This is the Invincible Podcast on TV Podcast Industries, and we're talking about Season 4, Episode 7 of Invincible. Don't do anything rush. Thedas, you say Viltrumites respect strength. That is correct, we do.
But these creatures, their strength is not true strength. We must educate them not because of their defiance But because their weakness is an offense to the natural order of the universe You are young, Regent Perhaps you do not yet see the longer gay Regent Thrag is correct Reduce the planet's population by 25% If they continue to resist, eradicate them Emperor, I urge you to reconsider Do you? Welcome back, fellow guardians, to the Invincible Podcast on TV Podcast Industries. We're talking about Invincible Season 4, Episode 7, the penultimate for Season 4.
Don't do anything rash. I'm one of your hosts, Chris. I am your rash-covered host, Derek. Ooh.
Is it crunchy? I was about to say crunchy. That's even worse. No, it's just red, Chris.
Just red. Just red. That's fine. That's fine.
It's your ashes. Never good. Yeah. No, no, no.
We'll get some antihistamines into you, and it will be fine. we are at the end of our penultimate as we come into the final hour of season 4 yes at the end of the Viltrumite War here or are we? basically how's it going to go? I know I keep looking at issue numbers and where we are in terms of the comic books and we're almost at the halfway point here, it's issue 71 to 78 is this part of the storyline in the comic books so there's only about another 60 issues after this.
I love that. Only another 60. Yeah, exactly. But it is crazy to think that there about eight issues of the comics covered in this episode of Elizabeth Isn it That crazy I think literally we talked about this in the last episode of us discussing it which is some of the elements they've really drawn out and instanuated the kind of segments.
Best one I can say is where like Nolan and Debbie had that discussion. Yeah. And it was, again, it was a couple of panel, it was a couple of pages, kind of a discussion across some panels. But they kind of really extended that.
Here, some of these fight scenes are like a whole issue. And you're like, ah, okay. Yeah, it's like one punch. Yeah, but we're also then getting this, oh boy the journey to the center of the earth Viltrum or the journey to the center of Viltrum kind of immortalized on the silver screen it's exceptional yes that's the only way you can really call it it's something I'm hoping people will discuss it's something I'm hoping people will kind of come to us our fellow guardians will go like write in and tell us oh my like what the what yes we are recording this a day early thank you to our prime video for getting us giving us these final episodes but I'm just expecting this to be a bit of a shock horror moment for our fellow guardians yeah especially this episode like not just that moment but this episode absolutely I cannot wait to hear the thoughts of our fellow guardians As you say, Chris, we're recording a little bit early.
If you want to send in your feedback to us, you can email us to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com or pop on over to the Facebook group, facebook.com slash group slash tvpodcastindustries, where there's a spoiler post up there for Invincible. Or pop on over to our Discord as well. There's spoiler posts up there as well. We're covering three shows at the moment.
We're covering The Boys, Invincible, and Daredevil, Born Again as well. So lots and lots of stuff going on. So make sure you find the right spoiler post for your comments, because we really do want to hear your thoughts on these episodes. As Chris mentioned, we're very lucky to be able to see, uh this episode in advance of airing which allows us to record us uh this week we wouldn't have been able to otherwise so delighted about that and if you haven't subscribed to the podcast where you can get access to all of the shows that we're covering pop on over to our website at tv podcast industries dot com and you can subscribe on any invincible or vulnerable podcast player over there and get access to all the shows that we covering Yes But Derek I did want to get your viewpoints and thoughts on this episode So I'm going to suggest we just dive straight into the episode details.
Absolutely. And do you know what? We're going to shake things up as it is the penultimate episode. Do you know what?
I'm going to tell the fellow Guardians who gave us what, where, when and how with the episode details. Absolutely. Please do, Chris. So, Invincible is based on the comic series written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Cory Walker and Ryan Otley, developed by Robert Kirkman, produced by Robert Kirkman, David Albert, Catherine Winder, Simon Reciopa, Margaret M.
Dean, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. this episode was written by Helen Lee this is her fifth episode of Invincible after the season premiere and as we discussed she also wrote Adam Eve the movie and is a writer on the upcoming Invincible vs game which is a street fighter-esque kind of button matching fighter, it's a tag team actually fighter if you understand what that is like Mortal of combat um yeah massive game um they just had their uh beta tests this weekend as we record this so uh lots of people playing the game um testing out stress testing the uh the servers uh for when it goes online in a couple of weeks time but i'm really intrigued to see uh what the single player experiences on that if they've brought on board someone like alan lisa write the story there has to be a story in there uh yeah for all of us to play it through right i'm assuming it has to be some form of kind of Langston E.V. multiversal piece. I do know that Robert Kirkman is involved in Invincible Versus.
He usually has a finger in most Invincible pies. So yeah, interesting to see. The episode was also directed by Stephanie Gonzaga. Season 4, Episode 3 was her first episode and now this is back for second and we can definitely see that she does have a very particular type of kind of beating around everything, smashing it up episodes.
It a massive episode to get the director credit on It absolutely huge Absolutely huge Excellent stuff Now Derek do you want to tell them what they gave us with the episode synopsis Sure Thousands of years ago when the Rollonians began an uprising against their Viltrumite oppressors, the leaders argued over what was to be done. A younger Thedas argues that their strength should not be punished, but their leader, Argyll, is unmoved, ordering 25% of their race be destroyed. Before the plan can be enacted, Thedas assassinates Argyll and flees the planet. Determined to root out the perceived weakness that caused his glorious leader's death, the new regent Thrag orders all Viltrumites to destroy all weakness they find, leading to the murder of millions.
Only the strong survive. In the present day, Thedius leads a team of the Coalition's strongest warriors, including Nolan, Mark, Oliver, Alan, Techjacket and Space Racer, to the planet Viltrum. He hopes to catch and kill Thrag and a small group of Viltrumites before they've had time to regroup and leave the race leaderless. But they were prepared and both groups battle furiously against each other.
Thrag makes one last offer to Nolan to come back to the Viltrumite side and all will be forgiven. The planet is everything that they represent. Unable to beat the Viltrumites in battle, Nolan, Thaddeus and Mark follow an Infinity Bolt from Space Racer's weapon through the core of Viltrum, destroying the planet and its legacy. Furious, Thrag unleashes his power on the team, taking Thaddeus' head and Oliver's jaw, declaring he's a mistake, adding nothing to the Viltrumite race.
He leaves Nolan beaten unconscious and is stopped short of killing Mark, realizing they've lost too many Viltrumites already. Weeks later, Mark is awakened by Alan, the new leader of the Coalition of Planets. Alan has been tasked to find and retrieve the missing Viltrumites, but as they discuss their plans, Mark realizes the super-powered beings are on their way to Earth. What a realization, Chris.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is like how, and it took them nearly two weeks to get to Earth last time.
Well, yeah, we will talk all about the implications and all about these scenes as we go through our points. Do you want to start on our first point, Chris? Yes. It's a flashback.
Point number one, the Vultramite purge after Argyle's murder. This shocked me for a second, to be very honest, because I was a bit like, wait, what? not expecting to go straight from the previous episode into a flashback on this. Yeah.
So was trying to kind of just almost sense check myself going, wait, what's happening? Where, like, is this... a different region? Who is this?
And the realisation slowly kind of coming upon me, as, and most of our viewers, I'm assuming, that the young book of Aethedus in his mustachio style would minus his beard. He looks very old, though. Yeah. No, no, no.
Like, hey, can you imagine? He must be multiple. If Nolan is over a thousand, Thaddeus in what? Two?
Three? Well, there's some talk in the show, actually, that Nolan has said that he's 2,000 years old. He said to Debbie that he's 1,000 years old, but he said in other episodes that he's 2,000. So yeah, we probably think that Thaddeus is probably 4,000, 5,000, a couple of millennia.
He's sitting on the central leadership group of the Viltrumites as well, so that would presumably mean he is one of the older members of the team as well. So, yeah, it's a great way to open the episode, though. We liked it. You know, a couple of weeks ago, we had the episode where it opened with Nolan as a child and we didn't know who it was for a while.
That was their flashback episode where we learned all about the scourge on the planet, the dropping of the virus, which kills millions of Viltrumites. And this time it's talking about the purge of the Viltrumites and the death of Argo. so I love that it gives that flashback to give it its own context to give it its own time so you learn about the characters learn about the relationships of all of the Viltrumites together these thousands of years ago what a cool idea yeah and they do drop an interesting piece of lore that I want to call out to people which is Thrag particularly once Argyll is dead and killed by Thanos and that was a very cool kill by the way He was literally an Assassin's Creed style from the shadows. It was.
Yeah, very cool. Thrag himself says that as there is no Argyle descendants or bloods, he assumes the place of Grand Emperor Regent. Yes, until. Well, he doesn't say, see, he doesn't say as there is no.
He says until one is found. An heir of Argyle is found. which makes me feel there is an air vargle out there but just hadn been found at the time yes exactly because it that language choice and they specifically call it out So it is one piece But look this is interesting because Thrag does then go heavy into the genocidal maniac sociopath of Argyle teachings And we do get the purge yes um so at the funeral basically invokes a almost like go crate it basically the purge the film yeah put on a planetary scale scale yeah yeah exactly it's a really interesting one i was watching the episode again today um just making some extra notes and noticed again the interaction really between uh thrag and the people around him you know he is the one that wants to stop the um the fight that's coming in from from Thadis um we have General Krieg who's having the argument with Thadis but Thrag and Argil are talking after the conversation where Thadis is saying you know we value strength why are we killing any anybody that uprises against us the Rolonians are just showing the strength that we're expecting of our subjects um and everybody else around the table is going to go well no but we don't want anybody any kind of uprising uh there's the third one in the last while so we need to stop it all end it all um but we have the conversation between Thrag and Argyll and Thrag's telling him um Thedas has become weak Thedas has become feeling sympathy for other races ever since he has been on his tour of duty I guess we were we're calling it and that while he was away um he found sympathy for other races um and at that point Argyll tells Thrag if you feel his weaknesses threatening the Viltrumite Empire kill him, do something about it and Thrag questions himself going well maybe I'm overreacting maybe I'll leave it but if he'd done something about it there Argo would still been alive and this is what pushes Thrag to start the purge. He tells them all to cut out any weakness that could inspire similar feelings to Thedius and that's what has thousands, millions of Viltrumites turning on each other and killing everyone around them and it is like old school biblical purging because you see like the the one that sticks with me is that i like there a lot of blood and gore and usual craziness with people being Superman level fights which is fantastic to see on screen that I want to call out.
But there's a scene that sticks with me and it flashes on screen where you have four children and three of them are basically wailing on and killing a fourth. Yeah. on the ground. The reason that sticks with me is because you don't usually see that in a show, animated or live action.
It is something you rarely see in any type of media, where it is showing a level of crazy devotion that you would only see in say, 1940s Germany, or say, certain cults and there's a sociopathic kind of piece to it which is like that kind of group think where it's the kind of riots, everything just gets going and a whole civilization is brought down to a degree it's a cult let's say 20% of them is pulled back because you see conquest Thrag and one of the other kind of scary level of Viltrumite ladies there and they're just about to fight and Conquest a young book of a conquest, younger book of a conquest does for a split second think about going after Thrag. He absolutely does. You can see the hand clenching and then him kind of agreeing to Emperor Regent. This is all gloves off and in fact I think Thrag would have absolutely accepted Conquest coming for him, but he's giving him the opportunity to step back and say, right, that's it, we're done.
We are the ones that have survived the initial purge. We will go on, basically. But yeah, it looks like he would have taken on Conquest. I don't know whether after seeing this episode, I don't know whether Conquest would have survived that battle either.
He may have thought he would, but Thrag's very, very powerful. The other thing that comes out of that scene as well, Chris, and out of all of the deaths that are going on is the cruelty of the Viltrumites. It not just strength that is fostered here with the purge going on He says eradicate the weakness that you see in others And when you see a group of kids gang up on one of their kids that cruelty That bullying And it leads to murder and death. So what's being fostered within the Viltramites is the thing that Thaddeus is trying to shut down, is the cruelty that they're pushing on other races, pushing on other planets and pushing on each other now.
so by Thrag unleashing this purge he's now created a whole race of people that for the rest of their time will test and will murder anybody that they see as weak within their race so that's what seems to have gone on all the way through now from here all the way through to where we are in present day right? Yeah and it goes on for hundreds of years, it's crazy yeah exactly but that does then take us to hard cut to the present day and that's kind of our point two and it's going to take up most of our kind of discussions the Viltrumite war is being taken to Viltrum and so we kind of like I said flash cut to present day and we do have the coalition and we have everyone kind of discussing and Thaddeus going we have to get there we have to take the fight to them it has to be small the rest of the Viltrumites will be back to Viltrum within a matter of days so let's go and you get your nice little I suppose I don't know how to call it it's that kind of hero's journey piece where you kind of have it everyone going off to what they consider to be the kind of unwinnable battle, final battle, but they're going to win anyway because they can do it in time and get there. It's the hopeful journey. There is the bonding sequence where we see them all chatting about what their favourite meal would be if they have one choice for one last meal.
I love that Burger Mart is back again. Burger Mart, of course, is mentioned by the two kids with Tech Jacket and with Oliver. choosing their favorite meal. I love that Alan's eating the eating the the little live creatures and saying I've already got my favorite meal.
And my favorite, of course, is Battle Beast, who's saying that we must eat now. Later, we feast at enemy's entrails or they on ours my final meal will be my own blood as i choke on it after being beaten by a superior opponent and his hilarious classic battle beast for me i want to call it alan's piece where tech jacket turns around and goes i can't eat that it has a face on it your moo cows have a face on it and i'm like yeah he's got a point moo cows have a face just not when you're eating. Exactly, exactly. And they don't scream as they go in my mouth, which I thought, hats off to the audio design on this one.
Yeah. So basically, you hear the, ah, crunch. Mm-hmm. And then chew.
And I'm like, well done. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. They have that crunch just at the right level of that. It kind of is not silenced, but suffocated.
Right, right. Yeah, well done. Fantastic, fantastic. It reminded me of the poplars from Futurama.
A whole race of very cute-looking things that look like McNuggets, and they're the tastiest thing, but they're all alive and very cute, but nobody can stop eating them because they're gorgeous. Yeah, they're tastiest. Exactly. But it's really interesting that we see this kind of layup of everybody coming together, all the most powerful of the heroes from the Coalition.
They're making this trip to get to Viltrum. They think they're going to surprise the Viltrumites. They arrive. We talked before about the ring of bodies that's around the planet.
They travel through it, and we get the explanation of what that is, the millions and millions of people. But I love the underlining that Nolan does of why it's there. It's not there because they didn't have enough space on the planet to bury the bodies or something like that. It's there as a warning for every time the Viltrumites leave the planet, which they do very often.
They're all sent off on their missions and come back and forth often enough for every time they leave, this is the note of when they failed. This is a reminder of when they failed and of their weakness, so that they will see that as they come back and forth to the planet. That's a serious, scary thought from Nolan, I thought. Yeah, really good.
Yeah. And there's also a line between Nolan and Thaddeus, which is essentially regarding Scourge 2.0, Where he does Nolan does remind Thaddeus that Mark and Oliver are half Vultramite So while Nolan and Thaddeus are accepting of the loss of their own lives sacrifice of their own selves to remove the threat that is the Vultramite, they are not potentially willing to do that to Oliver and Mark. You say they. One of them is willing to do it.
Yes, sorry. Nolan is not willing to make that sacrifice. Because this comes back later on when we have the conversation between Thrag and Nolan where Thrag is offering Nolan a place. He's telling him he can end all the hostilities if he just comes home to Viltrum.
and asks him does he have and tells him his children have a space there as well if they decide to come back does Thaddeus have that same thought in mind and you see Nolan going oh I think he realizes that Thaddeus is going to kill everybody including my children me him all the rest of the people of the people of our entire race he's willing to sacrifice them all um and you see the reaction from Thrag where he goes well you're clearly not as naive as I thought you were you understand that this what you're putting on the line for Thadis is all of you not just not just to die in battle against me it's that the entire race will be wiped out if Thaddeus gets his way yeah no agreed and I think that's the the I suppose that's the setup that you get and you have they kind of align everyone which and it was done in the right way which is you kind of have the fun comical moment and then they're kind of the deeper moments between Nolan and Thadis and then you have Mark's moment where he's talking to Eve he's recording a message for Eve and it is that kind of like going off to battle going to send my loved one a letter type thing and he does kind of do the thing most people go which is ah, screw it. I'm going to just kind of, I don't need to call this because I'm coming home. Little does he know. But he does technically yeah Like I suppose he survives to a degree But that kind of sets the foundation then for everyone for the audience Kind of like okay you understand where everyone is in this kind of overall approach as you come into the final, quote-unquote, battle of the Viljumite War.
Derek, what did you think? I knew how this kind of ambush plays out but what was your own thoughts and feelings around this type of approach? I absolutely loved that the animation plays such a strong part in what's going on here as I said them flying through the bodies of the Viltrumites in the ring around the planet I thought was really well done having the conversation then you just see the eyes of one of the what you think are bodies open so you know they're hidden in there and then it's uh-oh Thrag's waiting for us he knows we're coming and so do all of the rest of the Viltrumites so we've seen battles against a few Viltrumites before we just saw it last week as well but I think they amped it up quite well here um they've come along with all of their weapons um the whole time at the beginning I was going where's Space Racer remember we talked about it last week why isn't he there why isn't he shooting his weapon killing them all because all it takes is one shot from Space Racer uh and they did a really cool thing where they have him hidden he arrives but he's not there to just shoot his gun he's there to deliver the ragnars who were the uh the beasts that we saw that almost killed alan and nolan when they tried to capture them back uh back in episode three or episode four um so i loved all the movements of these battles again i can get very tired of a show that is just punch punch every week no matter how brutal it is no matter how much guts are spilled i can get very tired of it so doing something different um with the battles here versus what we saw last week. It was really, really good.
I love that everybody had a little moment in the battle. You know, Tech Jacket with her Sinlak poison and the ten darts that she had available to her. As she fires them, if one does land, Alan then is there behind her to be able to take out the Viltrumites with his very, very powerful fists. My God, his fists going through the stomach of one guy and coming out of his mouth as he kills him was pretty phenomenal looking.
yes yeah so really like that and then yeah getting to see battle beast really enjoy the war where he gets to go up against Krieg and then tries to go up against Thrag and Thrag just instantly goes nope and knocks him away And you like hmm how far is he spinning out into space? Absolutely. I guess Battle Beast is gone for a while again. Just saying again, he shall return for battle to feast on the entrails.
Doran does such a great delivery on the lines of this episode as Battle Beast. Just like one-liners as he kind of does these things. 30 years the Klingon curse. That's what it is.
I absolutely love this. Again, you're right. No matter what the show is, if it's battle, battle, battle, it does get boring. The interesting thing here is not the same.
Even though we do have a number of flying heroes on a planet, so the Viltrums flying around, it's this up is down, left is right space battle. and like outer space where you do have everyone's coming from different angles there is no up there is no down um so it's interesting to see and then how they play on that which is like you have the ragnars being flung you have space racer firing his weapon goes through one and cuts another it's so it was just I suppose the term is choreographed it would be storyboarded technically because it's animation but choreographed in terms of how you would put together a fight like this yeah absolutely yeah I loved it yeah you know as I say I love that everybody has a bit of Jeopardy in there I did laugh at the Space Racer moment when three of the Viltrumites come up and start punching him in the face. And it's, oh, my God, who would have thought this tiny little piece of glass that's on the front of my face could be the thing that is the only thing between me and dying? Yeah, probably should have protected Space Race.
But at least Tech Jack is able to come back and use the nanotech to repair that pretty quickly and save him, thankfully, because he's a pretty important person to be there. But, yeah, I guess the final movement of it, as I kind of mentioned earlier on, is Nolan being beaten down to the planet and then having the offer from Thrag to rejoin the Viltrumites. Because of the implications of it, I suppose, Nolan has now made the decision that... he is moving away from the Viltrumites.
He doesn't believe in their cause anymore. He's aligned himself completely with Thaddeus and with the Coalition. He was puzzling over that for a large part of the season so far. So in this conversation where he's being offered the opportunity to come home, in inverted commas, Nolan's saying to them, this planet is is just a husk it's just a graveyard to all of the dead uh viltrumites that have gone before give it up um if you if you uh agree terms you can be at least be alive but this planet is nothing and you see that is what gets thrags back up more than anything else he believes the legacy of the planet and their history uh is still there it's not about there only being 40 members of their society left it's about there being 40 members of their society left like that's a it's a different perspective on exactly the same thing Thrag's going 40 of us versus the entire galaxy is 40 very powerful beings and Nolan's kind of thinking well you're already beaten um loved this moment between the two of them but it does push um Thrag over the edge I think yeah and for me it's seeing Viltrum depicted so like up until that point we had seen and all the flashbacks we've seen of Viltrum it is shiny pretty blue skies everything is not decayed to the level that it is this present day view of how Viltrum was is yeah it is a mausoleum it is a monument to the death, destruction of a whole planet, of a race.
Just much like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I suppose what the monument is and says is in the eye of the beholder too. But it doesn't last long. No, it does not.
No. Should we move on to our point three? Absolutely. Yeah let get on to our third and final point for the episode The Destruction of Viltrum Oh my God I so glad we had the conversation last week about what the Space Racer had I was laughing when I was watching it again I was like oh they did it in this episode I thought it was going to be in the finale But it didn't spoil anything.
I hope our fellow Guardians don't feel that we spoiled anything by having that conversation last week. I was genuinely curious why a character that could shoot a hole straight through any Viltrumite that he pointed the weapon at, why he wasn't taking every shot. He takes a lot more shots in this episode and they go wildly off course. I'm worried about now all the other planets in that galaxy and what happens to them.
But yeah, I love that they all team up together for one last push. And it's moments where Oliver has been knocked off course effectively. He's had his arm ripped off and his jaw knocked out. But everybody has to stay focused and has to go for this one last push to take out the planet.
I really love that they've done it this way. Yeah, and it animated beautifully. Just spectacularly. It is, and I think when we were having the discussion last week, I think we were saying it goes on and on.
It does look like the shots dissipate. Yeah. And so I would say that it's not infinite or the infinity kind of gun. It does, they don't go on and on for infinity.
I think it's just, it is a very just powerful shot that goes through everything to a point as it dissipates. But it basically just builds the momentum for this arrow that is three Viltrumites going hell for leather. the shot as it first penetrates Viltrum as they come down in this blue arc again we talked about a couple of times now in our discussions for this season of just those shots that I would take the still from and put on the wall that is one of those this kind of just actually this going in and coming out of Viltrum are two shots that I was like, that's pretty enough. If you don't know what you're seeing, you just have some amazingly pretty splash colors.
And kind of overall reds and blues. It looks spectacular And as it you do have Nolan just kind of pushing on like stay the course stay the course As you see, like, they're essentially going through the center core of a planet, and their clothes, not all their clothes, so apparently pants are, much like the Hulk's pants in Marvel, they are extra absorbent of heat and energy I think I literally wrote down in my notes I'm glad they wore their heat absorbing pants like it's the earth's core the planet's core that they're going through and it shows it's burning off all of their clothes as it's going through but not all of them yes in this R rated show where you see blood and guts going everywhere you can't possibly have three naked characters no no but they should have it would have been they should have like of all the shows i would have expected them to do it but anyway it's a it's a really weird um idea in uh now a really weird uh old idea that you can show as much violence as this show shows you know we had somebody rooting through mark's intestines a few weeks ago but you can't possibly show his naked ass that's ridiculous but hey it didn't ruin the moment um it really felt so brutal what they were doing um the speed was really well done in the animation i found um just the actual resistance that they were meeting as they go through the core of the planet as they're uh they're traveling through it it felt like they were going through at hyper speed almost um you You know, it was fantastic. And then, yeah, the explosion, as you see, the entire history of the planet destroyed by this act of the three of them. And then you see Thaddeus going, well, now we've shown them what the legacy was.
And you're kind of going, will they get the message? I don't know whether they will. Or will they just think you've destroyed our home planet? And that seems to be the reaction.
but he doesn't get to last very long because Thrag takes out his punishment on everybody immediately after that. You see him pulling apart a planet-sized rock to get through to them, and he instantly takes Thaddeus's head. Yes. It's one of these kind of ones, do I agree with what they did?
I don think I think Thaddeus is well in my own personal opinion I think Thaddeus was wrong in this approach Because you right Like they don go oh well Pilchim is no more Ah, well. Take us away in chains and put us in your human prisons. Yeah. Nope.
It's like, no, no, no. You just, like, people say don't poke a bear. They didn't just poke the bear. They electro-shocked it with a cattle prod multiple times.
and then douse themselves in meat juice. Like, the only acceptable response is retaliation here. And you get that. Thrag is one of the most powerful.
Absolutely. And this is put to show. When he headbutts Mark, like, you see in space, no one can hear you scream, but you can see a headbutt shockwave, apparently. Yeah, it's almost like a sonic boom, isn't it?
Yeah. Even though there's no... Yeah, even though there's no gas or oxygen or boom. It's just showing how busy, how powerful he is.
One call-out I did like is that Mark kind of thinks he can take on Thrag by saying, well, I killed Conquest. and you're like oh that's cute well yeah that does kind of like go yeah but i i i think that plays into the end though um i think it's a really important moment from mark to say that because he says it in front of all of the rest of the villager mights they all turn when he says that um and i think it's very important that they know how powerful mark is while he's not powerful enough to take down Thrag and that's, you know, it's like, is that all you got, kid, kind of thing, is the reaction. I'm not impressed, but we don't have enough Viltrumites for me to kill you, is the reaction from Thrag to him. He leaves him alive.
He does punch Nolan through the insides, but again, leaves him floating in space. He doesn't rip off his head like he did with Thadis. He takes Oliver's jaw and arm saying you're not one of us. So this is why I think it plays into that final moment.
And we'll talk about the postcard in its own piece as we usually do. But it feels like Thrag realizing that Mark, who is... from Earth and Nolan's his dad has given Thrag the idea that a good way to expand the Viltrumites is to couple Viltrumites with people from Earth. So potentially they're not going to destroy Earth as payback for what the coalition has done.
They're going to mate with humans so that they can make more people like Mark is what it feels like with that conversation. So, yeah, it's like a switch has just flicked and Thrag's head where he's gone. OK, maybe Nolan was right. There's only 40 of us.
This kid's pretty powerful. If we all go there and lay our seed out, we could get another thousand Viltrumites in 20 years time. Yeah. And they talk about how throughout the season they've talked about the marked power level, the compatibility between humans and Viltrumites.
Exactly. And that this was the genetic seed was the most compatible of humans, with humans that they've ever seen. Yeah. And that like there are no other pure-blooded bilgeomites left outside of those 40.
So, yeah, you're talking and they obviously at a certain point, you cannot inbreed that level anymore. so it does become as you're right it becomes a switch is flicked and it will play hopefully well I think it will kind of I'm hoping it plays in the finale because I think that's not something you want to like we know it takes two weeks to get home I do wonder how much they will talk about in the final episode because other adversaries like waiting until season five. Yeah, no, this has to be the movement in the final episode. You know, in this post-credits scene where they all kind of get back together, Mark's been unconscious for a couple of weeks is what he's told by Alan when he meets him.
Alan is now the new leader of the coalition. He's got his cool duds on. I like they didn hold this over until next week We had the episode 5 to episode 6 transition where we thought Mark how could he possibly survive And then all of episode six of Mark recovering from being punched through by Conquest They didn't wait to have another episode where we had each of the characters recovering. We're told Oliver's inside the Bacta tank, as I'm calling it, because it looks like Luke from Empire Strikes Back.
It was a Luke reference, yeah. It is definitely a Star Wars reference, but we have him inside there and we're told he's going to be fine. he'll recover but he does have his little he-man lockjaw type thing attached to his face now but he will be fine he will recover the person who's telling us that is Nolan who woke up the previous day so he's he's awake and he's recovering and Mark's recovering and so we know the initial trip that they took from Earth to the destination which was the Coalition's home planet was about about two weeks uh that was specifically said so if mark's been asleep for a few weeks or in a coma for a couple of weeks and thrags on his way to earth uh they probably have reached it by now or they're very close to reaching it by now and if that was the fastest that they could travel as two weeks what could happen to earth in the two weeks um that it will take them to get there so yeah so i think they will be rushing as fast as they possibly can to get to earth but it still could be two weeks too late. Yeah, and I do want to talk about very quickly the interesting piece here which is they decided not to do this post this is a post credit.
This is it feels pointed. I think that's the best way to put that is that this could have been your post credit but they decided to put this in and then it is very much a fade to black if you will. Yeah, it absolutely I know loads of people talk about Star Wars Empire Strikes Back being the best Star Wars movie because it had the really dark ending we can look back at it now because you're able to just stick in Return of the Jedi immediately afterwards and you go, gramps, right? There's the story playing out.
The reason why it's so good is because of this scene right here is exactly the same as the Empire Strikes Back scene. It gives a moment for all of your good guys who got away from um the battle they all survived the battle and you thought maybe they had killed the viltrumites and they'd gone into hiding that's what alan seems to think they've killed their planet they destroyed the planet and they gone into hiding maybe they just going to hide out we won hear from them for a hundred years or something um but now mark realization that actually it much worse than you think they on the way to his home planet that a great moment to leave for the cliffhanger for the week rather than just having it as a post-credit scene it's a bigger cliffhanger than that so um since there isn't a post-credit scene um i guess they just thought it would be better for people to just to make sure people saw this and didn't turn off the episode thinking it's all okay. So it's much worse than that. Let's see how it plays out in the finale next week.
Yeah. Since we're going into the finale next week and we kind of know that, well, I think anyway, this is what the finale will be all around. There's a couple of other things that do need to be tied up when we get in there. We've got two characters that disappeared into a different dimension.
We've got Monster Girl and Robot who were off with the Flaxons. I was expecting that to be resolved at some point in the season, but it was never brought up again at all. Nope. We've also got Adam Eve on Earth, who still hasn't told Mark that she's pregnant.
And a lot of times gone by now. We're talking four or five months nearly at this point that he has been gone. And if you think she was like two weeks, two weeks, a month pregnant before he left. Well, yeah, she probably was a bit more than that because it takes a while to know that you're pregnant.
So it's probably at least a month knowing. And then she's probably about six months pregnant at this stage, roughly. So that's got to be something there, I guess. Yeah, I guess all the other stuff is just relationship stuff.
It's what's happening with Debbie and Paul or how they moved in together, that kind of stuff. So I don't know whether we'll get much of that. I just do want to note in my notes for the episode, I do want to say there's a lovely moment from Oliver where he says his favorite meal would be Paul's spaghetti because he makes his own meatballs. So I do like that even though he says Paul's boring and horrible, they did have that lovely meal before he left.
And he still has respect for him because he cooks nice Italian dishes. Yeah, no, 100%. There are a few outstanding pieces on this and I think one of the points that I think it will be interesting to see how they and I don't think they will resolve it I think it will fall into season 5 which is we did see Mark go through this I need to kill in order to save for the greater good With the return of conquest and then the subsequent off-planet excursion, that gets paused. That very deep point where he was struggling about his need to save more people by kind of killing for the greater good that is now an interesting piece because he's just killed a fair few Viltrumites so it is that's something I'm hoping that does get picked up again that's your emotional kind of Mark is still human kind of like emotionally connected to less of his Viltrumite rage side and we'll see how that is and then I think yeah the the flaxons I can't wait to see that one it'll be interesting to see what happens to them oh I know and I'm just hoping that's one of those we get it in season 5 yeah like what we're halfway through it's like this is going to be 6 seasons in a movie I think that's what they're running for yeah maybe do you know one thing that did cross my mind watching this episode um there's been loads of talk about a live action version of invincible uh rather than um the from the time that the animated series was announced there's been this talk about a live action uh movie and at this stage i cannot see it i can't see it being anywhere near as good as what's been delivered here from the animated show it just can't see people traveling through the center of a planet destroying it on a massive screen in live action being as good as what was delivered here in this episode.
I just don't see it. But you're 100% correct because look how long it's taken us to get the payoffs here. Like, you called it out previously, which is no character is ever brought in that doesn't turn up later for a story beat. Like, you'd have to cut and cull so much content and then is it worth it?
Exactly, it's just an action movie at this stage and it's a point. And it wouldn't be an action movie, it's a CGI movie it would be literally a CGI fest. Like Zack Snyder, eat your heart out. All the characterization and just have them punch each other in the face to show how powerful they are.
And that's kind of it. Yeah, I just can't see it now. And I'm delighted that we get to watch this show each week. And we have another couple of seasons coming as well.
So let's reserve talk of what could happen in season five until next week. Maybe they will tie up a couple of these plot lines. we know that Damien Darkblood returned to Earth and there was a whole conversation with Satan there in one of the post-credits scenes. I can't imagine they're going to suddenly return to that next week either.
But let's see how that all plays out when we come back for the finale episode. Chris, any final thoughts on the episode or any other notes that we haven't talked about? No, for me, I like Tech Jacket's character now. I think aging her to the level that she is and putting her as a proxy Oliver in parts really does work well, really well.
The character really has continued to grow on me more and more, and I'm happy she can become, I think, another Alan. Whereas some of the characters like Bulletproof they like they very tertiary to the overall plot Whereas Alan would be I say your kind of secondary character I can see Tech Jacket taking a similar secondary character approach and being one of those very much like a robot or a monster girl type, where you're interested to see what happens more with them. So yeah, we definitely want to see more of Tech Jacket as we come into the following seasons and next episode. What about yourself?
Any final notes? No final notes. I just really enjoyed the episode. I think it was exceptionally well done.
It's a great penultimate episode for the season reminding me of some of the great penultimate episodes of shows before, like the Game of Thrones one where you have the massive battle in the second last episode and then the aftermath happens in the finale, but this time, what is going to happen on Earth? No idea. I just wonder are they going to be coming back and we'll have Thrag on a throne somewhere, having killed swath of humans. I have no idea how it's going to go.
So really excited to see the finale next week. I'm to say, like, this has been such a fantastic seven episodes. How they pulled it together, what they've shown on screen, as you say, like, and some of it I I think I don think I disagreed with the speed I think I come to accept that some things have been elongated some things have been contracted and it worked well I think they found their footing with the narrative they found their footing with how to script and storyboard, and the animation has just gone straight to the strength. And then that leaves us into what can only be, I think, a strong kick finale.
Absolutely. before another year break. And I'm okay with that because we've got seven to be eight spectacular episodes for different reasons. So yeah, very much looking forward to the next, the final 50, 55 minutes.
And I think I'm happy to say I will not be doing anything rash or saying anything rash as we go into the final hour. Brilliant. Well, we will leave it there. We don't have any feedback.
As we said, we're recording ahead of time. So we will cover your final feedback on episode seven and on episode eight next week when we come back to record our finale discussion. We're going to be recording that after the episode comes out. So get your thoughts into us and we'll have a big old chat about all of your feedback on Invincible.
We can get that into us by emailing us to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com or as usual, go on over to our Facebook group at facebook slash groups slash TV podcast industries or going over to our discord the details of which are in the show notes right here for this very episode Yes And as Derek said at the beginning of this episode we are covering so much other content. We, I say we, the royal we, here at TV Podcast Industries are covering Daredevil Born Again Season 2, the final season of The Boys and, of course, Invincible. So, make sure you subscribe by heading on over to tvpodcastindustries.com and we'll be back next week for Invincible Season 4, Episode 8. Leave me hanging here after it airs on April 22nd.
I love that as a title for the finale. Leave me hanging here. As in, don't leave me hanging. But it's okay to leave me hanging with this final episode for a year.
Love it. Thanks so much for joining us and speaking to you again next week for the final episode of Invincible Season 4. Yes. Thank you so much for everyone for joining us remember keep watching keep listening and keep being invincible bye you