After what felt like an endless wait, Invincible finally returned in early November. Four short weeks later, it’s gone again — for now. While the pause between new episodes won’t be quite as long this time around (the second half of Invincible Season 2 is expected in January), the fact that Amazon’s anti-superhero animated series finally started to build some momentum only to be cut short makes the mid-season break all the more frustrating.
But what does Invincible’s mid-season finale mean for Mark, Nolan, and Debbie Grayson? And after multiple red herrings, have we finally met the show’s true villain? Let’s discuss. After all, we’ve got nothing but time on our hands.
Up until the mid-season finale, Invincible 2 had an aimless flow, hopping between subplots regarding Atom Eve, the new Guardians of the Globe, a security agent named Donald, and a subplot focused on Allen the Alien. The only thing holding these stories together was the way each character dealt with the fallout of Omni-Man’s big reveal (turns out, everyone’s favorite superhero was actually an evil alien invader).
After Season 2 Episode 3 ended with an unexpected father-son reunion on a distant alien planet, Episode 4 ("It's Been a While") reveals what Omni-Man has been up to. After destroying most of Chicago while giving Mark the worst corporal punishment of his life, Nolan drifts into space, throwing himself a galactic pity party. But just as he’s about to fly headfirst into a black hole and end his own existence, he notices a Thraxan ship in peril and saves it. Soon, the people made him the ruler of their planet. He even starts a new family.
Cut to the present as Mark unwillingly reunites with Nolan, who drops endless bombshells on him. The biggest one is that the Viltrumites are expected to arrive on the planet to confront Nolan for abandoning his post on Earth. The moment Mark reluctantly agrees to help out for the sake of the people, three soldiers arrive and viciously beat the Graysons to a pulp. After a thrillingly bloody battle, Nolan gets captured while Mark is sent back to Earth under orders to assume his father’s role and prepare Earth for colonization.
While there are still plenty of plotlines left to unravel, there’s no denying that the Viltrumites pose the greatest threat to Earth and its heroes. Sure, it was cathartic to see Nolan get his comeuppance in an actual fair fight, but between the damage those Viltrumites dealt to the Graysons and their brutal attack on Allen the Alien one episode earlier, it’s clear this fascist space empire is nothing to mess with. Now that the other shoe has finally dropped, offering an exhilarating blood-fest action-oriented episode, it can only be expected that the action and gore will be cranked to a ten with the next few episodes.
It seems fair to assume that Mark won’t be taking marching orders from the Viltrumites anytime soon, which means he’ll likely head home and immediately start training and preparing to fight off those would-be invaders (while also recruiting any other superheroes he can). But in the meantime, there are many other directions the show can go. For one thing, there’s still the multiverse-hopping Angstrom Levy, who vowed revenge on Invincible after the hero accidentally blew up his lab and turned Angstrom into a monster.
But above all else, we just hope Debbie can find some happiness. Even for a show like Invincible where murder and bloodshed are commonplace, Omin-Man’s ex-wife is having a particularly tough time. Maybe when Season 2 returns, she can finally catch a break.
Then again, when the Viltrumites do show up, Debbi’s grief will be the least of her problems.
