The following contains spoilers from Secret Invasion Season 1, Episode 3, “Betrayed,” now streaming on Disney+.
After killing its most recognizable Marvel Cinematic Universe character, Secret Invasion just seemingly killed its second. Again, in the final scene, Gravik appears out of nowhere to presumably shoot G’iah to death. This follows his murder of Maria Hill in the series premiere. For a Marvel Studios series with so much promise, it’s a shame Secret Invasion keeps stumbling over this wasteful trope.
Maria Hill, played by Cobie Smulders, is a character fans have seen in supporting roles since 2012’s Avengers. She’s also appeared on MCU-adjacent TV series like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. The death was tragic, doubly so because the premiere was Maria Hill’s best story to date. While Emilia Clarke’s G’iah is a new character, she is prominently featured in the series’ marketing. In fact, there are snippets of scenes in all the series’ trailers featuring Emilia Clarke that audiences have yet to see. While Marvel Studios has created fake scenes for trailers before, it’s equally possible that the character is revived or, at least, impersonated. Sci-fi fans know even when they see “a body,” like a seemingly dead G’iah at the end of the episode, death is not always permanent. Still, if it’s not undone immediately, Secret Invasion is, again, wasting one of its best characters.
G’iah Is the Secret Invasion Character With the Most at Stake, Not Nick Fury
Secret Invasion was always going to be “the Nick Fury show.” While he’s responsible for setting everything in motion, it’s G’iah who is most personally affected by it. Nick Fury has deeper connections to the Skrulls than just Talos. Heck, Fury is married to Varra, the Skrull who brought Gravik into the fold. G’iah is a Skrull and, thus, cares about what happens to her people. However, the central players in this fight are all people she’s known for most of her life. Depending on how close they let their human identities get, Gravik and G’iah might have grown up like cousins.
Secret Invasion is about fractured families, and no one’s family is more shattered than G’iah’s. Her mother is dead, something she didn’t even know until Talos told her in the series premiere. She also betrays Gravik and the entire community of Skrull refugees. It’s unclear if this was a change of heart or if she was a double agent even sooner. If her death sticks, audiences may never know unless it’s clumsily stated by one of the men who mourn her. Despite how much more deeply she’s connected to all the players, G’iah’s death would only serve to add to Talos’s pathos. It’s a waste of a character who showed so much potential for both Secret Invasion and the future of the MCU.
Why There’s Hope G’iah Survives Being Shot by Gravik
Again, barring any deliberately false scenes in the trailers, viewers will see G’iah or a character who looks like her again. There are flashes of scenes that haven’t appeared in the series yet. One brief snippet shows her and Priscilla, each with guns in their hands. They also seem to be working together. Another scene, which could be cleverly edited, appears to show her talking to Fury inside the Skrull compound. The two characters haven’t met in the first three episodes of Secret Invasion. Hopefully, Secret Invasion doesn’t waste too much of its runtime with an empty twist like a near-death rescue of G’iah. There are better ways to give stories stakes.
If G’iah is actually dead, and the rest of the scenes are flashbacks or imposter trickery, Secret Invasion wasted her potential like it did Maria Hill’s. While Hill was an MCU veteran who deserved more of a moment, G’iah is the character at the heart of the show’s conflict in every possible way. Secret Invasion could make it so she had her own agency and motivations independent of Fury, her father or Gravik. She could have been a truly inscrutable figure in the narrative and still could be — if the storytellers don’t make the foolish mistake of keeping her “dead” for long.
To see if G’iah’s truly gone, Secret Invasion debuts new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.