Invincible 307 Podcast

[00:00:00] This is the Invincible Podcast on TV Podcast Industries. We're talking about the penultimate episode of Invincible Season 3, Episode 7. What have I done? Not only have you destroyed his planet, but you've also destroyed him. Every single person who survives will forever think of this when they remember his name, even if they know it was you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're awesome. What's next?

[00:00:26] Find Mark and bring him to me. It's time we were reunited. Face to face. Uh, how about we don't? Your stupid plan got most of us killed. Who cares? They were weak. I would have murdered them myself eventually. Come on! The deal was we help you and then you help us take over a bunch of other dimensions.

[00:00:50] We didn't all make the same deal, man. I came here to find Mom and bring her back with me. Oh, someone misses their mommy! We're all the same person. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I miss William. Whatever! It's all pointless if we're dead, right? Jesus, I hate you guys. Please, we're done. Give us our dimensions.

[00:01:20] Now. Or we'll kill you. Don't be stupid! We'll just torture you instead, duh. I can get behind that. Hell yeah. Love it.

[00:01:56] Welcome back, fellow guardians, to the Invincible Podcast on TV Podcast Industries. Oh, we're almost at the end of Invincible Season 3. We're talking about the penultimate episode. Episode 7. What have I done? And I'm one of your hosts, Derek. Derek, I'm one of your hosts, Chris. I'm one of your other hosts, Chris. I'm one of your other hosts, Chris. I'm one of your other hosts, Chris. And I'm one of your other hosts, Chris. Oh, this is Derek. This is another Derek. Oh, there's more Chrises. Yep, lots more Chrises. Fantastic.

[00:02:23] I loved the announcement of this episode when it came out on the social media accounts for Invincible, where they literally put a picture of Steven Yeun going, and we've cast an Emmy Award-nominated actor in 18 roles in this week's episode. It's Steven Yeun. Yeah. It's fantastic. And Steven Yeun. And Steven Yeun. And Steven Yeun. That's really good. And young Steven. It's really good. So, yes, a big old violent battle episode.

[00:02:51] I believe in the comic books this is called The Invincible War, Chris. Yes, it is. And it has been one I've been waiting for since season two when they teased it. And they teased Dr. Angstrom and his multiversal mayhem. And I think when we were recording and we talked about season two, I mentioned some cool suits. Yeah. These are the cool suits. Well, absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:03:21] They have been flashing up the image of a couple of interesting color changes, let's say, in the titles. Each episode building up to this, but I had no idea what they were building up to until I saw the episode, of course. But we won't spoil any more of the episode before we go into our feedback for last week's podcast, because as we've been saying, normally we're recording our episodes a little bit in advance. So we do have some feedback in for episode six of Invincible first. So let's pop it over to our email. First up, we got an email in from Coffee and Vodka on episode six.

[00:03:51] He says, greetings, fellow collateral damage defenders. Well, that was powerful. Wrapped around an entertaining training and family thing where Oliver wasn't a complete menace, a very welcome return of Amber and a short Rex Ray interlude. We had a complete and completely dark Shakespearean tragedy. Going to have to double up on Harley Quinn episodes to counteract this one. My first warning should have been Derek's glowing review on Facebook. So many spinning plates. Can't imagine anything getting resolved this season, but no worries with so many more to come.

[00:04:20] For quality five levy breaks, baby bake ribs and real estate reputations out of five. Oh, baby bake ribs, Coffee and Vodka. Oh, dear. Tasty. And for enjoyment, Coffee and Vodka says, two ex-wives lives, underwhelming apologies, and after battle burgers out of five. Peace and take care, Coffee and Vodka. He also came back after watching the episodes of Harley Quinn that he was trying to use to cheer himself up,

[00:04:49] saying, and on Harley, Frank just died. I guess it's just another one of those weeks. What a bad week. It is. It's just death and destruction all around you when you're watching episode six of Invincible. And hopefully this one makes up for it with a bit of levity and a bit of blood. There's a bit of levity. There's a lot of blood. Yes, but hopefully this one made up for it. But yes, you've got to find those comedic shows that will kind of bring you back.

[00:05:18] May I introduce you to What We Do in the Shadows? Yeah. Yes, that's a great one. That's a great one to cheer yourself up. There's hardly ever any death and blood in the show about vampires. No, there isn't. It is just very funny. It literally is comedic. It's okay. Yes, it is. I did talk to Coffee and Vodka about this as well because he was worried that he defended me by my new reputation. If I give a glowing review to something, it means it's dark and lots of people are going to die. But I'm pretty happy with that as a reputation to have. It's probably much more accurate.

[00:05:48] You know, I'm that kind of guy that likes the darkness rather than the comedy, as I've always been. So maybe that's a good indication. So if I say something's going to be great, you know one of your favorite characters is going to die. Yep. There you go. Yeah. For years, that has been the case. It's been the case. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And we joke aside when he even says he's really enjoying a Super Bowl. It's been terrible. Hey, that's not true. Sports are different, Chris. I don't like that many sports. If I like sports, it's a good game. Brilliant.

[00:06:18] Thanks so much, Kofi and Vodka, for your thoughts. Thanks, Kofi and Vodka. Over on the Books of Faces on episode 6, Victor Von Doom had this to say. Great title drop. Paul better toughen up if he wants to hang with Debbie and her crew. Yeah. Yeah, no, no. Paul needs to put a work in. That flying curry situation is never going to be great for him. Yeah. Also over on Facebook, we had Dr. Bob Phillips who had this to say.

[00:06:44] This really might be the best Invin Clang episode yet. Rage and retribution, the side effects of noble actions and reasons for making sure your gray zone lab workers don't start working from home are all worthy themes. We'll work through. It might be 2D cartoons, but it demands your full attention. Yes, it does. Yes, it does.

[00:07:10] Like, again, and we'll talk more about it as we go into episode 7. But the 2D cartoon bit I've seen. I actually was speaking to someone about Invincible during the week. And just, they were like, oh, what are you watching? And I was like, Invincible? And they were like, what's the kid's cartoon? Dude, I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, sir. Do not sing your child in front of this one. Yes. I was like, this is one you cannot leave your children with. And they were like, oh, do you really watch cartoons? I'm like, okay.

[00:07:39] This is some of the best writing, the best narratives. And it is an adaption of amazing source material with so much. And so I convinced them. And I did get a message a day or two ago after that going, watch episode 1. This is crazy. Excellent. And I'm like, oh, God, yeah. Do you remember episode 1 of season 1 towards the end? I certainly do. Where you go, oh, my. Yeah.

[00:08:08] That was the one that hooked us all in for these last three seasons. And there's always more to come with this show as well. Great stuff. Thanks, Dr. Bob. And thanks, Victor Vantum, for your feedback. You can email us with your feedback on any of the episodes of the show to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com or pop on or to our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash TV podcast industries if you want to leave your thoughts there on the spoiler posts for each of the episodes as you go.

[00:08:35] But I think it's time, Chris, to get into our chat about episode 7. What have I done? Yes. Tell us who gave us what, where, when, and how with the episode details. Of course. Yeah, the show, of course, based on the comic series written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Corey Walker and Ryan Otley, developed by Robert Kirkman for Prime Video and produced by him, David Alpert, Catherine Winder, Simon Rocioppa, Margaret M. Dean, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg. This episode, the penultimate episode of the series and the finale are both written by Robert Kirkman.

[00:09:05] And this episode was directed by Hayley Herrick, who directed episode 302, episode 205, and the Atom Eve special. So some heavy hitting episodes so far this season as well. Mm-hmm. No, definitely. And it was always the way with Robert Kirkman when he came on board to run an episode. It was going to be a big one. In The Walking Dead, same here in Invincible. He takes the big, big episodes. And here we have The Invincible War, which I think is the one that he's, an arc that he's very proud of in the comic book. So he got the writing credit for the TV show.

[00:09:35] Good stuff. Very cool. Chris, do you want to tell us what they gave us with the synopsis for this episode? Sure. Mark didn't murder Angstrom Levy. Angstrom dragged his crushed body through a vortex to his allies, the technicians, where he was slowly restored. Many months later, Angstrom and many different Invincibles from other realities arrive on Earth. Their mission, to destroy everything and make sure Invincible takes the blame.

[00:10:06] Earth's heroes respond to the attack with little success. Mark and Eve team up against two united Invincibles. They break Eve's leg and Mark takes her to the GDA hospital. Elsewhere, Rexplode sacrifices himself to take an Invincible off the board. Oliver teams up with the heroes and takes out another. Darkwing, too, takes the Invincible to a Shadow Realm, but never returns. And Paraplex takes another, but it's still not enough.

[00:10:34] With the damage done, Angstrom and the Invincibles regroup. But they turn on him before he can enact the next phase of his plan. In return, Angstrom banishes them back to that Wasteland dimension. Meanwhile, Cecil helps Mark locate Angstrom Levy. But he's prepared and uses unlimited orbs combined with his Vortex powers to try and stop Mark. Invincible eventually breaks through.

[00:11:00] And when Oliver tries to encourage Mark to kill Angstrom, Mark takes his arm. And Angstrom once again escapes through the Vortex. But the Engineers, this time, are not willing to help him. They only commit to helping him if he really, truly plays by their rules. As Mark surveys the devastation all around him, another threat arrives. The Vultramite Conquest wants to know why Mark hasn't yet completed his mission.

[00:11:27] Ooh, a lot of punching and battling and fighting and, well, Vultramites in this episode. Mm-hmm. It is a mustachio-centric. Mustachio-centered. It is an Invinci-centered, if you will. It is, yes. It's an Invinci-centered. Yeah, there is an Invincible with a mustache, certainly. There's two. There's two Invincibles. Yes. There's two Vultramite-styled. There is. One has the Vultramite outfit and one has the mustache.

[00:11:56] I didn't see the second mustache. Because, in fact, one of them is named Mustachable, according to the social media account. I know. You've got to love that mustache. I love it. The mustache ready. I have to give the list, just as our kickoff point.

[00:12:10] So, the list of the Vultramites, as per the social media account, is Capevincible, Sportvincible, Prisonvincible, NoGogglesable, Flexanceable, Movincible, Hairvincible, Gogglevincible, Capvincible, NoMaskable, Maskvincible, Mustachable, Hoodvincible, Omnivincible, Vultraminvincible, Bulletproofable. Light blue, Vultramincible, and Stripevincible. How did I do there?

[00:12:41] Good. It was Movincivil. That is the Movincible with the Movincible. It was Movincivil. That's it. That's the only one I couldn't read as I read through that list. Yes. It just changed too many letters for me to read. All by this up-and-coming young upstart called Stephen Young. Tell you, 18 dynamic roles. Really going to put him on the board. Especially in one episode.

[00:13:11] Oscar-nominated, Emmy Award winning, and now voicing 18 characters in one episode of a TV show. Well, 19, of course, including the original Mark from this earth. Brilliant stuff. Let's kick off with point number one. The thing I never thought I'd say on this show, and I don't know why I never thought I'd say it, but Angstrom Levy returns.

[00:13:32] After all of that, Angstrom survived his absolute trashing on the face of the wasteland when he had his battle with Mark. And Mark's been kind of searching his soul throughout this season because of him being a murderer. Because he's the one that murdered Angstrom Levy. People have thrown that in his face a bunch of times. And we find out in the opening sequence, pretty disgustingly animated I must say, that Angstrom survived.

[00:13:57] He was able to drag his crushed body through a vortex to a place where he's able to get fixed up. Yeah. To the world of the technicians who are that kind of engineering-esque. They really remind me of the guys from Hellraiser. Yes. The Cenobites, they're called. Right. Like Pinhead and his backup people in Hellraiser. I love the Hellraiser movies.

[00:14:27] And what's really cool here is the person who voices all of them is Doug Bradley, who voiced Pinhead. He was the face and voice of Pinhead back in the Hellraiser movies. It's so cool to hear his voice the minute I heard it because they even give him a line which is very similar to the kind of lines that Pinhead would say of, we have such sights to show you. Those kind of lines that you get from Doug Bradley. So they definitely knew why they were casting him in this role. There we go. Yeah. It's a really interesting one.

[00:14:55] So I will also point out that in the background where Angstrom is being put back together again. We can do it. We can make him. We can build him better, stronger, faster. Yeah. But where he's being put back together, I definitely saw a molar in the same plane. So I think Oliver may not have killed the molars for good either. You definitely saw more. Yeah. They go out of their way to show you. Absolutely.

[00:15:24] There's a little pause there. There's some nice big blue feet there. Yeah. So that's not the last we see of the molars either. No. No. It is not. But let's see our full spoiler territory. The fact that Angstrom survives again basically means that he will be back. Exactly. So there's no if, buts or maybes. Yeah. We will see. It's just how they returned. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:15:51] So they restore him to not full health, but he's restored to a combined cybernetic organism, I guess, in some way. The $6 million man. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. But he takes the opportunity to enact a new plan. We saw it right at the end of the last episode. The post-credit scene had him surrounded by 18 invincibles, and he brings them all to planet Earth.

[00:16:16] And his plan, which almost does sound like something out of a generic DC comic or a Marvel comic, where you take loads of multiversal bad versions of your hero and then try and get the Earth to hate them all. That's his plan. He brings these invincibles to Earth to destroy the Earth, and Invincible is supposed to get the blame. Now, is it just me, or do the news reports very quickly turn from, oh my god, Invincible's attack of the planet,

[00:16:43] to, oh my god, 18 people that look like Invincible are attacking the Earth. Why have they all come here to attack? So it's even the news is really quick to go, we're not taking this bait of it's our Invincible doing this. We know it's not. And who are these people that are destroying our planet? Yes, it is very much a generic DC Marvel multiversal terrible story. Plan. Plan. Plan.

[00:17:11] You would, like, even reading it and thinking back, you're like, well, hold on, why didn't he just put them in Invincible's costume? Like, he has access. He can do it. Kind of, although we do see later on they're not exactly very pliable Invincible. I'd say just to bake it over the line with the go and destroy things and we can blame it on Invincible. Okay, okay, great. Okay, yeah. True. That is very true. That is very true. I did not fully take that through. But a costume change would have made more sense.

[00:17:42] It is a generic plan, but it is a plan that starts to work nonetheless. It does work. But it's even just more the destruction. It destroys Invincible's name by the end of this episode. And really, they do a lot of damage. We hear the news reports about how many cities are taken down, like, globally.

[00:18:04] And we see the level of damage that even before the midway point of the episode that these Invincibles have done. Again, thinking that Viltrumites, one singular Viltrumite can usually take down a planet. Yeah. This is 18 Viltrumites with a grudge. Yeah. All working in different areas of the planet to destroy the area that they're in. Really like that.

[00:18:31] I love the first time you see Mark arriving at the prison where he gets the phone call to go to the prison. And he meets up with Prison Invincible, I guess. Where he looks at him and goes, you're supposed to be somewhere else. You're not supposed to be anywhere near me. Oh, you're this planet's Invincible. Yeah. And just the big, the evil grin that comes across his face going, oh, I've just met up with the real one here. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was, I thought that was really good. I loved it. I thought it was. And again, that also, that Invincible is just crazy.

[00:19:01] Yes. Yeah. He is just crazy, crazy pants. And when you start to see this, there's other crazy, crazier ones. We see that the most craziest in the, in the, the GDA in the, their mountain base, I think is the best way of putting it. But he is the crazy, crazy one.

[00:19:26] But again, they, they're all slowly just different, crazy versions of Mark. And we do, you start to get a sense of how they all are slightly different throughout the episode. Yeah. But it is just, it was, it's a really cool idea. It is that kind of initial, it's been done. We've seen it. We've seen the multiverse done so many different ways and times.

[00:19:52] One of the reasons I enjoyed the Invincible, Invincible War is that it's, it is pretty quick, but it is also a succinct plan. If that makes sense. Yeah. It is literally, you're there just to wanton destruction. Yeah. So it's just, yeah. Very good. What do you think? I really enjoyed this. And I think the, the, having the heroes of earth standing up against the Invincibles really works well, especially because of the end.

[00:20:19] I'll talk about that in a little while, but the way it sets up the end of the episode is here's everything the earth has. Here's everything that Cecil has at his disposal. Here's Mark and anybody that he can team up with. Here's Oliver and anybody that he can team up with. And even they can't take down all of the other Invincibles attacking. Yeah. And guess what's about to come at the end of the episode? Another big threat. I think that's really cool. You know, it's like we've pushed all the nuclear weapon buttons. We're out of nuclear weapons and we still need to push the button and do something else.

[00:20:49] What the hell are we going to do next? What's, what's going to happen next? And there's so many great movements throughout it. You know, we've, we get a little moment with, with Ray and Rex as Ray moves into her apartment, finishing up her deal that she was going to leave the, the guardians or leave the superhero team that didn't have a name. And Rex moves her in and then he goes off to have his superhero moment.

[00:21:12] I think it's a really sad loss that Rex dies in that battle with one of the Invincibles, but that's about what it takes to take out one of them. He charges up his entire skeleton and blows it apart to take out one Invincible.

[00:21:27] And, you know, what I, what I love about this is as we go through each of the elements, I'm not going to recount every single one of them, but there's the Rihanna men in the GDA headquarters who basically destroy almost every single Rihanna man to take out one Invincible as well. Um, so they're almost completely lost. And then it all ends up with the title card that says that's the end of day one. We're on to day two, basically.

[00:21:55] So in one day they've wasted a major superhero, almost all the Rihanna men and multiple other attacks across the, across the world. Haven't been successful. We even see Paraplex trying to take on one of the Invincibles and failing. So, um, so yeah, it's, it's amazing how much they throw at us. And it's still only the first day and then we move on to the second day effectively. Yeah. And that's the fun part.

[00:22:19] It is the, the, and I think we might be good to move into our next kind of major point here, like the wins and the losses because like, that's the, well, as the days continue to kind of go by and we get those different title cards, you really do start to see the, the impact that these evil Invincibles can do. And the destruction level, um, like we'll explode.

[00:22:46] Let's quickly just kind of pivot to this, which is, this is one of the best, the best uses of this character in forever. We have seen like you were introduced to this character as a chauvinistic misogynistic pig. Yeah. He is just all that is wrong with men and jocks type approach.

[00:23:11] But as the three seasons continue and as we learn about in the Adam Eve special, all of these combines to build this picture of a man who is on a redemptive arc, who has really started to grow and challenge himself and get better and be better. Yeah.

[00:24:00] He completely sacrifices himself to save the others. Um, and that's not something season one Rex wouldn't have done. Yeah. Would have done. Yeah. But by season three, we've seen him do more and more and more and more and be that true hero. Exactly. So you get when, when, when, when that explosion goes off and you see Rudy and monster girl and the rest of them, uh, bulletproof on the other side. Mm-hmm.

[00:24:27] And you understand that, that, that a loss that this team has. And again, Jason Manzoukas, such an amazing actor. And so when he is kind of delivering these lines, you do kind of go down. That is like heartfelt. Yeah. That's a good ending. Absolutely. That's just. Yeah. No, he's a big character. I do think, um, saying the line, this is the first time in my miserable life that I've actually been in a good place after everything I've gone through. Here I am with, uh, with Ray.

[00:24:55] I was like, oh no, no, they are saying goodbye to Rex here, uh, sadly. But, and I don't always say this. I know this is something that you always say, Chris. It is comic books. Uh, no one's ever really dead. But in the invincible universe, no one ever really seems to die. So, uh, so we may see Rex back in the future, but it was a massive moment for him, uh, to, to, uh, to take out one of the invincibles by charging up his entire skeleton and blowing. No way.

[00:25:24] That was what, what a, what a cool moment. Um, in these battle backs as well, we see, um, immortal going up against an invincible as you know, that's kind of always been a thing seeing whether a mortal can take down an invincible. I think it was quite cool to have that. He doesn't fare too well in here, but we do have the return of the ongoing gag that I was expecting a couple of episodes ago where the invincible is put into the tomb over in, uh, in Egypt, uh, which has been holding the,

[00:25:53] uh, the mummy inside that's been trying to get out the whole time. Um, so just during the battle between these two, uh, the mummy is freed, thinks he's going to be able to use invincible's body to get himself out of there. But, uh, invincible throws him off and goes back into the battle with the immortal. Um, and the chauvinistic mummy has to go back into his tomb because he can't survive out there without a male body. And what's great is the two, uh, archaeologists that broke in last time, last season are now freed, uh, shouting after the chauvinistic mummy to stay in his tomb.

[00:26:23] I love it. Absolutely love the joke. It was the only point of humor in this episode, I thought, but it was a really good point of humor. I'm glad it returned. It is a good one. It feels like that's one of those ones where you feel like the storyboarding artists are going, where are we going to put this scene? Where are we going to put this scene? Oh, this would be hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, you know, we're going to do, we need a bit of levity. Let's do it here. This would be a great point. Um, but immortal doesn't succeed, um, in his battle with, uh, with this invincible.

[00:26:50] He ends off just, uh, losing every single part of his body other than his head. Um, and then decides that he's going to retire and have a family. So for the second time in as many seasons, uh, immortal is retiring. That's it. He's done. He's over. Uh, and himself and Kate are going to go off and have a family. It seems. Yeah. Like it's a fun way. Cause we, again, we've been having this story that obviously Kate, was gone. She's dead. Now she's back. And they do decide to kind of come back. So this kind of is a nice topper Taylor.

[00:27:20] If, if this is the tale to the story, um, it's an interesting kind of, it's full circle that they have decided, no, no, no, they're right. Let's, let's just go back and finish this off. I kind of just feel like this is going to be everybody's decision as, you know, Oliver and Mark take on more and more Viltrumites. What need is there of any other superhero here? They just seem to just get beaten and bashed and, and more and more blood spilling out. And at some point, exactly what, what shrinking Ray was warning about is going to happen.

[00:27:49] They're just going to die at some point. Uh, they will never come. They, they, at some point they just won't come back after the end of a fight. Whereas they can just leave it to Mark and Oliver. I think, uh, everybody must question themselves as to why they're standing up against, uh, these kind of massively powerful villains, uh, that seem to be attacking the earth with more and more regularity. Yeah. But these guys, the guys that, that they can just fight the regular villains. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. They can just do the normal ones again. Yeah.

[00:28:17] It's that kind of like Superman shouldn't really be stopping kind of like just a standard mugging. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like, cause he'll just break that person's hand. But even the serpent society, uh, you know, upgraded last season, killed a couple of the members of the crew and almost killed a couple more members of the crew. And, uh, this season, of course we had, uh, we had the opening episode with, um, Dr. Seismic, uh, becoming a massive, uh, villain as well.

[00:28:44] That could only be stopped by, uh, by, um, Invincible as well. So I don't think there's anybody left that any other superhero can fight on earth because the threats are getting so big. Yeah. But a couple other moments I wanted to call out in the, in the wins and losses as well. Uh, just wanted to mention, it was interesting seeing, um, we just see a kind of a flash of Oliver teaming up with some other superheroes that I haven't ever seen before, uh, but they do kill an Invincible. Uh, Paraplex, um, we see him standing over the body of an Invincible where he's actually

[00:29:13] achieved his goal. Weirdly, he's killed one of the, one of them, the Invincibles as well. So that was quite interesting given that that's what he's been trying to achieve. So you see him almost being really happy and satisfied that he's achieved something, but we see him come back later on in the episode. Uh, he hasn't really achieved his goal. His goal is actually to kill the mark of this universe, not just another one, but I guess maybe it bolsters him. Maybe it gives him a bit more confidence that he's able to kill an Invincible. Maybe that will allow him to kill this Invincible, the one he actually wants to kill.

[00:29:43] The many, many Invincibles. There's lots of Invincibles, isn't there? Um, and then finally the other one I wanted to call out was, uh, was Rick, uh, William's boyfriend. Um, he's got some massive power here. We see him picking up a collapsed building with his super strength, uh, to save William, um, in the collapsing, uh, college, which I thought was quite interesting. Yeah. No, again, because remember, he is now, like, he is a full cyborg, much like Donald. Um, so he is that to start.

[00:30:12] And again, so we also see Donald kind of even putting, going to, to Cecil going, like, put me out there. Like, I'll do more better work out there. Let me go. So again, it's kind of that same thing. Like, they are these walking cyborgs. Yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. We also see, uh, Donald, uh, ripped in half like a Terminator. Where it's like, you fared better than some of the other heroes that are out here. Yes. Who are no longer with us. Exactly. We can put you back together and nothing.

[00:30:42] Chris, I don't know you don't normally explain anything from the comics for me, uh, but I do have to ask, um, this character Brit seemed to become very sensual all of a sudden. He was called out by one name. Um, uh, Cecil tells Donald, go see Brit. He'll sort it out. And suddenly he was the, he's like the, the new leader of, um, the Guardians of the Globe, but we haven't seen him before. Just the reason I ask is because he's played by quite a famous actor. He's played by Jonathan Banks, who's a very famous actor.

[00:31:10] Um, so very interested to see this brand new character suddenly appear who seems to be a leader. Is he the leader of the Guardians of the Globe? Did I read that right? Yes, you did. Excellent. He is. And he, he is this retired, I think they, they, he's modeled on that kind of like old Captain America, but also like the old man, uh, Steve Rogers. It's that kind of style. Oh, right. Uh, but also. Is that why he's called the British? Is it? Well, he's British. Yes. Okay. He is a British. But it's Jonathan Banks, so he's not doing a British accent. Yeah.

[00:31:41] Yeah. Uh, and then, do you remember there was Doc Savage? Yes. Yes. He is that kind of also that Doc Savage, just old, old man. But he's in the comic books. He's a well-known character or a character that gets more and more well-known and takes on more and more roles. Very good. It will be interesting to see if they do a spinoff because if they do the Guardians of the Globe spinoff, it will be fun to have him in there for a while. Yeah. I would love to see more about the Guardians of the Globe. I know, uh, what I really wanted was a Rexplode spinoff.

[00:32:10] We might still get that. Uh, I always could do it. The origin. Um, how he started, how, how he got to the, uh, the final place and how he, how he died. Um, that would be cool. But a Guardians of the Globe spinoff with some Rex in there would also be cool. I'd like to see that too. Yeah. Yeah. Or the team team. Yeah. Let's see. Yeah. That'd be cool. Um, and probably the biggest loss is Eve and Mark teaming up together against two invincibles who've teamed up and, um, one of them kind of taken out his, his craziness

[00:32:39] on Eve. Um, he breaks her leg, beats her, um, pretty badly, uh, even shouting that he hates her, um, specifically. So in his universe, I don't think there's ever been that relationship between, uh, between Mark and Eve. Um, but because of this, Eve is taken to the GDA. Mark kind of leaves this, um, protective position he's in so that he can make sure Eve is safe and almost hides out for most of the next couple of days, uh, in the GDA headquarters

[00:33:09] at, at the bedside of Eve. Uh, no matter what Cecil says to him, uh, where he's saying, you know, you have to get out of here. You can't, you can't stay here. Um, Mark saying, you know, they all know where here is. So Eve is still being threatened by them. Um, even though she's here in your custody, uh, Cecil's even saying, you know, go out and protect your brother, Oliver. He's out there fighting, go protect your mom, Debbie. She's out there.

[00:33:34] Um, but Mark's refuses to leave, uh, to leave the bedside of Eve, which is, um, which is pretty interesting. It's like, he's putting his head in the sand, uh, about what's going on outside the house or outside the GDA. It's, it's exactly that. It's the, I would rather hide than take part in this. I would rather just assume it is not happening. Right. Right. Yeah. Um, and again, we're back into that gray area because, uh, throughout this season, which

[00:34:03] is like, well, why does he have to be like, he is the one always sacrificing. Why, why can't there be more and others? Yeah. And I think that's kind of a, there's also an element of this is his fault or is it like he decided he chose not to kill and then he killed. Yeah. And he killed, he punished himself for that killing and he didn't actually do it. It wasn't his, he didn't finish the job. Exactly. Per se. Yeah.

[00:34:31] So again, this is on him to a degree. Yeah. Yeah. At least that's what he, that's what he thinks. I think there's, there's an interesting moment right at the beginning of the episode where he's sitting down talking to Eve and he's kind of going, I know those things aren't my fault, but I still blame myself for them. And here he is with 18 people with his face, basically going around smashing up the planet. He can't possibly not be thinking to himself, this is all my fault as well. So, but luckily just, just to mention, of course, Debbie's very smart.

[00:34:59] Debbie and Oliver have a conversation because Oliver is going to go out no matter what to help save the world. She finally lets him go out there. And then she says, don't come back here because they know where our house is. Where we are. And she goes and moves him with Paul. So, so they're never going to find her there. So I really liked that. I love, I love the idea that in no other dimension would, would a Mark know where Paul's house is. Yes. Because we don't know who knows Paul. Exactly. It's like, why would I know?

[00:35:29] Why would I know where my mom's boyfriend's house is? It's really good. But let's move on to point number three. It all comes to an end with backstabbing as it always does. Yes. Because the plan seems to be going really well. We're on to day three and it's only three days. This entire episode takes place over three days. And, and Angstrom regroups with all the invincibles very quickly. They all turn and start to turn on each other and then turn on Angstrom together.

[00:36:00] Oh dear. I love that. You know, we do get a little touch from Angstrom where he goes, yeah, I thought that would happen. I just thought it would happen a little bit later than now. Not, not immediately after we've just done the first phase of my plan. And so, so he banishes them. He just sticks them through the vortexes. That was always his plan is when, when they did turn on them, I could send them off to the wasteland where I guess our invincible spent his time mourning his murder of Angstrom. Yes.

[00:36:29] Which is really interesting. So all them are stuck there together. Yeah. And they'll forever rot there until he, basically until either someone comes to get him like they did for Ardmark or Angstrom decides. Yeah. I don't think they're going to last there very long. They already seemed like they were turning on each other just after being on earth and this, this earth for a couple of days.

[00:36:56] Um, so how long are they going to survive in the wasteland together? It's a battle royale. That's what I think. There's a Highlander. There can only be one. Yeah. I think it might just be the most brutal one of those invincible survives the wasteland that is eventually brought back by Angstrom and, uh, is, is probably going to be very pissed off if that's the case. And with the help of Cecil, Mark finally does raise himself from, from the side of Eve's

[00:37:22] bed and tracks down Angstrom, um, where they have the battle of balls, I guess. Where Angstrom throws... You've been waiting to say that one. I know. It throws infinite number of, uh, of these orbs, um, through using his vortex. It throws infinite amount of them, um, at Mark. Now, this is where this type of animation gets a bit dodgy, where it's just, it just looks like a, a cloud, um, rather than a million balls, of course, but that's fine.

[00:37:50] We've been seeing that kind of animation for ages, uh, but it's, it almost overcomes Mark. It does cut him a few times at least. Yeah, and again, it's that, it pushes him back and it continuously, like, again, it's then him punching one, which, again, the animation gets a bit choppy here, in that, like, him punching one rather versus, like, cleaving, like, putting his hand up in front of his head, like, almost like a fin. It doesn't work exactly the same. Yeah.

[00:38:19] So it is interesting to just kind of watch. But it is him slowly just, luckily, we have seen that Mark has trained. He has become bigger, better, stronger, faster. Um, so he overcomes, uh, the, the torrent of balls. Yeah. And it's cool to see, like, he gets closer and closer and closer and does manage to pretty much get to Angstrom. Yeah.

[00:38:49] Uh, we, Oliver then joins and we get this point where it's like, once again, Mark decides to take the high road. Um, and again, this is a question, like, should he have taken this road? Yeah. Should he have hesitated? Mm-hmm. Uh, and then, uh, because of that hesitation, once again, Angstrom disappears. Yes. And escapes. Yes, absolutely.

[00:39:15] I think what kind of adds to the question is because Oliver is there cheering him on, going, kill him, Mark. You know, he's trying to be an upstanding, inspirational character to his younger brother who's just gotten his powers. So I can kind of see why Mark goes, oh no, I can't kill him. I kind of think if Oliver hadn't turned up, he may have accidentally killed Angstrom again. But it's almost because Oliver's there telling him, kill Angstrom, that Mark pulls himself up short.

[00:39:44] Because you don't really want to just kill someone if your, if your younger son, which is almost the relationship between Mark and Oliver, or your little brother, is cheering you on to kill someone. You probably don't want to kill someone in front of them, right? So I kind of, I kind of get why he didn't. But this whole season, what it's really shown about Invincible is it is totally the butterfly effect with Mark. He might think what he's doing is the right thing, but the knock-on effect of it is having

[00:40:12] multiple thousands of people being killed is the knock-on effect of Mark doing something that he thinks is good, that he thinks is right. Yeah, it's the real world application of a superhero world. Yeah. And that's a perfect way of putting it, the butterfly effect. Yeah. With Paraplex, we've seen that butterfly effect. With Doc Seismic, we've seen that butterfly effect. Exactly. Each and every time, we've seen the butterfly effect.

[00:40:39] Of the problems, probably is the worst way, of the consequences of Mark's actions. Exactly. That come from it. Yeah. Yeah. So he just takes Angstrom's arm. Angstrom leaves and goes back to the technicians and tells them, right, fix me up and let me go back into battle. And they go, uh-uh, not at all. When he was originally being fixed up by them and when he was bringing the invincibles to

[00:41:07] the earth, he basically told them all, you help me out and you get whatever you want. I'm able to grant that wish almost because of my knowledge and because of my ability to being able to go between dimensions, I'll be able to give you whatever you want. And first, the invincibles turned on them and now the technicians turn them going, no, that wasn't the deal. We don't just fix you up and send you out. You now are going to be here doing what we told you we want you to do. So Angstrom's back in his box, basically. Mm-hmm. Yep.

[00:41:36] And the question is, what is that box? Exactly. Well, like, what do the technicians want? And as I say with that voice of Doug Bradley, I'm concerned for wherever they're going with this storyline. I just love it. I love it. One final thing on here is just we did say Paraplex does come back and has his fight against Invincible for a second. But what I found funny about it is that it almost led to just another training mission

[00:42:06] for Oliver. It was like Paraplex had been this quite powerful character that could go up against Invincible last episode, but they sorted him out. And now that Mark knows the tricks to take him down, it is just hold him tight. He can't really do anything once his power is gone and then we can put him back in prison. Yeah. Just take your time. Yeah. It's fine. And it is interesting to see the pain that Oliver goes through, but Oliver does learn,

[00:42:34] not just to take the heat and learn his restraint. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of it for the Invincible War. It's not really a post credit in this episode, but the end of the episode is a pretty big moment as well. Kind of mentioned earlier on, but Conquest arrives. The Viltrumite, where he enacts basically the mission that we saw Mark was given at the end of season two. Mark was supposed to be representing the Viltrumite Empire.

[00:43:03] He was given an opportunity to prepare Earth for the coming Viltrumite Empire and didn't do any of that. He just was fighting against all the different threats that were going on. Didn't do any of that plan. And now we have Conquest arriving to tell Mark, well, it's over now. I don't see that you've done any of the things you were supposed to be doing. Yep. You have not followed the rules from our empire. So therefore, your life is forfeit. Yes. Oh, how interesting.

[00:43:33] As I said earlier on, what I do like about this is it's like the after you've pressed the nuclear weapon button and destroyed all of your all of your villains, the people are up against you. Then another villain who's even more powerful arrives. What do you do now? Mark doesn't even have a chance to like lick his wounds or anything. It's just here we go. Next one in. Yeah, it is very Dragon Ball. It is very comic books. It is very like as soon as that arc is over. Guess what? Next week.

[00:44:03] An even bigger threat has emerged. Yeah, it is somewhat poking fun at the comic book universe and like comic book kind of tropes, which is like every every arc, every kind of couple of months, you've got to have a bigger threat. And there is only exponentially so much bigger you can keep getting. Yeah. So the interesting thing is like when it's what will happen with Conquest. Exactly. How big time will tell. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:44:32] One more week and we'll find out, I guess. Exactly. But it does keep up Robert Kirkman's tradition of always ending with a big cliffhanger at the end of his issues. So here he is writing an episode of the show, which has a massive cliffhanger. And for Walking Dead fans, a massive, massive face off here because Conquest is voiced by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who played Negan in The Walking Dead, of course. And he's the one that killed Glenn, who was played by Steven Yeun.

[00:44:59] So here we have Conquest coming in to destroy Invincible. And will it play out the same way as The Walking Dead did? Mm hmm. Will there be a baseball bat? Will there be a baseball bat or a massive tower in the shape of a baseball? Or a baseball field, maybe, throwing out Invincible in the next episode? Or will Steven Yeun get his own back? Time will tell. One more week. A whole seven days. Exactly. Exactly. Any notes about the episode, Chris? Anything else we haven't covered?

[00:45:28] No, but I just want to say I absolutely love Masked Incible. That was always the one I enjoyed the most, which is that kind of grifter look from Vertigo slash DC Comics. That kind of mask, the blue mask in front of his face. Oh, yes. And he had the goggles. I love that one. Very cool. And also, Cape Incible is the reason you cannot wear a cape. Because Mark grabs him by the cape and swings him around. Absolutely. Absolutely. A little inspiration taken there from Watchmen, of course. Yes. Which had the danger of capes in there.

[00:45:58] What about yourself? Just a couple of tiny things. I did really like the shapesmith moment in the episode where a shapesmith is ripped in pieces and the evil invincible is trying to approximate what shapesmith said beforehand. Because you knew it was shapesmith's voice as well, where he was approximating it. But shapesmith will be okay. It's just his body is shredded. It's just that he's shredded. That's all. Yes. It will just take time. But who may not be okay. And this is the interesting thing about this story.

[00:46:27] So we know Rex is dead as far as this episode goes. We know he's dead on screen. We saw him die. Darkwing 2, who recently joined the Garden of the Globe, we hear a mention that he has taken an invincible into the shadow realm where he's able to move between the shadow realm and regular earth. He's taken them there and never come back, and neither has the invincible.

[00:46:57] So the comment that's made there from Samson is that he's dead. Because if he's been killed in the shadow realm, there's no way out for that invincible. So he may have also sacrificed himself to take out an invincible as well. Yeah. And he was the crazy one. He was the one that was killing all the bad guys or the good people. Well, just the people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Cecil had got him working for the GTA at the start of the season, as we saw.

[00:47:26] But it's just interesting that that may be the case. And you may never know whether Darkwing 2 is alive or dead because he may have had to sacrifice himself to take out an invincible. Yeah. And then the final note that I have is just a mention from Eve's mother who's talking to Mark while Mark is in the hospital. And she says to him that Eve's friend Valerie is dead. And she died in these attacks that were going on.

[00:47:54] She kind of talks about her as, oh, she's just a regular person. Didn't have any bearing on anybody's life, really. But it is really sad that one of Eve's friends from childhood is dead. Just the reason I mention it is because Valerie was the other character, the other kind of lead character in the Atom Eve special alongside Eve, where we learned about her powers and learned about her growing up with Valerie directly across the road from Eve's house. So it's just interesting that they kind of closed that circle of what happened to Valerie

[00:48:22] after the events of the Atom Eve special. And what a sad way to go. Yeah. She deserved it. She wasn't a nice person. She wasn't a nice person. But it was just the mention, the fact that their mom's mentioning, look, in all the people that have died here. Like, it's just incredible in an episode like this, you know, look at the ramifications that happened after the attack that Mark had or the fight that Mark had with Nolan back in season one that lasted for a couple of seasons when there was just Chicago destroyed. Here it's called out by the newsreader.

[00:48:49] Hundreds of thousands of people in six cities across the planet were destroyed by these 18 Viltrumites that arrived to destroy or to smash up the planet and blame Mark. So Earth's taken an absolute battery. It's a beating and a half. Because it's got Mark on the planet, I guess. Yeah. This one, yes. Conquest, that's not Mark's fault.

[00:49:18] It's Nolan's fault. And we'll see how much... That's Nolan, not no one. It's Nolan's fault, yes. It's Nolan's fault. But we'll see. Maybe there'll be even more destruction happening in next week's episode. Let's go off and do that. Before we do, Chris, any final thoughts on the episode? Did you enjoy it overall? I enjoyed this. Again, seeing comic book art come to life kind of things I've seen only on the pages in 2D

[00:49:46] projected onto a moving image like the picture books. Yeah, no, it was great. I really enjoyed this. What about yourself? Yeah, yeah. Good episode. There's a point where I'm getting to, though, with Invincible, where I do need more than people punching each other in the face. And this was 18 versions of the same character. I've heard a lot about these 18 characters that there's even more characteristics of them.

[00:50:13] I'd like to have seen a bit more of that on screen in this episode. It was hard to tell someone apart. It was literally reading the names of them and going, oh, yeah, that one is wearing Bulletproof's uniform from the comics, for example. You know, that kind of stuff. I would have liked to have had a little more time with them. But there are most, well, about 14 of them, I guess, are still alive and off in the wasteland dimension. So we may see more of them in the future, I guess. I guess we will. Yep.

[00:50:43] But another good episode overall. Looking forward to next week's finale for season three. Yes. We are less than an hour away from having to wait a long amount of time for season four. Season four. So don't worry, Chris. We have so much other stuff going on. We've got Daredevil to catch up on. Two episodes of that came out this week.

[00:51:05] We've got Wheel of Time, which will be coming in about a week's time as well, taking over the prime video slot from Invincible when it comes out, which is cool. Yes. Lots and lots of stuff to keep us going. And then we've got The Last of Us returning, of course, in April as well. So lots and lots of stuff and video games and loads of other things to keep us company and interested and exciting and work to cover all the rest of the time in our day, huh? Yeah, exactly.

[00:51:30] And if you're a fan of the MCU, don't forget that the boys went to see Captain America Brave New World and have given their thoughts over on the dvpodcastindustries.com feed. And you can get that everywhere you get your good old podcast catchers and episodes. Absolutely. Thanks so much for joining us for our coverage of this episode of Invincible. We'll be back next week for the season three finale. I thought you'd never shut up. Hey, leave me alone. Come on. Come on. Don't say that.

[00:52:00] That's the name of the episode. It's the name of the episode. Oh, right. Speak to you next time. Yes. Thank you so much for joining us. Keep watching. Keep listening and keep being invincible. Bye. Bye.