Well, it’s finally arrived, the finale of Invincible Season 2, and the roller coaster itself has absolutely jumped the tracks. I don’t know where to begin.
The episode is literally titled “I Thought You Were Stronger,” and anyone who’s read the comic books knows this is when some pretty heavy things happen. They do go briskly through some of them.
A Spider-Man They Can’t Call Spider-Man
We continue right where we left off. Mark shows up, and Angstrom Levy has his mom and his brother hostage. He hasn’t hurt them yet. As Mark tries to get to him, Angstrom begins sending Mark into other dimensions of the multiverse using his Rick and Morty green portal energy.
So we get all these little glimpses at different worlds. One of them has dinosaurs that talk. One was the zombies. And one world has their version of Spider-Man. Now, they can’t say Spider-Man. He has an A on his chest, which I assume is for arachnid man or something. He’s got webbing on his outfit, he calls it webbing, and he’s fighting a guy who’s clearly Doc Ock, but he’s not. He’s called Professor Ock.
I love all of that, the playing with it, because we’ve all been waiting for the moment when we were going to get Invincible and Spider-Man. You don’t actually get Spider-Man, unfortunately, but you get Spider-Man adjacent. Especially because he’s like, oh yeah, I saw a portal, so you’re from another dimension, I’ve had more experience with alternate universes and dimensions than I can tell you about. And I’m like, okay, so we’re doing some little Spider-Verse jingle jangles. That’s totally fine.
Mark Goes All Out
Mark finally manages to get to Angstrom, and the two of them end up on an abandoned world. Mark goes all out. Mark beats him to death, and Angstrom is dead.
What do you do with that? The entire rest of the episode is about that question.
Nolan Passes Inspection
We get a brief glimpse at where Nolan is. He’s been fully healed, and he fights his way out, killing both of his guards. That’s when the general shows up and tells him, well, I see you’ve healed, you passed inspection. So they’re going to terminate him, and he has to be ready to stand on his own two feet when that happens.
As they’re walking him through, he happens to pass our good buddy Allen the Alien, who starts talking to him. Hey, I’m here to save you, this and that.
Every Title Is a Double Entendre
That’s where you start to see the through line. The one thing I really loved about this season is that they’ve always taken the opportunity to make sure the titles are double entendres. A title is more than just a line somebody says.
It’s Angstrom. I thought you were stronger. That’s why I didn’t mean to kill you. It’s Mark. I thought I could handle being a superhero. I thought I was stronger. It’s Nolan. I thought I could handle these emotions, in this life, in this family. I thought I was stronger.
Every aspect of this episode is about that concept of being stronger.
Tell Her Something
Now that Mark is back, he realizes he can’t go on the way he’s been. When he got lost in that other dimension, he was saved by the Guardians, and it took them twenty-some-odd years to find him. They have a time machine and a dimensional portal, and they’re able to get him back to his own time and his own dimension.
But not before an older Eve says to him: I love you. I never told my Mark about this. I need to know, can you be that? Are you capable of that? And if not, who cares. Tell her something so she doesn’t wait. Tell her yes, tell her no, tell her whatever you want, but tell her something.
So now Mark has all of that to worry about too.
What Does College Matter When You Outlive the Planet
He and his mom talk a little bit about what he’s going to do. He’s quitting college, because what’s the point. They play certain scenes back while he’s doing all this soul searching, and one of them is the scene where Nolan explains that he’s going to outlive everyone, maybe even the whole planet.
At that point he has to start thinking to himself, what does something like college matter? Seriously. When you’re near immortal and everything’s going to become dust, why do you care about being an accountant, or being a dentist?
He realizes he needs to become better at controlling himself. He needs to become the fullest version of himself, and to him that doesn’t mean stronger. It means more under control, because clearly he lost control and that’s why he killed Angstrom Levy. At least that’s his mentality. I don’t know that I agree with it, but it’s there.
You begin to see more and more of these little pieces coming together. There’s also a brief interlude with some folks who have to do with ancient Egypt. I don’t know that I saw the relevance in it, but it’s there.
The Verdict
Invincible Season 2 Episode 8, “I Thought You Were Stronger,” lands at a 9 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
I’m giving two Indexes this time, one for the episode and one for the season. For the episode itself, I felt like it did a really good job of sticking the landing. It set up and established some things, and then it moved us toward what will hopefully be Season 3. A solid 9.
Invincible Season 2 as a whole gets an 8 and a half out of 10.
Overall I thought the season did a really good job of taking the original material and making it its own. We saw enough changes and enough differences, and there’s enough storytelling that’s unique, even though I’ve read the comic. After last season I had to read it. I firmly believe there’s so much here that they’re doing a lot of justice to, and I can’t wait to see how they start translating some of the future stuff, especially when you get into the Thragg of it all. I look forward to seeing their interpretation come Season 3.
Do you agree with my ratings? Did you enjoy the season as a whole? I know I did, and I can’t wait till the next one. Up next on the channel is Dev Patel’s Monkey Man. I was debating a non-spoiler review, but I’m thinking it ends up a spoiler review as usual, because that’s who we are. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
