Alien invasion, check. Relationship troubles, check. Finding a babysitter for your father’s brand new wife’s new son, check. All that and more is in the newest episode of Invincible.
We’re into Episode 6, titled “It’s Not That Simple.” Why’s it called that? Well, first off, the one thing that really is simple is defeating their pseudo discount Starro.
The Easiest Alien Invasion You’ve Ever Seen
We pick up right where we left off, which is the Guardians having to face off and deal with it. They’re all working really hard to help Robot, and yeah, there’s supposed to be tension. I really felt no tension. At the end of the day they rescue dude, they solve the problem, Mark has to help fight off a couple of Martian spaceships who want to collect Shapesmith, and ultimately everybody makes it back to Earth in one piece. Easy peasy. No real problems.
A Breakup That Feels Like a First Date
Then we get to the real crux of the episode. Mark sits down with his girlfriend to have a conversation, and what they find out in this conversation is that it feels like a first date, because there’s literally been a few minutes between all this stuff. You start to realize they’re moving toward what I said was going to happen, which is probably, most likely, breaking up.
Mr. Boom Boom, Down to the Bone
While all that was going down, remember those reptile guys that were beating up the remaining Guardians? They killed Dupli-Kate, dude had eaten the Incredible Shrinking Girl, and all we were left with was Mr. Boom Boom. He’d already had his hand ripped off, and the head of the snake people shoots him in the head, rather graphically. Yeah, this show is definitely not for the weak of heart or the faint. It’s gross in a lot of great ways.
Anyway, turns out it maybe just barely got him. He shot him through the brain a little bit. I don’t know what to say at this moment. At the end of the day he gets up and ends up beating the pee out of dude with literally just the bone end, just drilling dude in the face. I assume killing him.
Rex and the Home Decor Magazines
You get to see Eve. She goes back home, Cecil offers her a job, she says no, and then she finds out Rex has been hurt and goes to the hospital. Everybody’s dealing with their stuff left and right.
The situation with Rex is that he wakes up and he’s a little bit slower, but he’s also very introspective. They’re talking, and come to find out he apparently loves looking at home decor magazines, because he had no kind of home life growing up. I thought it was really charming. He’s all like, ways to improve your room, yes sir. It was cool.
Two Conversations, Same Exact Answer
Mark goes to see the suit guy and talks to him. Meanwhile Mark’s girlfriend, maybe ex, we don’t know yet, goes to see Eve. Both conversations are being mirrored, each of them having this talk with the other one’s person, and both go the exact same way. Why are you here talking to me when you should be talking to him? Everyone says basically the same exact thing, and they still aren’t talking all that much.
The One-Eyed Monster
Meanwhile a certain one-eyed monster shows up, and no, that is not a euphemism. He immediately gets confronted by the Immortal. The Immortal, of course, is recovering from the fact that Dupli-Kate is gone. They buried her. He’s on edge, he won’t take a break, and he shows up and just wants to start fighting. That’s when Mark shows up, and the Immortal lets him go.
So Mark and Mr. One Eye sit down and have a conversation, and Mark’s like, look, I just left. I can’t leave anymore, not right now. But you’ve got my word. Go tell your king guy, when it pops off, when there’s fighting to be done, call me. I’m coming. I’ll be there, I promise.
All right, cool. That’s where that ends.
It’s Good to Be Home
Then we get the button. We finally get to see discount the Leader, Mr. Big Brain, as he’s getting a brand new suit in a four-armed world. Very weird. He proceeds to walk through all the various worlds, a zombie world, the apocalypse world, a snow world, whatever, and finally he gets to his own. “It’s good to be home.”
That’s Sterling K. Brown, of course, reprising his role as Angstrom Levy. I’m excited for what’s coming, because I’ve read the comics. I’ve seen it. They also did a pretty good job characterizing him and summarizing everything up.
A Babysitter for a Superhero Kid
Mark’s little brother gets a new babysitter, and I know this one from the comics too. She’s a babysitter who’s uniquely equipped to help with superhero kids, and she assures Mark’s mom: I don’t work for Cecil, I work for you. Cecil gave me the lead, but I work for you. I understand how to deal with kids with special needs, the whole nine yards. There’s a lot of fun stuff going on there.
The Verdict
Invincible Season 2 Episode 6, “It’s Not That Simple,” lands at a 7 and a half out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
It’s a little slow. It’s a filler episode. We came off of a really good cliffhanger and they kind of hand-waved the resolution of it, which kind of annoyed me. Then there are a lot of messy bits, and ultimately this episode was very boring. So a solid 7 and a half.
I can’t wait to see where this goes next, though.
What do you think? Am I wrong? Am I giving it enough of a chance? No matter what, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the whole thing. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
