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Invincible Season 2 Review
725 Plays7 months ago
Zuhair and J Scotty return to give their thoughts on Invincible Season 2 as well as catch up on what else they've been up and are watching. Invincible Season 2 is now available to stream in its entirety on Amazon Prime.
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Transcript
Introduction and Season Recap
00:00:01
Speaker
On another exciting episode of the Animation Deliberation podcast, we are giving our recap of Season 2 of Invincible, and if you thought it was going to be any less heartbreaking or intense or gory than the last one, then you were wrong. We are going to talk about that and much more right after these ads, we have no control over.
00:00:17
Speaker
Sing along if you know the words. One, two, three, it's time for animation deliberation. A conversation and a celebration of our favorite action animated series. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome back to another episode of animation deliberation, the podcast where we take action animation and cartoon seriously, but not too seriously. I'm Zara Lee. And my name's J. Scottie Sinclair.
00:00:40
Speaker
And after a lot of waiting, we finally got it. Invincible season two. It's, it's done. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, just like our, our listeners had a little bit of waiting, it's been about, uh, a month since our last episode. So four weeks is oddly enough enough time for four episodes of a, of a show to come out. Funny how that works. And that was an episode behind too. I thought that.
00:01:07
Speaker
Seven was the last one. I guess I like lost count and then I looked at it today and I was like, oh crap, I stole one more to go. Whoops.
Personal Catch-up
00:01:16
Speaker
Yeah. So obviously we're here to talk all things Invincible season two, our enjoyment of the season, our excitement for the season. But before that, let's just kind of, you know, like I said, it's been, it's been a month, so let's check in. Let's check in with each other. How you been, buddy? What's been going on?
00:01:34
Speaker
I'm gonna write just uh, you know live in life as a business owner You guys want to help out follow x right upright exposures on Instagram just so I have some followers but yeah, that's Like creeping into busy season like I've been in the industry for eight years now. It's just my first year like doing this on my own so it's just the struggles of making sure clients are
00:01:57
Speaker
Pappy and emails are answered and appointments are booked and it's just always being on my phone And like I don't I'm not a morning person, but I have like texts and emails like as early as like 6 7 a.m Yeah, but it's it's it's been good I'm grateful things are going well. I'm just tired. That's all
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, when it comes to become, when it comes to, you know, being a business owner, being busy kind of comes with the territory and unfortunately being busy is, is.
00:02:32
Speaker
The good situation here, you'd rather be busy than not busy in the situation. So I'm glad for you in that sense. But you talk about being a morning person. That's funny because I kind of get back to, well, yeah, yeah, whether you're one or not. And that's something I kind of struggle with too, because I say that I am a morning person in the sense that I can be incredibly productive in the morning if I'm left to my own devices. I don't like interacting with other people.
00:02:59
Speaker
the first couple hours of the morning. So I'm not a morning in that sense. Like don't talk to me, but I can get shit done in the morning. Um, but all that being said with you being incredibly busy, I hope that you still get a little bit of downtime. And I'm curious in that hopeful downtime you get, has there been anything you've been watching other than invincible?
Media Consumption and Recommendations
00:03:23
Speaker
There's like, okay. Yeah. There's like a plethora of content out right now.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think the biggest thing that I've been obsessed with is weekly releases of Shogun. Oh, yeah, those episodes have been so good. I just it just like lives rent free in my brain all the time. So I've absolutely been loving that we were just talking off air. I got to watch Ghostbusters Frozen Empire.
00:03:48
Speaker
To the listeners, no judgment. I watched the first Ghostbusters for the first time the other day. I skipped two and the 2016 release, but then I watched Afterlife and this one and I've been really happy with these three. They were super fun watches. I'm glad I made the time to do that. I saw Demon Slayer in theaters. I saw Godzilla versus or Godzilla X Kong in theaters. It was a fun one. Yeah.
00:04:16
Speaker
It's kind of fascinating, like, during it. Manhunt has been a great weekly watch. Okay. You familiar with that one? The title rings a bell, but I don't... I can't think of anything about it. The first episode is John Wilkes Booth's assassination of President Lincoln. Okay. And it's about the chase, the hunt to try to find him. Is it on Amazon Prime? No, it's an Apple one. Apple, okay, okay. Yeah. Gotcha.
00:04:43
Speaker
That's another show that's been great. Another Apple show that ended a few weeks ago was Masters of the Air. Same guys who did Band of Brothers, Spielberg and Tom Hanks. Oh, excellent. So that one was really good. I'm not mentioning too much animated stuff. Well, that's funny. That's funny that you I did notice that I'm with you 100% on Shogun. Like there's
00:05:03
Speaker
a variety of shows that are coming out right now that I look forward to watching. Like X-Men 97 is one of the ones that I look forward to watching the most every week, but none take the cake as much as Shogun does. Like Shogun always takes priority. I'm always most excited to watch Shogun.
00:05:21
Speaker
Even the weakest episode of Shogun, which for my purposes, I think this most recent episode was the weakest episode, but it was still a phenomenal episode. I was still wildly entertained, so when your weakest episode is still that good, that is just something to be said there. No, I think the one before last one was weakest. Okay.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, at the time of this recording, like tomorrow's a new episode, so I'm very excited. Yes. Something else I'm very excited about, Spy Family Code White comes out at the end of the month. Oh, nice. And theaters. I got pushed back, huh? Because that was supposed to come out in December originally. I remember we talked about it. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. So I'm still behind on like season two for that. OK.
00:06:02
Speaker
Did you happen to watch on YouTube? There was a short film released called the spider within and it actually like takes place within the, you know, into the spider verse across the spider verse Sony film franchise. I mean, you heard of this.
00:06:20
Speaker
I'd recommend that it came out not last week, but maybe the week prior, and I definitely wanted to make a point to mention on this show. I don't know if it's necessarily required viewing in the sense of how much it fits into the overall story that we've been presented with with the films, but I will say it's definitely worth a watch in terms of just having a little
00:06:42
Speaker
getting to spend a little extra time with miles. And then from a mental health perspective, as somebody that has personally struggled with anxiety, and I think you have shared with me that you've at least struggled with that in some capacity. I think this is a brilliant depiction of what anxiety can look like on the screen. So I would definitely recommend it to that end. Oh, so this is actually like Sony made, too. That's cool. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah. How would I not hurt a sweet? Hmm. I guess I failed you. I should have made sure that you knew about it. Two weeks ago. Okay. Yeah. And to the list.
00:07:24
Speaker
Yeah. So you mentioned X-Men. Yes. I haven't seen any of it yet, but for the sake of the listeners, we do intend on reviewing that when the season is over. Yes. Bad Batch when it concludes, because I don't think there's too much left of that, maybe like three, four episodes left at the time of the recording. Yeah, it's got to be wrapping up here soon.
00:07:49
Speaker
Star Wars has gifted us with Tales of the Empire trailer, which I'm very excited for, get to see a lot of dark side stuff. So definitely going to be, you know, chatting about that soon.
00:08:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Two characters that I'm kind of in the dark about, but the trailer was was epic. Yeah. Looks really cool. Yeah. Yeah. I was just scrolling through Twitter and I was like, hey, what's this? Oh, my God, what is this? I'm just impressed with how many how many points in time of the Star Wars timeline they're covering. Yeah, it is impressive. It's going to be cool. Yeah. Oh, cool.
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's it. I think that's my little recap of what I'm watching and what I'm looking forward to.
00:08:38
Speaker
Well, I know the listeners are probably eager for us to get into all things invincible, but final thing I want to say is like, I often talk about how I have a show that's kind of like my show that I fall asleep to, the one that I just kind of throw on and absorb. And that show lately has been We Bare Bears. I just kind of like stumbled onto it. I was watching an unrelated YouTube show. One of those YouTube channels where they recreate
00:09:03
Speaker
food from shows and they featured We Bare Bears and just whatever the imagery I saw, it compelled me. I was like, okay, I'm going to go at least give this a try. And all four seasons are available on Max and I have just been loving this show. I have made it like my personal mission in life to make sure everybody watches We Bare Bears season one, episode 11 titled Shush Ninjas. This will give you
00:09:28
Speaker
Theater etiquette 101, like they should play this thing at the beginning of all regal and AMC showings, like the part where they have the spiel about, you know, turn off your phone. They should just play the speech from this episode instead. Everybody go watch this. I have.
00:09:44
Speaker
I have seen snippets of this before. I remember watching the trailer before it came out thinking this is something I'd be interested in and then just never got around to watching it. Yeah. And I will say it is firm. It's a kid's show, but it is super smart. It's super wholesome. And it's just chock full of like pop culture references. So really, really good. I highly recommend it for anyone of any age. Interesting. Almost done with season two.
00:10:14
Speaker
All right. I have to, I have to do a little recap on this. Indeed. Indeed. All right.
Initial Thoughts on Invincible Season 2
00:10:22
Speaker
Well, that out of the way, shall we talk about some invincible season two? The inevitable invincible. Let's do it. All right. Non-spoiler starts. Non-spoiler thoughts to start off with.
00:10:40
Speaker
Non-spoiler thoughts to start off with. What did you think about this season? Season one did leave a very high bar. Season two, I think the storytelling and the intensity of all the situations was pretty on par with it.
00:11:02
Speaker
but there was just a lot of different storylines kind of like happening at once. And to do four episodes, take a break, and then come back of it on top of like trying to watch like other things, like sometimes I had a difficult time, you know, putting the pieces together. And it seems like they are revisiting
00:11:28
Speaker
particular storylines instead of like starting up a bunch of new threads which I do appreciate and I am excited it's like I Really enjoyed the season where I'm looking forward to the day where I can sit down and kind of binge everything together Again, if that makes sense you that yeah, but just because there's there's a lot of threads to kind of keep track of so like I Want to say give it four out of five so above one
00:11:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's fair. I don't know if I came up with a numerical value. Maybe by the time I get to the end of my spiel, I'll land somewhere with it.
00:12:05
Speaker
I agree with a lot of what you brought up. I will start off by saying I am not a fan of the breaking up of a season with one half and a second half. It's not the first show to do it. It's been kind of a trend as of late, especially with animation. I understand why they do it because animation is so intensive and takes so long. They would rather just put something out there to sate the fans. You made a point of that in the season too.
00:12:29
Speaker
They do, yeah, which I'm excited to talk about. But I think for my purposes, I would kind of just almost rather wait, like just get the whole season done. Like I'm okay waiting. There's enough content and shows out there that I can fill in, you know, the time in between. I think it would just serve the show better to just kind of
00:12:49
Speaker
you know, not have that break and not lose that momentum. But that being said, um, I do think it was, it was stronger than season one in some aspects, but weaker in others and a slightly weaker overall, but still wildly entertaining. Um, in terms of like technically speaking, um, from the animation standpoint, I know when we talked about the first season, I talked about some of like the, you know, uh, poorly rendered, like,
00:13:14
Speaker
computer-generated background blobs. I was glad to see that those were done away with. But there was still a little inconsistency with the facial animations. I feel like, for whatever reason, they're just kind of lacking a character-style guy. Artists are supposed to have basically a sheet that they can reference that shows the character expression at different angles.
00:13:41
Speaker
and all this stuff. And I feel like that is just kind of missing. Weirdly enough, it seems intentional. Well, it does, especially with episode seven. They basically poked fun at themselves, which I absolutely loved. But apart from that, still remaining spoiler free here, I will say that. And recency bias may be a factor here.
00:14:05
Speaker
Uh, because full transparency, I did not go back and watch the first four episodes before proceeding into the, into the second half of the season. But the episodes in season two, like what kind of stuck out to me is I, I, it did feel better paced and more focused than season one. And I think that's kind of something that you were bringing up where we were like, instead of.
00:14:24
Speaker
Instead of creating new threads, we were revisiting old established threads, which I think kind of speaks to what you're talking there. And while it still had a huge emotional punch, like you said, season one was just really, really a tough act to follow in terms of emotional punches. But as far as a follow up, I thought it was a very serviceable second season.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think the theme of this season is Mark Grayson can't catch a break. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And he's not the only one, but yeah, primarily him. Yeah. Okay. Any other spoiler free thoughts before we move on here?
00:15:10
Speaker
No. Listeners, if you haven't had a chance to catch up, this is your opportunity to do so. Season two is wrapped up and completely on prime with these stinking ads that you got to get rid of for $3.99, even though you pay $120 a year for it. I didn't find myself mining them that much. It annoyed me when I discovered it was going to be a thing, but they moved pretty quickly. I thought they were placed pretty well.
00:15:34
Speaker
But one of my friends has been so petty about it. He makes all of his Amazon order separate. To make them have to make multiple trips to his house. And he said, fuck your $2.99. His anger for it really cracked me up. We all have our fights to fight and he's fighting the good fight.
00:15:59
Speaker
I actually really wanted to watch Roundhouse when I heard Jake Gyllenhaal on... Oh, Roadhouse. Roadhouse, what did I say? Roundhouse, but far off. I keep thinking Roundhouse Kick because like a McGregor in it. Yeah, so I've been wanting to watch that. And then in my head, I'm just like, oh, but it's going to be a movie with ads. So it's like, what's the rush for me to do it? Why am I going to watch a movie for the first time with those breakups like that? Yeah.
00:16:25
Speaker
When did they roll out the ads? Because I feel like I watched there's another movie on Amazon Prime called Ricky Stenicki. I feel like I watched that like a week or two ago and I watched that without any ads. And then when I went to go watch Invincible, suddenly that was what I was told is that the movies don't have ads, but the series do. I see. OK, which is interesting. I like that they at least did that. Uh huh. But. Yeah. All right. Boo for more ads.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Well, let's go ahead and delve into the spoiler section here. And I've written up a brief synopsis just kind of covering the overall season. So let's read through that and hopefully that'll kind of refresh our memories as well as the listeners and help us inform a good conversation here. Do you want to break it up or do you want to get the whole thing? Yeah. I'll take the first paragraph. You can take the second and I'll bring it at home. Cool.
In-depth Season Discussion
00:17:27
Speaker
In season two of Invincible, Mark Grayson faces escalating threats both on earth and across the multiverse. Tensions rise and Mark's personal relationships with his mother, Debbie, and girlfriend, Amber, as he grapples with his father's legacy, college, and his duties as Invincible. Meanwhile, a new villain emerges in the form of
00:17:53
Speaker
Angstrom Levy, a reality hopper who seeks revenge on Mark. Mark's journey leads him to a brief reunion with his father, Nolan, and the discovery that he has a half-brother named Oliver. Ultimately, Invincible has a final confrontation with Angstrom, a brutal battle across dimensions that results in Mark seemingly killing Langstrom, which weighs heavy on the young hero.
00:18:18
Speaker
While Mark navigates his personal struggles, Earth and its heroes face external threats, including the impeding Sequid invasion and the looming Viltromite Empire. Allies such as the Guardians of the Globe and Coalition rally to defend against these threats. The Guardians experience some growing pains, adjusting to a constantly changing lineup, with Rex Robot and the Immortal forced to balance their duties to the team with their relationships. Adam Yves contemplates her role as a hero, while a new hero, the Shapesmith, emerges unseen.
00:18:47
Speaker
Elsewhere, Donald Cecil's recently resurrected right-hand man navigates his own trauma and understanding of what it is to be human, while helping college student and victim of experimentation, Rick, do the same. So there's no shortage of
00:19:07
Speaker
Action and traumatizing storylines in this so I'm gonna I'm gonna divert for a moment. Okay on on a topic that kind of wrapped up this last episode and it's It's the relationships in this like I'm I'm deeply in fact like there's there's tropes in terms of like I
00:19:28
Speaker
how the super powered person and the normie get together and when they break up and how they break up. One of those things like it was inevitable, but I'd be kind of like sitting in waiting like, when is it going to happen? How is it going to happen? What's the tipping point like finally going to be? And I guess like,
00:19:44
Speaker
now we're in spoiler territory, like threatening, you know, threatening to get your head ripped off is kind of like a good standard to be like, I'm done with this is a big one. But then even him going to the future and seeing Eve over there is like, whatever you tell her, like tell her something. And then for them to still not have that conversation like it's I can't believe like how invested I am in the relationship stuff when it comes to this. And it could be
00:20:09
Speaker
On the two episodes that we did cover earlier, we talked a lot about Mark's mom and just what she's been going through and her trauma. But every episode, she has some expression of her relationship with Noel and recently how she doesn't regret it and this and that either. But to hear Omni-Man even say, I think I miss my wife. The way that they handle relationships in this has been really, really intriguing.
00:20:38
Speaker
Absolutely. I agree. And like, it's almost like the action kind of plays second fiddle to the relationships in a way. And don't get me wrong. I love the action and the action is definitely what keeps bringing me back.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah, on the subject of relationships, one of the moments that really stuck with me was the seeming death of duplicate, that whole sequence when it was going down with the lizard league.
00:21:09
Speaker
like, you know, it's basically the Serpent Society, you know, it's Robert Kirkman's lampoon of the Serpent Society. But yeah, these, they're supposed to be throwaway villains and one by one we see duplicate get, you know, killed so brutally, shrinking array, and then ultimately, you know, Rex. And thankfully they all come away in comic book fashion. They all make it out in the end. But in terms of relationships, the way that that weighed on immortal,
00:21:38
Speaker
a character that hasn't gotten a ton of screen time, but with what screen time they gave him, they honed in on exactly what his angst is.
00:21:48
Speaker
So I was actually, I found myself kind of like glad that they, if we were going to find out that duplicate was still alive, I'm glad that they made that happen within this season. Like they gave us, you know, two or three episodes to really sit with her death and feel that, but I'm glad that that was something that wasn't like drawn out to like, you know, later on in season three or like season four or something like that. Yeah.
00:22:14
Speaker
Yeah, that was sorry. There's just like so many things like flying through my mind now. Oh, sure. That was that was definitely a big one. There was a moment that she came back. I was like, Oh, she's alive. And then I was like, Of course she's alive. Nobody actually ended up dying in that sequence. When that sequence like this was how we came back from the break. And I was just like, Oh my god, like they killed a lot of people off like a lover. What's going on? Like, I wasn't convinced anybody was alive at that point. I thought it was
00:22:39
Speaker
Just just done for I'm just like, oh no, like where are we going from here? To come to this point and be like, oh, yeah, they're all fine But they all had this cool dialogue like everybody talked about the can't no more to one of morals like like I might even doing my job right like I've never liked somebody this much in centuries and
00:22:57
Speaker
When I finally feel this way, I lose the person. Like I almost started a war because of this. I almost killed someone because of that. Like I'm not, not doing my job. I like, I don't care if you're Cecil really needs to work on his leadership skills because he's just like pushing people out the door. I could get, there's a lot going on, but pushing people out the door left and right. And then the other one being, um, with robot and what's the girl's name? Monster girl, monster girl. Um,
00:23:23
Speaker
Also known as Amanda is her civilian name. That was a beautiful interaction too, where it was just like, you presented me with the problem. I solve problems. This is how I operate. This is how my brain works. Like I care about you. I'm trying to do the best for you.
00:23:38
Speaker
Just like everything that happened between that's like, it's funny what open communication can get you. So just those types of dialogues and conversations, what makes us care about these characters to start off the show initially when they did where they gave us the Guardians of the Globe. And we had no idea who we are. We had no idea I care for them. They based it so heavily off characters that we do know in the Justice League that like that was our initial like
00:24:09
Speaker
Connection to these people so the fact that they take the time to actually dwell into this is why like when crazy stuff happens like the second or the beginning of part two It really doesn't go a long way
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah, and it's because that moment was so effective in season one when they killed off, you know, all the guardians that that moment in season two here felt so palpable. It's like they will not let you rest on your laurels when it comes to these characters at all. But I love what you brought up about how, like, yeah, we see it throughout the show. We see it with Debbie, as you mentioned, we see it with Mark. It's kind of like
00:24:50
Speaker
you know, right in our faces, his relationship with his mother, as well as his relationship with his father, even his brother, and ultimately even, you know, Angstrom. But I loved how, again, not all of the Guardians got like a ton of screen time, but I loved how Black Sampson and Bulletproof, and you know, Bulletproof is our newest member. They had that moment where they kind of like dissected the team and Bulletproof got to like give all his misgivings like, you know, this team has fallen apart, like what are we doing?
00:25:18
Speaker
And then Black Sampson gets to come back and say, hey, we're a family, you know, this person's doing this because of this reason. And then, yeah, it was just a great transition to have Black Sampson's wisdom and then see Rudy, who is supposed to be, you know, the smartest guy in the room, actually learn the lesson of like, hey, I care about you. It's just hard for me to express that in a way outside of, you know, just fixing a seeming problem. Yeah.
00:25:48
Speaker
It's that scene that you mentioned was first off, it was really funny. It's like, your name's Black Sampson. You don't even have hair. Oh, that cracked me up. But I think like everything that came out of his mouth was extra powerful because I'm pretty sure that's Black Lightning from Young Justice. Oh, OK. The same voice actor. So it's like that. Oh, nice. The voice of leadership is like something that I'm very used to as well. So there's like extra power and like his voice when he talks about like family and stuff of that sort.
00:26:17
Speaker
Okay. Okay. I hate that I can't pull the voice actor because I don't think it's Kari Payton. But anyway, well, you mentioned how, you know,
00:26:29
Speaker
Invincible is chock-full of analogs from both Marvel and DC. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. But in the final episode, when Invincible's having his confrontation with Angstrom and being tossed around to various multiverses, we got not one, but two little Easter egg cameos where Mark teams up with who seems like Spider-Man
Character and Relationship Dynamics
00:26:54
Speaker
in all but name. His villain is Professor Ock instead of Doc Ock.
00:26:58
Speaker
And then you have that great moment on the rooftop where invincible is like, so you're a man dressed as a bat. You don't think the name is kind of late. The name is a little lazy. That was great. Yeah. And then what else would we have Mad Max? Oh, what was there in Mad Max? Oh, just the, the apocalyptic landscape. Yeah. I told you I wasn't in the mood for this. Yeah. There was another one that slipping from my mind now.
00:27:28
Speaker
Oh, him just being on a random picnic was funny. Just like sharing his life story. Just keep getting pushed from these portals. And every time I come back, I just don't know what to do with it. Oh, right. Right. Yeah. I got the sense of like, how long has he been in this? Yeah. Because he even mentions he's like, time works differently in certain ones than other ones. I don't know how long I've been gone. Yeah.
00:27:52
Speaker
You know my you know my my dismay for like multiverse and time travel stuff these days just because it's so saturated So the fact that I play with it like that was was very entertaining Yeah, I hate to say it but I'm actually even getting to that point like I still like the multiverse I think it's kind of like hey, we're in the comic books. We're going to be dealing with the multiverse It's just those things but I heard like a rumor earlier today. It was like I
00:28:17
Speaker
I'm going to tread lightly here, but they were suggesting that the, one of the villains for James Gunn's Superman film could be like a multiversal version of Superman. And when I heard that, I was just like, no, no, we have enough of that going on currently. Dude, you're starting everything from scratch. Do not start with all this nonsense. Yeah. Give it 11 years like Marvel did. Yeah.
00:28:40
Speaker
Uh, one of the through lines that I found, I was a little surprised how much time they spent on it, but I thought it was a great through line was the character of Donald, you know, right hand man who we saw meet his demise at the hands of Omni man in the last season. And we started the season off. Like I remember even saying, I was like,
00:29:00
Speaker
Didn't he die? Did I forget something? And then sure enough as we moved on. He did too. He certainly did. But yeah, I thought that was just a great heartfelt moment where he got to have that exchange with William and Rick and say, Hey, I am my decisions. My decisions are who I am. It's not my flesh and my blood. That's not who I am. That's not what I'll be remembered for.
00:29:27
Speaker
It's the decisions and the actions that I take and the impact that those have on those around me. I was just like, you know, I'm just getting goosebumps all over again, thinking about that.
00:29:36
Speaker
Because him knowing that he's just a mortal human being, he always goes back in. With his memories being wiped, he's always putting himself in a situation to make sure that people are okay, which is wild. Do you think he's going to get a little bit more reckless knowing that he's just going to be replaced anytime now or now that he's trying to remember?
00:29:57
Speaker
like it was it was really sentimental until i started thinking it which is nothing i do often but the show kind of forced me to do it with how much they just kind of like you know play around so i was just like hmm but yeah i was like man donald's a good dude he's he's like the colson he is the colson he's the colson of this it's absolutely absolutely it's really beautiful to see just how good of a person that he is where he's he's he really needs i
00:30:26
Speaker
I wanna say that he's what keeps Cecil grounded, but I think it's like he attempts to be that person. I don't think he actually succeeds. I think for us as our audience, he's kind of like the perfect parallel, but they both all have the best intentions of just trying to save humanity, but he just genuinely seems to have a good heart doing it, which is cool to see.
00:30:52
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Just, I don't know. Did you ever watch, um, NCIS? Okay. There was a, uh, there's a character on there named McGee and I don't get me wrong. Like I, it's not like I've watched many, many episodes of NCIS because that show has been going on forever, but I've seen a handful and he just, he reminds me of, uh, of McGee for the same kind of reason.
00:31:20
Speaker
I wanted to ask what you thought about Alan.
00:31:24
Speaker
I will alien. Yeah, he's he's got some cool stuff cooking. Yeah. I mean, that big reveal that the guy who brazed him was another Veltromite. Right. I want to know that backstory. Like I'm ready to dive into that. That that was one of the moments where I was actually at the edge of my seat. Like, give me more. I need the details of this now. Yeah. So for him to have this mission of finding Nolan being like, hey, we're on the same team now, buddy. Like, let's let's get to work.
00:31:55
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I just, I love a good twist like that, that I just do not see coming from anywhere. So like last, when we saw him, when he was on life support and you know, you had the guy come in and kind of apologize and turn the life support off. It was like, Ooh, this guy's a viltromite and he's villainous, but no, he's a viltromite and he had a purpose. Alan, cause what I, I'm going to struggle on the, the species name, but I want to say Alan is a unopen.
00:32:22
Speaker
Something like that okay yeah, you don't know there's no hope for me Yeah, I just think that's that's a really cool concept the fact that like you know he comes back from the brink of depth death even stronger when he has that skirmish with Anissa and she's just kind of like
00:32:41
Speaker
no, you know, can, can take a hit like that or can hit like that. Like that just excited me. I was like, okay, the village reminds have felt like such an unstoppable force. And the only ones that even like stand a chance against them are Nolan and Mark. And they're still, you know, getting their asses thoroughly whooped every time. I was just like, okay, I, I, this doesn't seem so insurmountable. This is exciting.
00:33:05
Speaker
But I really did like Anissa as well because I thought it was weird it out how much I liked her character. I don't know if it's because like she was just not she's not outright evil. Yeah, she's like she's like a compact ass in a way. It's like like you're still ruthless. It's kind of hot, but yeah, just like her demeanor and stuff is it's really fast that you come in. She's like, yo, I just want to talk because
00:33:35
Speaker
I guess everybody else has been like, pitching, you know, why they need to take over the wrong way where it's like, they're just going to be our pets and you know, we're superior and we're going to do this because we feel like doing this, but for her to be like, this is the situation, this is why it's going to be that way and like we even got the recap of
00:33:56
Speaker
when Mark was flying and he was thinking back, when he had the conversation with his dad, when he pummeled him into the mountain, and was saying stuff along the lines of, you're going to outlive them. Why do you care? Why do you do this? Why do you do that? For her, it's like, hey, we have the resources to
00:34:17
Speaker
put them at their peak it just kind of like I want to hear her pitch really like what's what's your five-step plan for this why is what you're going to give us worth being like under a worldwide empire yeah she you know we didn't get to spend a lot of time with her she makes a a somewhat compelling argument about the number of lives
00:34:41
Speaker
to be saved. What kind of quality of life that that is, that remains to be seen. But yeah, color me, color me intrigued. I recalled another thought that I had just as we're talking about Anissa here, but you mentioned when we were talking about Mark and Amber.
00:34:58
Speaker
how that was kind of the breaking point for Amber. And for Mark too, I think just realizing that she could be put, you know, in that intense level of danger there. But it made me think of how Anissa made the threat. She's like, do you think you can, you know, make the difference or make the distance between, you know, the table and me before I rip her head off?
00:35:20
Speaker
You're welcome to find out. And then that plays exactly to what Angstrom. One episode later. Yeah. Yeah. And not only that, but then you get to see it.
00:35:33
Speaker
with Invincible 2, one of the evil versions of Invincible, basically did that to a version of Angstrom's son. He actually went through with it. So we get the threat beforehand and then we actually, we don't get to see it on screen, but we get to see the splash and display of blood that is a result of it. So that just made it that much more like palpable and terrifying to me.
00:35:54
Speaker
And then he tests them. He was like, I've seen other versions of you. They're risk takers. Are you one of the risk takers? Guess not. And I actually totally forgot about that plot line of there being multiverse and evil invincibles and all that stuff. So like it took quite a while to bring that topic back up. Yeah, which I was kind of surprised. I wasn't necessarily displeased, but I was surprised how our big bad in the season he was
00:36:23
Speaker
Not featured all that much. Yeah. Like he was, I don't even need to recap covered him. He was on the first episode and I think he was in the final seconds of the second, the last episode in the last episode and that's it. Uh, but yeah, I remember the dude's name, but I, the, the actor loved him. Sterling K. Brown, Sterling K. Brown. Yeah. Love him. Yeah. He's the first time I saw I was in a person of interest and I was like, okay, this dude's got swag.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, he's been in so much. I think his like claim to fame was this is us, but he popped up in Black Panther. Oh, that's right. American Fiction recently. He's been in tons of stuff. Yeah. While we're talking about names, you were right about Kari Payton. Not only did he voice Jefferson Pierce Black Lightning, but he was called her on as well. Oh, OK. Aqualad. Right on.
00:37:19
Speaker
Nailed it. You should have more confidence. He's so good. Yeah, he's really good. I guess I might. If you don't know, there's no hope for me. Yeah. All right. Another character I want to spend at least a little bit of time on is Shapesmith. That whole situation, dude.
00:37:42
Speaker
This kind of all happened because of me. We think that these are all just like, we're gonna execute you now. Like, ah crap. This is literally all because you were bored. You almost took out two planets because you were bored.
00:37:59
Speaker
pretty much. Yeah. I, I love the moment where he's kind of like confronted or he like realizes he has to come clean and he's like, I am, I'm not actually an earth dweller like you thought me to be. And it's like, Cecil's like, we know you're a Martian. Just like me to the point we've known that you're a Martian. And who was it? Black Samson was like, everybody else knew. Like even robot was like, yeah, like known for a while. But, and I'm,
00:38:29
Speaker
Forgive me, I should be more prepared here, but I'm trying to recall if the Seqwood threat is entirely eliminated now. I didn't think so. There was something too. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was like, I think it was the same astronaut. He finally got home and it was in his food or something. One came out and was like, I'm back. That's how the episode ended. Right, right. And then I have to imagine Earth
00:38:55
Speaker
Martian relationships are not at the best because like like you said the Martians are like we're gonna execute you and then I think invincible is like I Can't remember exactly what he says. Yeah, it's like so we're gonna go now Because that was when they had like the high-speed speed chase or the space chase and then he just like Mark just gets out of his ship and starts blowing up the other ones. Oh, right, right, right, right, right, so
00:39:21
Speaker
Yeah, I can't remember in the landscape of the show if there was any mention about what the relationship between Earth and Mars was like prior to that, but I have to imagine it was at least somewhat friendly since that original member of the Guardians of the Globe made the journey and wanted to serve Earth. Yeah, I can't remember because that was like a season one thing where we were first introduced to it. Yeah.
00:39:47
Speaker
I can't remember if it's common knowledge that there's life on Mars, if there's just kind of like interagency communication. Oh, you might be right. You might be right. It might not be a common knowledge thing. Okay. Yeah. So it's like the government knows, but I don't think the average JOSMO knows. Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:11
Speaker
I guess I'm just kind of like thinking about, you know, comparing season one to season two and like, um, you know, obviously it was nice to have the sec would thread, like you said, revisited, but not entirely brought, um, to a store.
00:40:25
Speaker
Yeah. Starro pretty much. Right. Yeah. Uh, but then I was, I was thinking like, again, I do appreciate the season for being focused and not including too much that didn't factor in there, but I did find myself like missing a couple of characters. Like I remember in season one, like battle battle cat or something like that battle beast.
00:40:45
Speaker
There was that episode with Battle Beast, you know, like the white feline creature that was basically like wrecking everybody. I was hoping to see something from him and then Clancy Brown voiced that demon detective. I was really hoping we would at least get one little, little scene with him because that was a character I really loved from season one. Oh, this dude. Yeah.
00:41:10
Speaker
He is an intergalactic warrior and enemy to an invincible and guard to the globe. Some band came up the first time and I was like, what is this? We haven't had Damien Darkblood either. Okay, so yeah, Battle Beast is the one that you were just reading and then Damien Darkblood would be the demon detective I was talking about that Clancy Brown voices. Yeah. Okay. I guess we never got a chance to talk about this at all, but Nolan having a whole other family.
Plot Twists and Future Speculations
00:41:40
Speaker
Oh yeah. How we've been out touched on that. Yeah. Cause I forgot like that was, we only talked about the first two episodes of season two. Um, so we didn't have, we didn't get a chance to talk before the break started. Right. That threw me off. Oh yeah, absolutely. Uh, not only does he have a new wife, he's got a new son that looks just like him except for purple.
00:42:05
Speaker
It doesn't have the mustache yet. Well, yeah. Yeah. Uh, I, I really loved for Debbie's character, how quickly and accepting she was of Oliver. And, uh, I will say I was very, very concerned for Oliver and that final battle when like angstrom through Debbie and Debbie was holding.
00:42:30
Speaker
You know, uh, baby Oliver, I noticed baby Oliver's head like hit the floor. Yeah. And I get he's, he's part of Viltremite, but it's still concerned me. It was like, you don't do that to a baby. And I thought his powers were going to manifest. I thought that's what I thought too, because the way that, the way that Debbie was just like, no, it's okay. It's okay. Like I thought it was because man, the sound design that they put in that, like when his head hit the ground, I was like, please start crying. It's like, okay, thank God he's crying. Right. And that's when I felt like, you know,
00:43:01
Speaker
anger or something was going to kick in and start triggering something. I just like Mark would come in like while he was crying to that level or, you know, see him throw his brother like that. Um, there was just a lot going on, but I was so, so scared for both of them. And just the way they broke Debbie's arm and how messed up she was after like, yeah, man, those house gas leaks are a nightmare. But the cask that she got like that cast looks heavy duty. And I found myself wondering like,
00:43:30
Speaker
Why don't we see casts like that in our society? It seems like we have the technology. We can make casts better. We don't have the budget. Our insurance doesn't cover it. Yeah, who am I kidding? Who am I kidding? This is American health care we're talking about. I did really like the casts that I had last year. Yeah. I will say that. It had some cool features to it.
00:43:49
Speaker
Okay. I don't think this Velcro cushion pillow thing had like a stress ball holder like built into it. It was like this nice mesh material. I was pleasantly surprised with how nice that cast was or how nice the sling was. Never broken a bone, but I might consider it.
00:44:06
Speaker
Yeah. Hope you never need to experience obviously having fun in a sling. Yeah, obviously joking. Do you want to actually know we'd be remiss if we did not talk about Adam Eve with a little more with a little more detail. So I do think the majority of her character arc was kind of like seated in the first half of the of the season and even like the first couple episodes we talked about. Enter special and her special, of course. Yeah, too.
00:44:36
Speaker
I did like how the seeds for a romantic relationship between she and Mark were kind of re-cemented and replanted there because I definitely remember picking up on that in season one and kind of like feeling like, you know, frustrated because it's like, oh, Mark's with Amber.
00:44:57
Speaker
And Adam Eve is with Rex, but they would both be better off with each other. And I just, I didn't feel that in season two. I mean, obviously she was in a very different headspace kind of doing a different thing. And he was preoccupied with everything else going on. But, uh, yeah, kind of like you mentioned, like he's, he's given that opportunity from the older version of Eve, like just tell her something and he still doesn't. And you know that I, yeah.
00:45:21
Speaker
I don't hold that against him too much because, you know, he's, he's like a 19 18, 19, 20 year old guy. Uh, and he's, he's already dealing with so much show to not, to not be sure about exactly how he wants to approach that subject. I give him a pass on that one and she seems like she's in an okay head space anyway. Like she's just entirely supportive. And when he says, you know, nevermind, we can talk about it later. She's like, okay. And like, it's always been like my philosophy that when you have,
00:45:52
Speaker
a breakup, you have to have time to just kind of like let that simmer. Oh, for sure.
00:45:57
Speaker
Like when people have a breakup and then go straight into like, you know, hookups or other relationships or whatnot, it's like, did any of that mean anything to you? Like, how do you just switch like that? And you know, to each their own people process their own ways. It's just one that I've never been able to understand. So I actually, as important as it seemed to have been for them to bring up like, hey, say something to her. And for him to be like, I just broke up with this person.
00:46:26
Speaker
went through all this trauma. I've only had time for one mental breakdown in front of my mom. I'm just going to dive into another relationship. I'm happy that it didn't happen because of that setup. Had it been that they went back into it, I've been like, as much as I generally want to see them together, it would have felt rushed at this point. For his humanity, it was important that he's just like, this isn't top priority right now. This isn't a big issue. If I'm alive and healthy for a good time and we're
00:46:55
Speaker
taking care of each other and working together and things are going well together, like it'll flourish eventually. But it wasn't, it definitely was not the time for him to be like, Oh, by the way, I love you.
00:47:07
Speaker
Yeah. And he did seem genuinely surprised, uh, when the older version of Eve said that. So I really don't think it was anything that he was just like, he was not even considering at that point in time. So it was a little unfair of her in a sense, but I also don't blame her either because in her version of the timeline, she's been, you know, holding onto that for how long? Yeah. So.
00:47:32
Speaker
And it's like, did you not listen to anything I just said about saying too much? Oh, Rex. Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting that that was Rex and robots body. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very interesting. So I was like, okay, so we're going to revisit this timeline at some point because they left a lot hanging of like, yeah, you weren't, you weren't okay when you stayed here. It's like, okay. Yeah. So you survived, but you didn't like who you became. Yeah.
00:48:01
Speaker
Dune vibes. I still can't believe Rex survived getting shot in the head. Oh, yeah, that was wild.
00:48:08
Speaker
You shot me in the head. Oh, Phineas Gage thing going on over here. Just I thought there was actually I'm surprised. I'm surprised I remember that name. Yeah, it was a deep cut. Yeah. All right. With the historical welcome to my brain. I can't remember the name of a character. I just watched an hour ago, but I remember the story of Phineas Gage and a little spike going through his head. Right. But.
00:48:37
Speaker
I thought he was actually going to have something like that where it's like, there's something that he can't control like in terms of like his emotions or like, well, it was like the fall off of like having a bullet go through your brain and survive during a traumatic event like that. And coming back from it, like I was like, man, all you got was shaky hands. Like good for you. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if the jury is still out on that one. Like they did have, you know, the sequence where he ran off and was reckless and felt like, you know, prove himself. And I was glad for him to, to kind of have that, that moment.
00:49:09
Speaker
I felt a little conflicted because it was like, yeah, he got his hand bitten off. And then he's got this like awesome blaster cannon now. It's like, I don't know. I felt like it was a little bit weird. Oh, I didn't get those together. I forgot about the hand being bitten off part. Yeah, it was kind of a weird thing. It was like, yeah, he lost his hand and it's made him better now. But like, I don't know. It just gave me weird feelings about like augmentation and the future we're headed towards anyway.
00:49:32
Speaker
He was like, I should have opened with those. Did you know you had that? Oh, I guess if you ran out of the hospital, you didn't do your, you know, combat training with all your new toys. Right. Of course, that also makes me wonder, it's like he. Like his power is to touch something and make it explode. So it's like, how did they genetically get like his power like through a replacement arm?
00:49:59
Speaker
technology beyond our understanding. Before we get out of here entirely, I just have to bring up like, I was, I was struggling to remember this whole ancient Egypt mummy spirit thing. How long has that been being teased? Cause I feel like we've been like teased about that since season one.
00:50:22
Speaker
I forgot it was a thing. Yeah, it's just like always at the most random times we just get these like two three-minute scenes about this like ongoing like so we've in this... Apparently Chloe Bennett was in it. So that is making that's kind of making me confirm that I think it has been since season one because we had you know the the young
00:50:41
Speaker
uh paleontologist type going in there to find her father and i think her father is who we saw in season one yeah she was like is that him it's like yeah that's him yeah yeah i totally forgot that this plot line has come up before it's i love it i love it though you both are girls and
00:50:59
Speaker
Nothing. Nothing. I just, I need to possess a human male, a living human male. And then we forget. I was like, okay, so is he going to possess Mark? I was like, okay, this is finally coming to fruition. We finally know where this is going and nope. It's like, all right. So we're just going to have this evil Pharaoh spirit around to pop up in season three. Let's deal with it pretty much.
00:51:30
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, with that said, do you have any anticipation for season three? I think it's safe not to. I hope that they stick with what we said, where it's like we deal with recurring threads and not too many new ones. Because we're at a point where we have different planets, we have different multiverses, we have characters, we have storylines.
00:51:57
Speaker
I want to be able to recap certain things and be able to stay connected as a poster. I was like, which was this again? And how did we get over here? And it's like, like one of my biggest one of my biggest problems with Star Wars is that they keep making up new planets.
00:52:16
Speaker
That are very similar to ones that they have so it's like let's let's contain this a little bit like I love how creative they are. I love with the the interesting story time. They're coming up with I like that they're Doing just enough of tropes to make us think we know what we know but like always keeping us on our toes and finding ways to surprise us and
00:52:36
Speaker
Um, so I'm hoping that they're just able to, I'm not going to focus too much on what I expect from storylines, but that's like the essence of the show that I want them to be able to maintain. Yeah. Yeah. I think you make a lot of good calls and I am in agreement with you. I think, like I kind of said, one of the strengths of season two was being a little bit more focused. So I don't know how long the show plans on ongoing, but I think with the meta commentary about like, Hey,
00:53:05
Speaker
animation's tough. We cut corners where we can. Oh, we didn't even talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. We can come back to that. Uh, but I, I have to imagine, I, I, I don't know if four or five seasons is kind of what's feeling right to me. Um, you know, not, not being entirely familiar with the, the comic storyline, but I guess one thing I would like to see is again, thinking about like, you know, what we said about Anissa and having, you know, the introduction of a Viltremite that's not reformed.
00:53:32
Speaker
like Nolan or Mark per se, but it still has like this nuance. Like I'm just excited to see more of the Viltromites and hopefully more Viltromites that I like really like and want to know more about. Yeah. So. I thought she was going to die. Yeah. I thought he was going to be like, Oh, I'm this powerful now. And like, just bring her right then. He's smart. Yeah. Good job, Alan.
00:53:57
Speaker
Well, did you want to? Did you want to come back to that whole thing where Markson's in line at Comic Con? Yeah, I just I wasn't ready for that, where they were just at Comic Con and go for the line and they go into all these details about animation and like the intelligence of like why they do certain points, certain times just to like say from like mouth movements in the center, just like you're going really deep into this. And I love every second of it because I'm not sure how much of that I ever paid attention to.
00:54:21
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, yeah, it's funny because I always do pay attention to that kind of stuff. So to have it like a lantern just like hung on it, I really thought it was great. And I loved a lot, but my favorite part of all of us when he was like, yeah, you know, sometimes the animators really add like a lot of extra details and get a little carried away to where it almost looks like a different show.
00:54:41
Speaker
And it just flashes the mark for a second. He's got like all these extra sketch lines and his eyes look like super sparkly. Which which is why when you were bringing up the whole thing about like they don't have like the reference details, like it seems intentional, especially like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For what today? Pretty much. It reminds me a little bit of like one of my favorite gags with SpongeBob is when they'll just be like somebody will point out something or like react to something and then it'll be like,
00:55:10
Speaker
a highly detailed, like, you know, still, uh, like, you know, in the, in the classic episode where he's like getting dehydrated at Sandy's place. And it just has that one where it zooms in on him and you can see every, every poor having his ride out. Uh, just hold on your moments.
00:55:39
Speaker
All righty. Uh, anything else you want to say before we get out of here? No, I think that's it for invincible. It's a great show. Um, yeah. I guess we'll look forward to season three in two years. Yeah, probably. See what they give us in the middle. I really liked the, the Adam U special, how it was just like a movie format. Yeah. Agreed. There's a lot of people that could do something like that with, even if it's one of the different timelines.
00:56:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's a really good call. That'd be a great way to flesh out the series. Like I would totally watch a Rex explode special. Yeah. Cool. All righty, my friend. Well, uh, why don't you let the people know what else you got going on in the interwebs? Yeah. So, um, three, two, three, three Murphy, we went to awesome con in DC, had hundreds of people at our panel when we were up on stage, which is really cool. Got to interact with a lot of cool artists and stuff.
00:56:35
Speaker
at the gallery, it was a great weekend. And all of that is on YouTube now, so check out 323 with Reed Murphy, that's R-E-I-D. And then I had my post book appearance on Pete's is Gap Fest to talk about Chamber of Secrets. I'm finally getting to that point where it's like, now that I'm reading the books, it's like ruining the movie for me. So I need the show to really hurry up. And I'm reaching like my two favorite movies. I'm just like, oh, no.
00:57:04
Speaker
But yeah, this is an hour-long conversation of me reading the books for the first time after being a lifelong movie-only watcher. So that was a fun episode. I love the name of it, the Zoo Air of Slytherin. I'm not sure if you saw all that promo work, but it cracked me up. I did. I did, yeah. Pretty good. Pretty good. What about you? You want to tell the people about your Tuesday nights?
00:57:26
Speaker
Yeah, multiverse news just celebrated our one year anniversary last week. So yeah, please, you know, check out multiverse news. It's basically your one stop shop for anything you could be into Star Wars, Star Trek, Game of Thrones, DC, Marvel. We're kind of the catch all when it comes to entertainment news over there. So yeah, check us out. We definitely appreciate it.
00:57:50
Speaker
And on that note, thank you for tuning in. That's TOO, N-I-N. And as always, stay well.
00:58:00
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Animation Deliberation Podcast, a proud member of the Strandepanda Network. If you would like to contact us, you can email animationdeliberationpodcast at gmail.com or follow us on Twitter at animationdelib1. For this and other great shows, you can visit Strandepanda.com or join the great community that is the Strandepanda Chat Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash svchat. Tune in next time and remember, stay well.