Invincible 301 Podcast

[00:00:00] This is the Invincible Podcast on TV Podcast Industries. We're back with Season 3 of Invincible, Episode 1, Who's Laughing Now? Patience is a virtue. It took months for me and my friends to learn all of your particular vibrations. How you move. How you breathe. The bitter patter of your black little hearts.

[00:00:29] I think you'll agree it was worth every minute of my incarceration. I tried to change your corrupt system, tear down your false idols, take back what you stole from the earth. But every time I was stopped by you super-powered fascists, fighting to keep your capitalistic slave machine running. Until now.

[00:01:20] Welcome back fellow guardians to the Invincible Podcast on TV Podcast Industries. We're back with Season 3 of the three-episode premiere. This time we're going to be talking about the first episode, Who's Laughing Now? I'm one of your hosts, Derek. And rounding out the dynamic duo, I am Chris. Do you round out when there's just two of us, Chris? I can't remember. Yeah. Hey, I could be missing a leg and that is ableist. Okay.

[00:01:49] Because you would round up to two, but technically I'm like one of seven fits. Okay, that might work. I feel it's not been as long as you think it is since we did Invincible. Invincible was on this time last year. We had the second half of Season 2 and now we're back again a year later. I think it's just because that massive gap between Season 1 and Season 2 and then that couple of months gap between the first half of Season 2 and the second half of Season 2 and then suddenly it's back again.

[00:02:15] I think that's why. And I think then obviously we get, they've been better at the marketing. Mm-hmm. Are you just going, hey, we know we messed up. Yeah. We know you want more Invincible. We're gonna give you more Invincible and here it is. And then guess what? It's not gonna even be that long. You're gonna get it all in one. There's no gap. We listen to you.

[00:02:38] Yeah, I'm putting three episodes out in day one. You know, I always forget, I think we mention this every time we come back to Invincible, I always forget how long these episodes are on a regular cable network and it'll be a full hour long show. So I always forget that sitting down in front of these episodes.

[00:02:53] It gets me every time. I was watching Episode 2 and I was like, wait, okay, hold on. No, I can't go. I'm gonna have to pause this. I cannot go to the bathroom. Jared, like it's almost over. I was like, it was about 23, 24 and I was like, it's fine. It's gonna be over in a second. Yeah. And I was like, nope. But no, I'm only half. I'm only half way through. Exactly. And when you're watching three episodes in a row, that's almost a full length movie, you know? Yeah.

[00:03:19] You know, it's getting up to that stage. But it is great to be back in the world of Invincible from the wonderful comic books by Robert Kirkman. Always enjoyed this world. And I think last season had a kind of a big capper on it where Mark murdered a supervillain, Angstrom Levy, last year. So the implications of what that means for Mark, I guess, are going to come out over the course of this season.

[00:03:45] Yeah, this is actually one of my favorite arcs, if you will, from the comic books. And it is, there were so many jokes, because you may have seen it in the trailers. There is a costume change. There is. And they call it out in the title cards, which I was so happy about. Yeah. And this was like the dark, the dark edge.

[00:04:13] When all comics went gritty and raw, and this was their kind of prod at it. But being Invincible, being the comic book that somewhat makes fun of other kind of comic books and the characters and the arcs they go through. But at the same point, then actually giving you what you would classify as good narrative, good writing, good storyline, and good emotional kind of character depth.

[00:04:42] But this one is the one where you actually, you start to empathize even more so with Invincible, with Mark. With going, oh yeah, he has a set of principles, but now he's starting to break those principles. What does that do to a superhero psyche? Exactly. And some of the fun parts of this, I say fun, that's quite twisted.

[00:05:06] Some of the interesting moments from this season, from this arc, really come from that, which is, what does it mean to be a good person? What does it mean to be a good guy? And I mean guy as in a good superhero versus a good villain. Yeah. Is there a gray area? Yeah. And I think that's where they really get into. Absolutely. It's interesting.

[00:05:29] Like I would say, you know, when Robert Kirkman came up with the concept of Invincible, it felt like it was kind of, as they used to say, back of a cigarette packet. It was kind of like, yeah, let's do a play on what it would really be like to be a superhero on Earth. Ha ha, that'd be really funny. And he came up with the concept of some of the character names at that time. And then it grew into what actually landed on the page, which is actually quite a complex story about the relationships between all of these characters. It's not what it looks like.

[00:05:56] And, you know, you'd almost see the character designs and think it's going to be a very funny comedy show. It's not really that at all. And it gets very serious. And the relationship dynamics between the characters get very, very serious throughout the seasons, as we've seen so far. And before we get into this episode discussing about season three of Invincible, just to say three episodes came out on Prime Video. We have watched all three. This podcast here will be covering all three episodes, but we're going to try and do them in order. We're going to try and keep them separated. So we'll talk about episode one first, then episode two, then episode three.

[00:06:26] But I would say we may say something that happens in the other two episodes when we're talking about the first episode. Hopefully not. We're going to try not to spoil anything. But just a reminder that all three episodes are available right now on Prime Video. So go watch those as well. I presume you are watching them before you listen to the podcast. But we do want to hear your thoughts, of course, about Invincible as we go through the season. You can email us to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com. We'll have our feedback section coming up from next week onwards.

[00:06:53] And we'd love to hear your thoughts about the third season as we go through each of the episodes. And do make sure you subscribe to the podcast. We have got our Boys and Invincible feed available on our website, tvpodcastindustries.com, which has every episode of Invincible so far, plus every episode of The Boys and the spinoff shows of The Boys. You can get that there. Or you can subscribe to the main podcast, TV Podcast Industries, which has 10 years of podcasting, about 900 episodes of podcasts of loads of different shows that we've covered as well.

[00:07:20] So subscribe to us over there on tvpodcastindustries.com. Yes, sir. But, Derek, we were to give them episode details. What might some of those episode details be? Well, the show, of course, is based on the comic book series by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Corey Walker and Ryan Otley. The show was developed by Robert Kirkman and produced by Robert Kirkman, David Alpert, Catherine Winder, Sam Resioppa, Margaret M. Dean, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. This episode was written by Sam Resioppa, one of the producers of the show.

[00:07:47] He's the co-showrunner of Invincible and previously was a showrunner on The Boys Presents Diabolical as well. So he's been involved in lots of other shows that we've covered here as well. Yes, he has. And the episode was directed by Jason Zurich, who directed episode four of Invincible season two as well. Lots of the directors on the show come back and do multiple episodes of the show. We see that over and over again throughout Invincible. They stay in that kind of pool of directors that they pull in for the episode. So Jason Zurich returning after season two.

[00:08:15] Yeah, and I'm assuming he's already in for season four. I hope so. I hope so. Yeah, season four is being made at the moment, isn't it? It is. It was renewed for season three and four at the same time. Yeah. So we are. And I think that was also one of the reasons we got. Don't worry. Even between season three and season four won't be that long of a wait because they turned around and went, you know what? Just give the people what they want. Yeah, hopefully we'll see it around the same time next year for season four of Invincible. It'd be kind of cool. And there's, of course, loads of material in the comic books as well to cover.

[00:08:43] So we could have, I think, Robert Kirkman talks about, you know, six or seven seasons of this show or even more than that that they can get out of the comic books. So it could be around for a very long time. But for this episode, Chris, do you want to tell us what they gave us with the synopsis for season three, episode one of Invincible? Who's laughing now? In my best John voice. Sure.

[00:09:04] Following his return from another dimension after murdering Alshom Levy, Mark trains with the GDA, Global Defense Agency, getting stronger and stronger every day. His new half-brother Oliver wants to train too and reveals he already has his powers. But Mark and his mother are reluctant to bring Oliver into the family business. Multi-Paul, the angry brother of Duplicate, attacks Rexplode because he blames him for Kate's death.

[00:09:30] But Duplicate and the immortal arrive, revealing Kate wasn't killed by the Lizard League after all. They also reveal they are engaged and rejoin the Guardians of the Globe. With Shrinking Ray, who has also recovered, the team are now back to full strength. Meanwhile, Doc Seismic, who has been communicating with creatures from deep under the earth from his prison cell, breaks out and guides the creatures to capture all of the Guardians at once.

[00:09:58] Mark and Eve team up to save the Guardians, but when they are also captured, Cecil sends in a swarm of cyborg Vianna men and Darkwing. They beat back Seismic and free Mark and the rest of the Guardians, but Invincible is disillusioned with Cecil for using the criminals and wants out of the Guardians of the Globe.

[00:10:21] Meanwhile, out in space, at a Vultrumite prison, Alan the Alien is still trying to convince Omni-Man to support his cause. I guess he didn't miss his wife that much. Old Omni-Man out in space, that was the cliffhanger at the end of Season 2, seemed to suggest that they were going to break out and fly back to Earth, didn't they? Yeah. Who's joined the cause? It just takes time, just takes time, you know? Yeah, we should have just put a reminder straight up front that there's always a post-credit scene that's really integral to the plot of Invincible.

[00:10:50] The post-credit scenes are not just throwaway things, they're quite specific things that are necessary for the story of what's happening. But this one did feel a bit odd. It just felt like, well, maybe they're just reminding us, as they would do in the first episode of a new season, reminding us that Omni-Man is still out there, Alan the Alien is still out there. But I just kind of felt that because last season ended with, I miss my wife, I thought that we were going to see them fight their way out of the Vultrumite prison at some point.

[00:11:19] I think saying something once is just saying it. Saying it multiple times is commitment. Well, talking about multiples, that takes us straight into our main point. We talk about our main points for the episodes as we discuss on the podcast. Our first point is about multiplicity. We are going to talk about our multiple characters because we see two major characters here, Multipole and Duplicate, duplicating and multiplying themselves in this episode. We've seen Multipole before.

[00:11:49] He's been in the background in prison back in the GDA, but we haven't really seen him take shape in the series. Here he's being voiced by Simu Liu, who played the wonderful Shang-Chi in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And he arrives because he blames Rex for his sister's death last season, setting up one of the big reveals from the end of last season that actually Duplicate is not dead. She saved a copy of herself so that she wouldn't die.

[00:12:15] I'm just going to pause and say, as soon as you said multiplicity, I think half of our listeners suddenly flash back to the 1996 Michael Keaton comedy classic gem. Oh my goodness, 1996? Yes, it was. Wow. It was Adam McDowell and Michael Keaton where he clones himself. Do you know, we are really going off on a tangent about multiplicity,

[00:12:42] but the reason why, you know, I should have guessed that that was 1996 because I lived very close to a 99 cent cinema in the US at the time. And I saw that movie three times in a week and hated it just every single time. I thought it was terrible, but so many people wanted to go and see it. And it was only a dollar to go to the cinema. But I just went along with them for the popcorn and the drinks. Well, see, this is what happens when you do something terrible, like going to multiplicity multiple times for a dollar

[00:13:10] or try to steal the declarations of independence while also getting your ass whooped by Rexplode and or Mark. Those are just terrible things to do. And you should give up straight away. But you didn't. You didn't learn the first time. You went multiple times. Yeah, well, let's talk about that. So I couldn't work out a way to put this into the synopsis at all. There are two new characters introduced in this scene. Very difficult to catch their names as well,

[00:13:40] but they are Fightmaster and Dropkick, who are the first mission, I guess, for the season where Mark's been training, working with the GDA again. Rexplode is back. He's got his new hand. He's back with the GDA and wants to be on a mission. There's a great funny moment when Cecil's kind of going, Mark, do you fancy going to do this? And Rex going, I'm right here. Like, you know, you can use me. I am also a hero. I am also a member of the team. But he's just kind of sent us as sidekick with Mark to stop these two guys, Fightmaster and Dropkick,

[00:14:10] from stealing the declaration of independence. I think there's a movie that has that as the premise in there. Yeah, I can. A fabulous, award-winning film. I am always surprised how many times we've talked about this movie on the podcast and how many times I've said I hated it and yourself and John, our other hosts, both love it. I love it. Did you watch the TV show that was the spinoff from it, Chris? No. I watched half of it. Nobody watched it. It got cancelled. I watched half of it. I watched half of it and then went,

[00:14:39] oh, this is bad. Even by my standards, this is bad. But we have got Fightmaster and Dropkick played by Jola Moradueno from Cobra Kai and from Blue Beetle. Really interested to have such a high-profile actor playing the role of these two characters, which again, we don't get any backstory of them at all. We know that they're time travelers because of the conversation that they have and we know they feel they're trying to save the universe. That's kind of about all we know.

[00:15:07] But they don't have any conversation with Mark and Rex to tell them this. They just get into a fight with them, try and get out of there. They actually do get out of there with the Declaration of Independence, which is why I want to hit it and make sure that we talk about it. Because well-known within Invincible is a scene like this where the character that's hardly named and then by the end of the season they are the central big bad or they're the central character or central storyline for the season. So what did you think of Fightmaster and Dropkick, Chris? I love this. Again, you hit the nail on the head, right?

[00:15:37] So Invincible never did, have yet to do in the show and never did in my opinion in the comic books. Like you say, just introduce a character willing. Villains from season one will always come back unless they are killed. And even when they're killed, they must all might come back. Like that is the comic book way. Yeah. And I think the fun part is they're using a well-known actor

[00:16:07] and someone who, as you said, he was in Blue Beetle and probably now more well-known for Cobra Kai. Absolutely, yeah. And Blue Beetle will probably never be a thing again because of the DC. But it was fun to have him. It was such a good film. But anyway. It was. But going into, it sets up the next more important part, which it does open for C. Muir Leeds to come in back as multiple.

[00:16:35] And that really then is a pivotal bit that I found interesting because if you watch, right, we've seen Duke Mark do his montage because every good show needs a montage. Absolutely. And we start to see that strength increase, his strength increase 75% and all of these kind of increasing, interesting numbers. when Mulkie Paul really gets in his way and he's like, I just don't have time for this. We really start to see again

[00:17:05] like that Viltrumite strength and why this is not your average kid's cartoon. He literally rips one of them in twain. And I don't mean in two. In twain. Like, it is old school just like ripping his shirt. He Hulk Hogan'd Multi-Pol one of the copies. Yeah. And that is really important and a really important point you make because the battle they had with Fightmaster and Dropkick, it's Rex that takes out

[00:17:35] his target of the two of them and then you see Mark is kind of punching the other guy in the face and going, I'm just trying to hold back because just in case I take this guy's head off, basically. Yeah. So he is holding back and making sure that he doesn't but when he's fighting against Multi-Pol knowing that there is multiples of them, he's able to take off a couple of heads and arms and fight back against the tens and twenties and thirties of the versions of Multi-Pol that's jumping on Mark to block him from getting to Rex because the point here is that Multi-Pol

[00:18:04] is blaming Rex for killing his sister or being responsible for his sister's death which is really bad given what happened to poor old Rex. Like, he tried his best to save every single member of the Guardian of the Globe that was involved in that attack in season two. Lost his hand because of it. Almost died himself but he's not really responsible for anybody's death there, is he? No, he's not. And again, grief is a killer. Yeah. Like, it's an evil thing. And again, Multi-Pol was in prison.

[00:18:35] Mm-hmm. He was in prison for the longest time. He escaped but he was in prison so he won't have had all the information. Yeah, absolutely. Like, he'll just see that he went on a piece and it's also, it's a good, I want to say crux but more story foil to bring back Yeah. Kate and the Immortal because last season Immortal basically retires, Kate's dead, can't do it anymore. Yeah.

[00:19:03] then we get the revelation, the reveal in the snowy cabin that Kate has always kept one copy of herself free away from harm and she does say this to Multi-Pol as well which is like, you should have known that we always do that so it's a thing but again, it allows them to get engaged and move forward with that kind of

[00:19:34] to bring them back into the into the storyline because again, they had just retired, they're done out of pasture but you can't bring the Immortal out. I understand why the writers of the episode wrote this scene to get Kate back into the city. I don't understand why the both of them I know, well, I know why they reveal they're engaged, that's fine but I don't understand why the two of them just instantly go back and join the Guardians of the Globe

[00:20:04] like I thought that Immortal had retired and that Duplicate and themselves were going to go and live a happy life but they instantly go, no, we're back now we're going to join that group where we kind of die every week and Duplicate's actual version the actual Duplicate is there so I hope she's left another double back So they don't actually say that and that's the one where I'm like hmm wait, are you Prime? Are you Kate Prime? Yeah Because like all it takes

[00:20:34] is another rogue lizard league and you're I feel like yeah, there's a weird thing about them isn't there because there isn't a Kate Prime Kate Prime is probably dead long ago but she does leave a duplicate of herself and that duplicate has all the memory and all the information and knows about all the deaths of all the duplicates that have died before so I presume she has left one behind because that's the thing that she does to ground that there will always be that she will live on I suppose but I just thought it was interesting

[00:21:04] and they have come back and they have joined the Guardians of the Globe I just didn't really understand why Immortal would but I guess he's that kind of guy he always believes he needs to be at the centre of this team of superheroes even though they're not that successful very often Look, Immortal is he's your he's your carbon copy kind of Superman character he's the he's the bad side of Superman he's the

[00:21:34] truth justice in the American way at all costs and everything is black and white there is no there is never any grey and again we already know from Mark having killed Angstrom and it's setting up that grey storyline you need Immortal back to be that kind of he's the it's your Captain America versus your Iron Man it's your 1940 sensibilities

[00:22:03] versus 2000 sensibilities it's that old world new world and again I can see why the writers want the character back I just don't see why the characters come back they didn't give any justification for that for me I felt like if there was a big threat that was happening in the city other than Kate's brother who she was easily able to just defuse by going well I'm alive right there you go that's it I felt that there was just a little bit of a push from Immortals back to lead the team because the team can't get on without him

[00:22:33] I think that's what he feels in his mind that if he's not there the team will fail because he's that arrogant but I don't think it was just there on the screen I just thought it was a bit odd and then also reintroduced to Shrinking Ray last season we saw her recovering after the attack of the Serpent Society we expected that she was dead from the actual episode but nobody dies in this show so we saw her in recovery and we saw Rex was with her most of the time and he seems very happy to have Shrinking Ray back no 100%

[00:23:03] it's good to have her back and again like you said you basically reset the status quo of the Guardians of the Globe Bish Bash Boss episode 1 first third we're kind of set exactly there is a second storyline there certainly is which one it's the storyline that is Oliver and I want to kind of move on to the next kind of main point of the storyline because for me Oliver has always been this interesting because again he is the purple

[00:23:34] stepson half brother like all these interesting bits because he is he's not even human yeah so you have a boy that is aging rapidly he's half bug half vulture mite he is in all ways an alien but is set up and growing faster and smarter as a 12 year old

[00:24:03] 13 year old almost yeah although he's a couple at this point probably about a year two three years old yep yep he's only baby he's growing faster and faster because of his origin of course and can't believe you didn't read my title for this this point chris puppy power oh god sorry he's the scrappy doo of the show it seems but I have to say I did go back and watch the first episode of invincible again because I needed it for one of

[00:24:33] the later episodes of these three episodes I'll tell you about that when we get there but it was really interesting re-watching that first episode because for the first 15 minutes of the first episode it is about Mark not having powers and wanting to have powers and the second he has powers he wants to be out there and he's being Omni-Man is pushing him back in his box and telling him no hang on a second you need to learn how to use these powers basically but it's exactly what happens with Oliver in this episode the second Oliver has powers he wants to be out training he wants to be out there

[00:25:03] with Mark he instantly wants to do it he tricks Mark he tells Mark he wants to be trained by him and Mark says wait until you get your powers I didn't get mine until I was 17 years old and then he just rises from the ground showing that actually he's had powers this whole time so a little bit of a trick from Oliver I think that's what he was expecting that Mark would tell him to wait until he got powers but I thought that was a nice little gag that he did but I guess his nanny is the one that's telling everybody that he is actually growing faster than expected and

[00:25:32] getting much smarter than she would expect him to be at this age yeah and it's going to be interesting because again when you're introducing a host of power to something that doesn't have much responsibility well absolutely it gets interesting yeah it was where I always thought that an interesting kind of dark Superboy storyline could go

[00:26:02] yeah so if you give this power to a kid there is that I'm going off tangent here of course there is that James Gunn film where it is an evil Superman story Brightburn that's right and that was always the interesting one which is you basically give a child Superman's powers what if that child wasn't a comic book kind of storyline and real life

[00:26:31] happened what would happen you end up with a psychopath with who can rip arms off yeah this is always the interesting thing with Oliver yeah yeah exactly and I suppose what adds to it is that we have seen Mark wanting to be powered for those 17 years leading up to when he eventually does get his powers so this also tells the story of what would happen if Mark had gotten the powers when he wanted to get them at five or six years old we saw him running around the house dressing

[00:27:01] up in his tape man I think was so he's always known that he would eventually become a superhero eventually got it at 17 and is now navigating through that now he's starting to know his powers really well but now we have a young kid Oliver his little brother getting the powers much earlier than he should be getting them so at the moment he's only been on earth a couple of months I think they say it's about 90 days since the end of the last season so Oliver has only been on earth about a year at this stage so he's still

[00:27:31] probably getting used to some nuances about earth and now he's got superpowers to deal with as well that's going to be interesting yeah no 100% we should also welcome the new voice actor who's playing Oliver Christopher Convery who you may recognise from Sweet Tooth and Cocaine Bear a great little actor he's a really good actor if you haven't seen either of those two watch them he's really really cool so it's great to have Oliver voiced by him yeah I strongly suggest Cocaine Bear it's such a good show did you know that was made in Ireland as well Chris no made in Wicklow

[00:28:01] really yeah yeah they used some establishing shots for the wilderness in Chicago and then all the rest of it's filmed in Wicklow which I think is hilarious it makes it look absolutely gorgeous and makes it look like North America but it's all filmed in one little patch of trees in Wicklow did they actually get a real bear and loads of cocaine that would explain so much well the filming rights in Ireland are very different than any other country I think all of our bears that we have here are on cocaine we don't have any bears in Ireland

[00:28:31] just a reminder but there you go go see that Sweet Tooth another comic book book based live action TV show is really good though go watch that that's all three seasons that are on Netflix at the moment so go check that out right let's get on to our final and major big point for the episode called this one seismic shift because it is a big shocker lots of tectonic events going on all over North America we see Donald and Donald investigating it and trying to give reports to Cecil throughout the episode

[00:29:01] but it's kind of going well the only theory that I have is Doc Seismic that's doing it but he's in prison right there going oh that's not good is it Donald you know if there's what's the if there's a simple answer it's probably going to be the simple answer what's Occam's Razor there you go Occam's Razor so yeah Donald probably should have noticed that Doc Seismic has been sitting in the same position for a few months communicating so what we do learn yeah Doc Seismic has been communicating with massive underground kaiju from his

[00:29:31] prison cell having these conversations with them what a great twist on this character you know each time he's come back he's been more difficult to beat the first time he was a joke of a character the second time he came back Mark was a little bit overrun by the by the magma men that Doc Seismic was controlling he was overrun by that and Doc Seismic was destroying a lot of the monuments

[00:30:00] in North America and now this time he's basically able to take out all of the Guardians of the Globe yep and again it's the fun thing is like Mark later during the fight Mark goes you're not supposed to be this strong you're not supposed to what's like and he says it because again it is that he's Doc Seismic he's a bit of a joke like he is the he's the Mole Man analogy

[00:30:29] or Mole Man analog from he's a man that just kind of chats with some dirt men magma men and they hide you yeah you're absolutely right and that's one of the cool things that you that you see if you're a reader of comic books when you have a an interesting writer comes on board and takes a character that is not respected or a small character minor a minor villain and they put a spin on them that suddenly can break them out from from being that minor villain into being a well beloved

[00:30:58] villain I'm thinking of a writer like Jonathan Hickman who can take a very minor character put a twist on it and make it absolutely huge in the in the Marvel universe and it's interesting that Robert Kirkman has put this in his wheelhouse from the beginning he's the one that wrote the entire series and you know two or three years into the story to the storyline he's taken a character like Doc who was a joke to begin with and made him this quite powerful villain and it is all almost a commentary on

[00:31:27] the idea of Batman Superman and the Marvel characters leaving their villains alive if you leave them to alive to gestate and create bigger plans they actually do become a very serious threat and Doc Seismich is an example of that he's someone that if you are putting in prison and he's able to use his powers he will get bigger and bigger and bigger and more and more of a threat so that's what we're seeing here with the character and he's still kept alive at the end of this he is still

[00:31:57] alive so it's interesting to see in season 5 how he comes back yeah there's an interesting other option here though which is the real crux of the episode really all of the Guardians of the Globe are taken almost called them Guardians of the Galaxy I promise I will definitely do that another 40 or 50 times throughout the season as I always do but he takes out all the Guardians of the Globe before we even see what he's done he's taking control of these underground beasts are working with

[00:32:27] them to rid the world of humans that's his new plan which is massive that's quite a big plan whatever about tearing down some stone monuments and bringing them back to the earth here he's actually looking to wipe out the entirety of earth Mark and Eve come along join up to stop seismic and free the Guardians of the Galaxy but they fail they're not able to beat the creatures either he's able to take them both out so Cecil has to use his last resort which is actually bringing in Rhianna Men and Darkwing 2

[00:32:58] people that he's supposed to have put under arrest and put in prison the Rhianna Man created by D.A. Sinclair back in season 1 he's supposed to be in prison for killing multiple people for taking out William's boyfriend Rick and almost killing him and Darkwing is supposed to be in prison because of the people that he killed after the first Darkwing died so Cecil is using the two of them to previous villains as heroes as ways of taking out this new villain

[00:33:27] so potentially what Cecil will do is take in Doc Seismic and turn him around on this power turn him around into someone like D.A. Sinclair or Darkwing to work alongside the Guard of the Globe and pay off his debt to society it's an interesting story yes it is it's one way again I'm like you can kind of understand where Cecil comes from on this and I think that's the interesting which is he starts to go

[00:33:57] but they're reformed they we don't have time for this Mark they saved your ass let's go and that just enrages Mark more and more and you can see it as the one piece that I found really interesting is I don't like not often you can see it in animation but there's a point just as Cecil decides to start walking towards the white room

[00:34:26] like just before Mark starts screaming at him and you can just see Cecil the face way they drew it you can see he's slightly taken aback almost scared and then just starts walking to the white room and just that's where it has it's the interesting thing Mark is the Omni Man 2.0 and that's the interest where they sometimes see it

[00:34:56] and it leaves it's such an interesting it leaves it in such an interesting state towards the end of the episode absolutely absolutely and we will talk about episode 2 and episode 3 and how that plays out as we go further into the podcast don't want to spoil it right now though but I love it this is exactly what the show is about fundamentally this idea that Invincible Mark Grayson is being undermined by the people around

[00:35:26] him the list the checklist that he had all of the things that make someone a hero that he's had since he was a child are now being taken off every single year every season every time that he walks out the door almost as Invincible somebody does something that undermines a fundamental thing that he thought meant you are a superhero two people that he had effectively arrested or captured as a superhero and put in prison with the leader of a government organization who says don't worry about it they're in

[00:35:56] prison for life now one of them tried to kill one of your friends one of them tried to kill you and they're in prison don't worry and then suddenly now they're on the same side as him and have been rehabilitated apparently something that Mark was going nope that's not what I believe in at all these people are murderers they should be in prison for life so another thing taken off Mark's list what is it that defines a superhero if all of these things are being undermined by all the people around them yeah love it

[00:36:26] it's gonna be good but we do get a post credit as well to wrap up the episode yes we have already talked about it a little bit I just want to make sure that we do mention them as we go through our notes but we did mention it already it's just Alan sitting with Omni-Man still having the conversation in their minds with each other and still trying to convince Omni-Man that maybe he would want to go out and save the rest of the galaxy and join Alan the alien's cause and I like this because I actually forgot about

[00:36:55] the post credits I don't know and finish taking some notes and then it was like oh god they've got this is the thing hold on that's why I let it go it was a subconscious thing I swear and it was good to see and again I always laugh Seth Rogen voicing Alan the alien I know it's also like the man is behind

[00:37:25] a lot of this him and Evan Goldberg are behind Invincible the producers of the show and he kind of pretty much made himself I'm going to play Alan the alien he wanted to do it fine he actually I recently re-read the comics that is the voice now that's in my head absolutely he nails the just the inclination of what you expect Alan the alien to sound like and now he does so well done Seth

[00:37:55] absolutely yeah really good speaking of notes Chris any final notes on the episode before we move on to episode two nothing from my side what about you only call out that I have for the episode they always have a great musical track to kick off the first episode of a season this time Chemical Brothers with Go one of my absolute favourite Chemical Brothers songs so really cool one to have in the first episode here but a great one overall what did you think of the episode overall Chris what would you rate it if you had to rate the episode I'd go back in with a

[00:38:24] strong 4.5 5 out of 5 it straight away sets up this season while without feeling slow it methodically tells you where each of your characters are it sets up that now Mark is faster stronger it's harder what does that mean and it also then sets up

[00:38:54] well in the last season Cecil was good again we knew he was a bit he was government but he was theoretically good and now we're starting to go oh no we know who this character is so for me it fact that I could just roll into episode two because it does leave it on that cliffhanger yes yes it does so very happy if

[00:39:45] set up the season I'm glad we have three episodes as usual for Invincible because it does deal a lot with the relationships between people and spends a lot less time on some of the characters I still always feel like I'm going in completely cold to these episodes and sometimes have to warm myself up a bit to the episodes find out who these characters are in the background they have always been really bad about giving character names on screen and we don't get subtitles with our screeners for the episode so sometimes I'm just sitting there for five

[00:40:15] minutes going rewinding back and forth trying to find the moment that a character's name has been said so I can catch up with who they are but at least it's only been a year since last season and I've been playing the Guardian of the Globe game so at certain points in the episode because there were some of the character designs that seemed different from

[00:40:44] last season even Duplicate looks quite different than she did last season and Alan the alien there's points when he looks quite flat in the drawing so I so yeah I wasn't going to mention it and I think it's more because it's more

[00:41:14] in episode two that I felt it during a particular fight scene which we'll get to there there's definitely I don't want to say downgrade because that's unfair but there's just a change and I was like maybe I didn't for me it was maybe they were maturing the animation process versus yeah the other option could be that they are speeding the animation process up so there's less polish time

[00:41:44] but there was a change and there's a fight scene in episode two that really made me go oh that looked interesting right and again what it could be is also the screamers we got but that's not usually the case with the prime screamers we get they're usually fine and they're perfect yeah we're only a week out from the episodes and I

[00:42:37] was just that and I just wasn't used to it because I watched the finale of season two and the first episode of season one in

[00:43:08] and you can listen to the episode or just episode two you can do that they're all available on our website on tvpodcastindustries.com or wherever you're listening to this podcast you should be able to see episode two and episode three there in your feed right now so we'll speak to you there