband in reciting the lines of that poem as they both draw their weapons and fire at each other.
Both deliberately miss. Priscilla might have turned against Gravik and put herself at risk for Fury’s sake, but the marriage doesn’t seem to be in good shape, and Fury’s parting words – “I guess we’ll never know,” in response to his wife asking him if he’d have loved her had she remained her true self – lend a note of finality to the relationship.
How does Fury find out about the assassination attempt?
After this, Fury goes to see Rhodey in his hotel suite (it’s a female Skrull impersonating him, which is treated as a fun little reveal, but I have no idea if it’ll come to matter in any way.) Fury obviously knows about Rhodey’s true nature now, but he doesn’t give that away. Instead, he tricks him into drinking a glass of Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve bourbon which we subsequently learn has been laced with a liquid tracker.
This tracker leads Fury and Talos right to an attack on President Ritson’s motorcade by Gravik and his forces, all posing as Russians for the purposes of stoking up geopolitical calamity.
Secret Invasion Season 1 Episode 4 Ending Explained
Who dies in “Beloved”?
The episode bows out with a very expensive-looking action sequence which sadly claims the life of Talos. Or seems to, anyway.
Since this is becoming the kind of show that never commits to minor quibbles like deaths, it’s hard to fully buy into the idea that Talos is gone for good, but I suspect in this case he might be. Gravik killing him will serve two purposes – to incense Fury even further and make their relationship even more personal, and I suspect to radicalize G’iah into a villain.
The episode ends with Fury in possession of a still-living Ritson, though we know his presidency is coming to an end sooner rather than later – perhaps even as early as next week.
You can stream Secret Invasion Season 1 Episode 4, “Beloved” exclusively on Disney+.
