Secret Invasion: Resurrection

 

The first episode of this Marvel miniseries is a mostly successful attempt to bring the MCU, back to the more mature and darker tone of Captain America: The Winter Solider (2014). 

There is a lot to really like about this introductory episode. The main asset is Nick Fury. This character is still as wonderful as he was in previous MCU projects. However in many ways he is not the exact same character as before. This episode deals with how the events of Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). How this is handled is very interesting and adds a little more depth to an MCU character who has never been the star of his own film. This is a very interesting character arc and I am very intrested to see where it goes. Also as always, Samuel L. Jackson is wonderful in the lead role and brings all the charm you expect from this character. This episode also does a great job of setting up a real sense of atmosphere and suspense. Much of this is due to the fact that this show is not afraid to move at a slower pace and have lengthy breaks between comedic moments. It is also not afraid to go into darker and more serious places. This works greatly to create a real sense that this is something more serious than your average MCU story. Some of the darker and more serious places this episode goes make this feel like the kind of story, where no character is automatically safe. The storyline is of course not completely fleshed out yet (after all this is just the beginning) but the ideas seen here are quite interesting and definitely want to make me tune in next week. 

However while I like this episode, there are a few things that keep me from loving it. One of these is that all the characters besides Nick Fury, seem quite bland and cliché. They never for a moment felt real to me in the way Nick Fury does. There is also a lot of over expository dialogue that breaks the rule of "show don't tell." A lot of this dialogue is also very cliché. There is also that the humorous moments also fell kind of flat. I also hate the AI generated opening and the whole idea of using AI to do the opening. Hopefully some of these faults are corrected in future episodes, because there are quite a few things here that show a lot of potential for this show.