Review ‘Invincible’ Season 2 Episode 5 “This Must Come As A Shock”

*Spoilers for Invincible Season 2 Episode 5*

The episode opens with Mark (Steven Yeun) at the brink of death in Thraxan after he and his father fought the Viltrumite soldiers. The Thraxan people take Mark in and have him help them rebuild their city after the Viltrumites had destroyed it all. After some time, the Thraxan’s are able to get Mark a ship to go back to Earth. Before Mark leaves, the Thraxan Queen asks Mark to bring his half-brother with him back to Earth. She asks Mark to do this because Thraxan’s have very short lifespans, so the kid would outlive all of the Thraxan’s on the planet. Mark arrives back on Earth and goes back home to see his mom, Debbie (Sandra Oh). Mark and his mom catch up about everything that has happened on Thraxan and how Mark has been gone for two months.

Back at the Pentagon, Donald (Chris Diamantopoulos) confronts Cecil (Walton Goggins) after he found out that he was part robot. Cecil ends up telling Donald the truth about how he and the people of the Pentagon created a robot body for Donald. They placed Donald’s within the robot after he exploded the surveillance building during the Omni Man attack in the finale of Season 1. Cecil then meets up with Mark, expressing his anger on how Mark disobeyed his order to go all the way to space when they needed him here. In Mark’s absence, the Guardians of the Globe almost died fighting a monster. Mark tells Cecil that he went because his help was needed out there too, not just here on Earth.

Meanwhile, the Guardians of the Globe prepare to fight a spaceship filled with sequids headed straight for Earth. After exposing Shapeshifter as a Martian, they discover the real astronaut was left behind, and has become a human conduit for the sequids. Rex (Jason Mantzoukas) visitsEve (Gillian Jacobs) at her parents home after she had retired from being a superhero. Rex tells her that having powers isn’t easy, but heroes try and do their best with them. After their talk, Rex asks Eve if she will join the Guardians of the Globe on their mission to space to fight the sequids. At the same time, Cecil tries to recruit Mark to join the Guardians of the Globe for this mission. He explains that no sequids can be allowed to reach Earth. If they do, their hive-mind powers will take over all the people of Earth. Mark agrees and goes with Eve to join the rest of the Guardians to intercept the sequid ship. After their ship is destroyed by the sequid’s missiles, Eve uses her powers to phase the guardians onto the sequid ship to be able to fight the sequids. The Guardians with Invincible and Eve try their best to fight off the sequids, but their effort seems to be futile.

While some of the Guardians of the Globe are in space with Mark and Eve, the Lizard League is seen attacking a military missile facility. This forces the leftover Guardians – Rex, Dupli-kate, and Shrinking Ray – to the military base to stop the Lizard League from launching missiles out to major cities. During the fight, Komodo Dragon kills Dupli-kate by splitting her in half; and eats Shrinking Rae while she was in her shrunken form.  Rex is able to kill Iguana and Komodo Dragon, but not before Komodo Dragon eats his hand off. Right as Rex believes that he has won, Lizard King shows up behind him and points a gun at the back of his head. 

The episode ends with Allen being alive inside of the healing tube, but this time he is stronger and better than ever before. Thaedus reveals to Allen that he is a Viltrumite, the only one to defy the empire, and he tells Allen he needs to meet Invincible because he is the one that can help them change the tide of the Viltrumite war.

This episode is a perfect representation of what Invincible is about, with amazing action, great characters, and some very high and impactful stakes. The animation is great like always, with the fight scenes really standing out . The voice acting is great throughout the entire cast, but the big standouts are Steven Yeun as Mark/Invincible and Walton Goggins as Cecil. Both of them truly stand above the rest, showing deep and strong emotion. On the other hand, Gillian Jacobs as Eve does nothing different and is just good enough in the episode. The writing is good too, making the stakes feel very high while also making sure the emotional beats feel real and earned. 

Overall Invincible Season 2, Episode 5 is a great continuation of Season 2 and completely worth the mid-season break. The show continues to deliver on its incredible action sequences while making sure the emotion and reality of the characters continue to develop with each episode.

Rating: 9/10