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Invincible Ep 5 Breakdown & Analysis
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We're discussing the latest exhilarating fifth episode of INVINCIBLE on Amazon!
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Transcript
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00:00:00
Speaker
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Discussion of Invincible Episode 5
00:00:30
Speaker
On today's episode of Animation Deliberation, we're covering episode 5 of Amazon Prime's Invincible, titled That Actually Hurt. Stay tuned for that, right after these ads that don't necessarily reflect the views of the host or the network.
00:00:44
Speaker
Sing along if you know the words. A one, two, three. It's time for animation deliberation. A conversation and a celebration of our favorite action animated series. Yeah. All right, folks, welcome back to another episode of animation deliberation. I'm your host, Jay Scottie St. Clair, and I'm joined by my co-host, Zuhair Ali. What's up, Zuhair? Same old, same old. How about you?
00:01:12
Speaker
Doing good, doing good, right on. And joining us again from our previous coverage of the first four episodes is Mr. Nathaniel Muzzy. How you doing, buddy? Great. Thanks for having me. Feeling pretty lucky to live in a time where every Friday I get episodes of Invincible and Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
00:01:30
Speaker
Yes, indeed. It is quite a time to be alive if you're a fan of not only just comic book stuff, but animation in particular, because as I mentioned, you know, as we pontificate upon with these first few episodes, this is an awesome show. We're loving it. And that continued right into this fifth episode. Apley named that actually hurt. So I'm excited to get into it.
00:01:52
Speaker
If you guys want to just go ahead and give your initial thoughts, I will go ahead and give an overall spoiler warning. But if you guys want to just give your initial thoughts and opinions, feel free, whoever wants to take the floor.
Superhero Show Lineup
00:02:05
Speaker
So I just want to add real quick that My Hero Academia comes out on Saturdays as well. So for me, it's a whole trifecta. In the morning, I get falcon in the winter soldier. In the evening time, I get invincible. And then wake up to My Hero the next day, superhero galore. Yep. Zoo Hero has been planting little seeds. So if you like My Hero Academia, just be patient, stay tuned. We will definitely be covering that as well. Blow up our email at animationdeliberation at gmail.com so that we can speed up the process of recording this show as well.
00:02:35
Speaker
Sounds good.
Episode 5's Initial Impressions
00:02:38
Speaker
Jscottie here. Just got to hop in with a quick correction. That email is actually animationdeliberationpodcastatgmail.com. So don't sweat it, Zuhar. That's what I'm here for. I got you, bud.
00:02:49
Speaker
But in regards to the show that we are talking about today, um, I was actually just texting with my buddy talking about how like this felt very much like a filler episode for a majority of it. Like you get a little bit of the investigation stuff going on and a few things of, uh, just kind of like the rom-com aspect of it, the relationship with Omni man and Mark and just kind of how it's going. Um, and then we were covering a lot of another character. Uh, what was his name? Titan.
00:03:20
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. We got like a lot of his
Introduction of Machine Head
00:03:23
Speaker
story. So I was like, why are we covering so much about somebody who just got his ass beat in the first episode? But the as the episode went on and the development of everything, it just got more insane and intense. And we got what I believe is a really cool villain in machine head who seems like a mix of black mask and Ultron.
00:03:48
Speaker
Definitely black mask vibes, yeah. So yeah, it escalated pretty well. The action towards this ending was insane, and I'm sure we have a lot to say about that. So let's hear your thoughts, Muzzy, before I dive into that and miss your opinion.
Deep Themes and Character Arcs
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess from...
00:04:11
Speaker
I get where you're coming from when you say it felt like a filler episode at first, but I actually thought it was one of the best episodes we've gotten so far. We get to see, you know, they touch on issues of race, they touch on issues of privilege. We get the introduction of Battle Beast.
00:04:33
Speaker
And Titan's storyline is clearly a Luke Cage storyline, but at the same time, we gave a spoiler warning, but it ends with Titan kind of taking Machine Head's old role.
00:04:51
Speaker
Yeah. But what's weird to me about that is that's how the Luke Cage series ended on season two. Yeah. So it's literally just the Luke Cage TV series story in a lot of ways. And it's worth mentioning this character, Titan, is actually portrayed by an actor that was on Luke Cage. He portrayed a copperhead, or was it Cottonmouth, excuse me. Cottonmouth,
Character Dynamics and Expectations
00:05:15
Speaker
yes. Yeah, Cottonmouth, Mahershala Ali.
00:05:18
Speaker
Who is awesome in everything he does. Not to get too off track here, but while we're on the subject of some of his body of work, I like him a lot in the lead of Battle Angel. He didn't have the biggest role in that and some people might say he was underutilized, but I just love that film and I could talk about that film.
00:05:36
Speaker
For a long time if you guys let me but this is not the first time this week. He's mentioned it either But no, I do like the fact that you you bring up all the different themes that were touched on because yeah
00:05:51
Speaker
There were some scenes that were a little more obvious, and then there were the ones that were a little more subtle. And I really did like that discussion where Invincible's talking to Titan about teaming up in the first place, and Invincible doesn't even know who Machine Head is because, you know, he just doesn't have that perspective. Not only is he a rich kid from the suburbs, but just given his own power set and his inheritance in a way, we already talked about, you know, Omni-Man kind of looking down on humanity
00:06:19
Speaker
We see that a little bit from Invincible, so I definitely appreciated some of those more nuanced aspects as well. And then another thing, you kind of mentioned the filler aspect as well, but I appreciated the montages a little bit because not only did they demonstrate the parallels between these characters in Mark and Titan, it also showed us how comfortable
00:06:47
Speaker
Mark has become
Critique of Omni-Man
00:06:48
Speaker
in it in his powers, you know those first couple episodes just every time he took off to fly and land It was such a struggle for him and now he seems so confident It's it's nice to kind of be able to spend time with him and now he's he's found his groove We're seeing space a lot more now, too Mm-hmm
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, he stops an asteroid. A little asteroid. Yeah, that's right. What Omni man says the the one he stopped a couple of years ago was the size of Texas. And that seems to be kind of an ongoing thing with Omni man during this training and is like, no matter what Mark does, there is always like,
00:07:32
Speaker
a backhanded compliment, you know, it's always, that was good, but I did this, you know, and I don't know if it's just insecurity from OmniMan, if it's part of, you know, OmniMan's motivations for killing the Guardians, like, I'm still trying to piece that together.
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we did. We did talk about how like Mark, his powers manifesting seemed to be a catalyst for Omni man, you know, taking certain actions and chief among those being killing the guardians of the globe. But yeah, he definitely
00:08:13
Speaker
As much as he seems to have dedicated himself to Mark's training and wants Mark to take it seriously, he mentions not only at the dinner scene that this is a lesson you're going to have to learn the hard way, he goes out and shows that he's just not afraid to let Mark learn that lesson the hard way because we've already kind of alluded to
Battle Beast Confrontation
00:08:33
Speaker
the really gory action scene that we get towards the end here with that character, Battle Beast, but Omni-Man knew that was going on and chose not to intervene and let Mark. Yeah, you see him in the background. It kind of makes you wonder how strong Battle Beast is, although Battle Beast teleports away at the end, so maybe we don't get an answer to that soon.
00:09:00
Speaker
We didn't get an incredible amount of dialogue from Battle Beast, but I think he mentioned something along the lines, like he was told that there were warriors worthy of his ability, so maybe he's referring to Omni-Man?
00:09:12
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's what I don't know. You know, unclear of what Battle Beast's motivations are other than he seems to be looking for a worthy opponent. So I guess, you know, we've seen characters like that in all kinds of media. But, you know, assuming it takes some time to travel to Earth for him, although he seems to be able to teleport.
00:09:38
Speaker
Again unclear, but like the the original Guardians are gone to Omni man didn't fight him So, you know, yeah, he gets put up against this mismatched team of new Guardians, right and invincible and kinda I guess if he was looking for you know a foe that could challenge him he certainly didn't find it among them and
00:10:05
Speaker
No, he didn't. He lays waste to pretty much everyone, and it doesn't seem to be too much of a struggle for him. Yeah, did he kill Samson, or did they live?
00:10:17
Speaker
Unclear, I was under the impression towards the end. I mean, obviously when the action was happening, I thought several key members got taken out. But we already saw, where was it at the cleanup of the original Guardian's massacre, I think with the character of a mortal. We still don't know where that's going, but obviously this world has some really advanced medical techniques.
Mark vs. Titan: Privilege and Morality
00:10:42
Speaker
And then it was also showcased when Invincible tried to save that woman.
00:10:47
Speaker
didn't end up making it, but we saw the advanced medical capabilities. So I think Black Sampson might still be in it, but he, I honestly, I don't see how he could have survived what he went through.
00:11:00
Speaker
I'm not sure if he'll be on the team much longer. He might be on injury reserve for a little bit. But in regards to what you were saying about Omni Man's intentions, you mentioned like towards the end regarding like testing what he's capable of and just kind of, I feel like Omni Man's approach is just kind of like a very know your place.
00:11:21
Speaker
approach where like there is a bit of like fatherly training and like I want you to be good and I want you to do this and do that but then there's the jealousy aspect that we were talking about last week in regards to like I'm still fucking better than you and you need to I will always remind you that I will always be better than you because I'm he seems like that dad who won't let their kid beat him at basketball totally
00:11:49
Speaker
Yeah, totally. It's strange to see who is, as far as we know, the most powerful hero, so insecure. And that's what it feels like, is he's super insecure about Mark. And that's why he always has to... When Mark succeeds, he compliments Mark, and then reminds Mark that, oh, I'm still the best.
Amber's Role in Mark's Life
00:12:16
Speaker
yeah yeah uh so i was i was beating myself up last week about forgetting to say this on the cast um but it looks like omnimand species seems to have their powers fully developed when they grow a full mustache so maybe he's just stopping his son from growing his oh okay that's interesting so notice when he was like talking about like his home planet like every like male that was in the hero role like had like a full stash
00:12:42
Speaker
Okay, so that's an interesting observation and I wouldn't put it past them, but that mustache is important. Yes!
00:12:50
Speaker
So that's just one more reason to hate the Joss Whedon version of Justice League. Had they kept the mustache off of the reshoots, we would have had our first filter mine on screen. Superman would have been so much more powerful. I did want to take this opportunity to backpedal a little bit. We were kind of talking about the parallels between Titan as well as Mark, given those vignettes and those montages. But as comfortable as Mark is
00:13:19
Speaker
you know, stepped into this role as a superhero and we see him succeed in a lot of ways. He does start to have a bit of a falling out in his personal life with his time management, with his relationship with Amber. And then on the opposite side of things that we also see that, you know, Titan is not a straight up villain. He's not just a thug.
00:13:43
Speaker
He's kind of muscle for hire and he's indebted and he has people in his life that he cares very much about. And his daughter specifically has connection to Amber and her volunteer work. So. Yeah.
00:13:59
Speaker
I mean, we talked about last week with the shipping aspect of the conversation of why I didn't feel Amber and Mark would make a good couple, and this episode helped my answer for that question. Because we see, like you just mentioned, the time management is an issue with the training and school and being a hero and all that stuff.
00:14:23
Speaker
They just kind of showed that like they didn't have enough of a connection or enough of a bond beforehand to actually like justify That level of space and time that he's not able to provide Hmm. Yeah, it kind of comes to me that like I
00:14:41
Speaker
I feel bad for Amber because like clearly she's invested in this and, and in a lot of ways she's a better person than Mark is not that Mark's a bad guy, but like she goes out of her way to help others. And like you, you kind of see her reinvesting herself in the community and she is kinda like,
00:15:06
Speaker
In a way, if Omni-Man is the devil on Mark's shoulder, she's kind of the angel on his shoulder. But she's paying an emotional price for that. Yeah.
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of tough to see because she is such a thoughtful and caring character and you can tell she's hurting and doesn't really understand why Mark is treating her this way. But, you know, she does appreciate the things that he does do and she even mentions it, you know, the little notes, the picking up sushi, the going out of the way.
Balancing Duties and Relationships
00:15:38
Speaker
And I did appreciate the fact that
00:15:43
Speaker
part of what helped reaffirm and reassure their relationship, even though we obviously leave the episode with Mark kind of incapacitated in her not knowing where he is. It was her interactions with Adam Eve that, you know,
00:16:00
Speaker
Anytime you're dealing with teenage characters and love triangles, it's really easy to go into those tropes of them. For some reason, I'm thinking of the Archie universe. Archie, Betty, and Veronica is a trope for a reason, but I'm glad that they don't go that direction with it. The fact that these two
00:16:22
Speaker
have a conversation. They almost seem to have just as much in common as Mark has with Amber or as Mark has with Amber and Amber has with Mark and Mark has with Eve.
00:16:37
Speaker
speak. I really like that dynamic and I like that they didn't just make the female characters fondly fought both fawning over Mark and disliking each other because they both like Mark uh and I I do think on some level maybe they both do like Mark but like out of it is respecting the space exactly like and I I like that about this show is they're not making
00:17:06
Speaker
they're not making the female characters catty towards each other. You know, they're not fighting over a boy like they're more developed and they have more going on their lives than just Mark. Yeah.
00:17:22
Speaker
But you mentioned how Amber might be the angel on Mark's shoulder where Omni-Man's the devil. As soon as you said that though, I couldn't help but think of that dinner scene where he's bringing up the potential plan to team up with Titan and Omni-Man is very much against it.
00:17:44
Speaker
where Deborah I would say is also more the the angel on his shoulder and the fact that she's kind of keeping him anchored to his humanity. We have we talked previously how Amber serves that role as well as much as there is the relationship with Mark and his two parents where one ties him back to his humanity.
Adam Eve's Home Life
00:18:02
Speaker
We kind of have the same thing in his
00:18:05
Speaker
relationships with these I won't call them both paramours because I do think it's kind of refreshing to see a nice and solid friendship between even mark and even though there is the potential for romance there it is just kind of nice to see that they you know we talked about it last episode they it's kind of reversed this time around like he asked her does she need to talk and she's immediately like yes and then back pedals
00:18:29
Speaker
but I'm kind of getting ahead of myself here. We should, while we're talking about Adam, we should talk about some of the things that she went through and some of the revelations we got with her character. She's, you know, coming off the last stuff she dealt with Rex cheating on her, and you would think her parents would be in support of her moving on from that, but we find her home life is a pretty toxic situation.
00:18:54
Speaker
Yeah, I hate to throw it out there, but her parents kind of reminded me of like a typical Asian household too. But Asian, I mean like my sub-Asian Asian as well. Not speaking out of my realm here. But there was kind of- I didn't mean for my reaction to indicate that I was just- For any other listeners, just kind of like I'm speaking out of like somewhat experienced or like, you know, firsthand witness as well.
00:19:19
Speaker
But there is kind of the vibe of like, oh, we only let you do this because the guy was watching over you and like, oh, we didn't want you to do this anyway. So we're just so happy that you're out of this situation and you're home with us. And there's a very like, we made you so we want to control your actions type of deal. And it looked like they tried to like let her go through her phase, but now it's just kind of like, okay, you had your phone, you're back home now.
00:19:45
Speaker
uh man i did not like her parents one bit like she's even talking about the fact like dude like i got her i lost my team my boyfriend cheated on me like why are you guys not being the least bit empathetic right now like i am in a lot of pain right now when you guys are not making it any better dude i felt all right i'm surprised you didn't run out faster shrink the whole house before she dipped
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah, her her her parents are super misogynistic. Oh, yeah, you know and like that that's something you know, I the scenes uncomfortable because you know, I don't know like it's always uncomfortable when you see like a teenage character with like a rough home life.
00:20:29
Speaker
But, like, I was proud of this show for, like, tackling issues of misogyny and, like, her mom with a lot of internalized misogyny when, you know, their daughter can literally restructure matter, at least that's what she says. Yeah. And that's not enough because she's not a boy. I mean, she's easily more powerful than her explosion from what we've seen so far. Oh, without a doubt. Yeah.
00:20:58
Speaker
She's probably the strongest person on the teen team. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it just kind of it kind of puts the
Privilege and Societal Roles
00:21:07
Speaker
light. Yeah. For some people, it doesn't matter how strong you are if you're a girl. And, like, unfortunately, that's her parents are coming with that.
00:21:19
Speaker
And like, you know, it just, it's interesting to see from a cartoon, especially, that they're willing to tackle that. Yeah. The show kind of, it is good that they tackle it. And I guess,
00:21:37
Speaker
It's kind of played very well because the scene feels almost dated and kind of archaic because I guess that's because those ideals and those viewpoints are. But I love the end of that scene as much as you get that trope of like, don't you slam that door, young lady. It's like, don't you leave that door there because you basically created the door and there wasn't a door there before. Yeah.
00:22:03
Speaker
Well and and I mean this whole episode deals a lot with privilege and intersectionality you know because we see how Adam Eve is treated as a woman we see how Titan is treated as a black man and we see how Amber is dealing with things as a black woman and you know, uh, we also see
00:22:32
Speaker
a mixed household, Mark's household, Nolan is for intents and purposes, he's Viltromite, but he's a white man. And, you know, we see his Asian wife kind of appalled that he could consider like the plight of Titan
00:22:49
Speaker
below them. Yeah. Uh and she you know, we she basically says she had to teach her white husband how to care about people who weren't like him when he first came to the planet and you know,
00:23:05
Speaker
This this episode really kind of tackles a lot of issues It does. Yeah, one of the one of the big ones was when When Omni man was just convinced it's kind of like why does he need to save one person? We're talking about saving thousands of people but it's like one person means somebody means something to hundreds if not thousands of people so like Like a life is a life you have the opportunity to do something to better somebody else's life Like why would you not take that chance? Like what?
00:23:35
Speaker
It's not taking anything away from you. Like, is he wasting his time by, you know, getting the cat out of the tree or stopping a burglar or anything of that sort? Like, how is it beneath him? He has the opportunity to help.
00:23:50
Speaker
Yeah, and that's kind of the interesting question of it is, it's literally making us look at the ethical question of, is it better to save one life or to save millions? And do you have to prioritize or do you just do good when you can do good? Right, right.
Machine Head vs. Titan
00:24:11
Speaker
It does bring that ethical question up to us as viewers, but I can't help but think that's
00:24:20
Speaker
For OmniMan, it's not really a question, you know.
00:24:24
Speaker
Yes, he does see things on a larger scale and sees what his potential is, but I don't think his intentions are to save the most amount of people because that's the right thing to do. I think he wants to save the most amount of people because that's what'll bring him the most acclaim or be the best showcasing of his power, I guess, for lack of a better way of explaining that. I don't think he's altruistic in his motivations.
00:24:53
Speaker
I think I think one of my favorite scenes of it's kind of irrelevant, but it just made me laugh thinking about it was when Titan was on the roof and it was like he was trying to paint invincible. He was like, you left a couple letters there, but it was like paints expensive and you got a long ass name. Yeah. Yeah. And like, you know, like the idea that like a supervillain or doesn't have the money to buy paint like
00:25:22
Speaker
you know, like privilege and money and power, you know, money is power even amongst the super criminals. And yeah, it's, it's, I thought it was super funny too, but like it is making a point.
00:25:41
Speaker
it's like oh shit you made that very real just now yeah that one was was played a little more to for laughs but then uh when he when we actually see the family for the first time and they kind of play the scene a little menacing you think he's like infiltrating another house to do something nefarious and he actually surprises his daughter
00:26:01
Speaker
with the butterscotch ice cream and she goes, oh, dad got my text. And then the wife's like, oh, that means we still have service, which just shows how indebted they are to machine head. Machine head controls whether or not their phones are on or off. So the first half of that was really cute.
00:26:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But while we bring up Machine Head, it is a good opportunity to kind of talk about him, but you referred to him as a black mass character. And I did want to point out that Jeffrey Donovan voices him and they do a lot of auto tuning on there, but he's one of those villains that it's just, you're relish hating because as much as we were getting, you know,
00:26:41
Speaker
these themes of classism, he is very much that psionist, privileged, lived life with a silver spoon. And we get the joke a couple of times when Titan slams the desk out of frustration, that was imported Italian maple. And then later on when they bust through the door,
00:27:00
Speaker
And he was prepared for it because of the quantum computing he's capable of, because of the chip Titan got for him. Again, that door was imported Italian make point. Yeah, yeah. Now you got your debt back.
00:27:17
Speaker
I kind of love that like For for all his love of expensive things the door and desk are the same material like he's got no creativity It's got a match Muzzy Well, and as we've learned international shipping as a bitch So
00:27:47
Speaker
I talked about how Machine Head was prepared and we've already kind of alluded to Battle Beast and this crazy gruesome action set piece that goes down there at the end, but let's just go ahead and get right into it.
Guardians vs. Machine Head's Team
00:28:02
Speaker
So, initially it is Invincible and Titan taking on, who is it, Battle Beast. We've got this character that basically has these elastic
00:28:16
Speaker
controllable bands that seem to come out of his chest. There's a person that's made out of lava, for lack of a better description, a robot character, and then the return of that electrical speedster character that we saw Red Rush combat in the first episode. So Invincible seems to be able to hold his own initially
00:28:46
Speaker
But Battle Beast is just a force to be reckoned with, which we've already kind of described. So it requires the new Guardians team to come in. And we learned that they are very much still working out the kinks. And I guess before that, we kind of got the little scene with them where they were celebrating and having a debriefing.
00:29:09
Speaker
which is Samson kind of tells them, Hey, you know, we did all this damage. And did he say that there were civilians hurt? Yeah. Like, I think it was like few in the hospital and fit 20, two dozen. I think he says two dozen hospitalized. Okay.
00:29:27
Speaker
Yeah. I did like the breakdown as a tactician, though. Rex kind of is flipping like, what could I have done about it? He's like, well, this is what you do. You break up the ground, you blow the tires, and then that gives Monster Girl the ability to slow down the bus and save the people. But then he even mentioned that they were too busy competing with each other. I'm like, I'll beat up more than you do.
00:29:47
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I love the way that scene was that was put together so much Because well, I mean like you said like they were all like happy and competitive because that's what they did when they were like the number four and number five ranked team But now it's like oh because we're the Guardians of the globe like just because we made the team like we're instantly as good as them and Think people think as highly of us and we're awesome and it's like no you guys fucking suck today Like sure we you like won the day but like at what cost?
00:30:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And the disrespect they give Samson for not having powers. Batman would have never taken that.
00:30:25
Speaker
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00:31:19
Speaker
Yeah, he makes some really good points and it all falls on deaf ears, except for Robot.
Robot's Hidden Agendas
00:31:27
Speaker
as they're all kind of walking away and blowing them off, Samson's like, can you believe these guys? And then it lingers on Robot. And he looks to Monster Girl and he says, some of them. So I think that's interesting. We talked about it on the last episode. The one interaction that they really had together was Robot kind of confiding in her and telling Monster Girl that he understands what it's like to not
00:31:52
Speaker
to be seen for something than what you actually are on the inside. And she kind of blew him off, but that didn't really seem to deter him. I don't know if they're romantic feelings or what, but Robot obviously has a very strong interest and affinity for Monster Girl.
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah, I'm also not sure what robot's motivations are. It kind of seems like he's romantically interested in her, and I guess she is 25, but it still feels a little creepy. I guess he's a robot, who knows how old he is.
00:32:29
Speaker
and he says that after she says she's the only one who lost anything in the battle right because she she lost she's like a week younger yes
00:32:40
Speaker
Yeah. So I kind of wondered how that works. So if she progressed, progresses a week younger and then just decides not to use her powers for like three years, will she get three years older? I mean, yeah, I believe so. Okay. Interesting. Which makes me wonder if that time displaced alien race, like, well, like if they can take her there and age her up again and then like,
00:33:08
Speaker
Ooh, that's that's really interesting. I hadn't even considered that. That's a they probably want to trade off of some kind of recruitment, though. Yeah, well, Omni Man pretty much destroyed their civilization. That's true. So I don't know if they're there to do anything about it. Yeah, that's fair. But I didn't quite see it as romantic feelings. I just figured that, like,
00:33:38
Speaker
There's kind of the relationship of like, how do I explain this? I mean, for the first part, it's I think he feels like she can relate the most because she's the only one where like the world sees Monster Girl, but like she has this conflict of knowing her identity, but not being able to like really get it out there.
00:34:02
Speaker
and that's how robot feels as well in the sense of like everyone thinks he's just a robot but there's there actually is an identity and throughout the last fight we see him like depict a lot of emotion too like actually fighting out of like anger and fear and uh very revenge driven and whatnot so i i i didn't see it as romantic as much of like
00:34:26
Speaker
she was the only one that had the potential to like be empathetic towards him and then because of her age his like hero nature was just kind of like the protective vibe too
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that could be it. It was more nurturing than it was anything else. I was just going to say, Robot is just like next to Omni Man. He's like the character like I'm most interested in seeing like what is this guy actually up to? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:00
Speaker
Well, we got some more context to that in this episode with that scene with the Mauler twins. We know that he was the benefactor that released them from prison previously and we actually get to see the cloning process come full form or come full circle.
Monster Girl's Injuries
00:35:18
Speaker
I think it was the previous episode, they got the meat from the burger mart, which is kind of funny that the Mueller twins are made out of burger mart meat. But we actually see the body mature, and then we see the transfer of the consciousness, which I guess
00:35:33
Speaker
It's just kind of like a facsimile of the existing consciousness. And that's why we learned there's this constant bickering about which one is the original. And as soon as they start up, Robot steps out of the shadows and is like, I'll never understand why you two do that. Yeah. And he wants the, he needs their cloning expertise. Have we seen him take blood from anyone other than Rex? I don't believe so.
00:36:03
Speaker
So are we assuming he's cloning Rex for some reason?
00:36:09
Speaker
seems seems to be going that way yeah um yeah and i don't know where that's going one rex is kind of obnoxious enough for me but uh presumably his clone won't have rex's mind but uh i think that's what i wanted to get to is that i feel like he just wants to make a body and he likes rex's powers and that's a power he probably want with like his mental skill set oh interesting
00:36:37
Speaker
Also, we saw Rex and Monster Girl kinda hit it off after their fight a little bit. So I wonder if that has something to do with it. Maybe that nurture versus romance is more poignant than we think and he's actually seeking
00:36:57
Speaker
a host that she would find physically appealing. Yeah, I could see that. The other thing I took away from that scene though is, and forgive me I didn't, I don't have the exact dialogue here, but Robot refers to the regenerative properties of the molar twin's cells.
00:37:20
Speaker
It seems like whatever his previous plans were, he might have to pivot and use whatever he's got to help heal Monster Girl because last we see, I was certain she was dead when we saw Battle Beasts take those two rocks and slam her monster skull between the two. But the last we saw her, she's on a breathing apparatus and he mentioned she's on a defibrillator. A lot of tough words today. Yeah, very Hulk-like.
00:37:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's really interesting. Part of me wants robot to be good and just be thinking several steps ahead. But yeah, it's hard to know.
00:38:08
Speaker
Just out of curiosity, who ended up with a quantum chip that was machine head head? Cecil, I think. Okay, Cecil got it. It did seem that way, yeah. And then at the very end, we also see Cecil's agent, Colson, I don't know. Let me get it real quick. Experimenting with Mark's blood. Chris, oh no, Donald Ferguson. Okay. Ferguson.
00:38:39
Speaker
I'm sure by the last episode of this series I will know his name and I will forget it by next season. Yeah, but they're experimenting on the blood that they were able to collect from Mark when he, you know, because Mark, they're still saying that what he's touching go right now, they don't know if he's going to make it. I mean, I'm pretty confident because
00:39:02
Speaker
We know this is an adaptation. It's a long-running comic series. I think Mark's going to be okay. I mean, this might be a defining character moment for him in terms of being on Death's Door. But yeah, he says something along the lines like they've tried chemicals, diseases, all sorts of various things, but viltramite cells just don't want to die.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah, so and that's you know, obviously they're trying to figure out a way to kill Omni man and that's why Cecil is so Into keeping mark alive and like seeing what mark can do because I think Cecil's assuming that mark ultimately might be the only one that can kill Omni man and
00:39:44
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah There's that's I would say that's some pretty sound reasoning But I also did notice, you know, we talked about how Omni man allowed mark to be even put
Omni-Man's Mysterious Motives
00:39:55
Speaker
in that position. So
00:39:56
Speaker
If they do find some way to have like, find a weakness for Viltremites, it's almost his own hubris that allows it to happen. Unless it's, unless he, he might be like Robot and might be a few steps ahead as well. I certainly hope not for Deborah's safety because she found his bloodied suit, which I, it was kind of weird that he had it hidden in that particular spot, but that's neither here nor there.
00:40:24
Speaker
Yeah. The, the one thing about Nolan is he doesn't seem like super humanly smart. Like, he doesn't seem dumb. He, you know, he was crafty enough to lure all the guardians together, but like, he also doesn't seem like his, it's not like his brain is functioning 10 steps ahead that we've seen. Right. Yeah. That's, that's fair.
00:40:53
Speaker
I definitely see a lot of arrogance in him.
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of arrogance. But in that same scene where they were testing the blood and whatnot, I mentioned offline that there was a line that I thought could be interpreted multiple ways. But Ferguson says he still think blood's still the answer. And I was wondering, is that a reference to Damien Darkblood? Is Damien Darkblood still the answer? I don't know. I hope so. I hope that character comes back.
00:41:24
Speaker
Me too. As someone who's a massive Hellboy fan, like, I really do want the character that's like a parallel of my favorite character to come back. But yeah. And I kind of think Ferguson just meant Mark's blood, but I think the show might have meant both. I could just be pulling at things that aren't there, but
00:41:53
Speaker
Well, that's half the fun of this. Yeah, that's true. When you said Damien Darkblood, I thought you were talking about like Damien Dark from the Arrowverse. Are we mixing up universes here? No, it's just me.
Investigative Subplot: Damien Darkblood
00:42:07
Speaker
Well, you got to imagine Robert Kirkman was definitely influenced and inspired by the same comics that inspired so many other creators that are now finally getting the opportunity to have their own creations adapted, which is just really cool to see.
00:42:22
Speaker
but the only other thing I wanted to hit on is the fact that we had this partnership with Titan and markets ends up being indisposed for the time being but Titan actually does Reveal himself to be duplicitous and this was all a setup to put himself in the kingpin position and take machine heads position so
00:42:45
Speaker
Yeah. And and I don't know if we covered it, but ultimately that fight breaks down with Battle Beast just wrecking everyone. Oh, yeah. And I should just point out Battle Beast is voiced by. Oh, no, I'm going to play Michael Doran. Michael Doran Wharf. Mm hmm. Which like.
00:43:08
Speaker
I thought he did an awesome job playing Battle Beasts. Obviously Battle Beasts didn't have a ton of lines. Yeah. But like I was like, is he just going to do his wharf voice and like, but he made it a complete character. And like, I just kind of loved like.
00:43:25
Speaker
I love the casting there because the casting kind of brings some some additional gravitas to this character that you know we don't get a lot of but he certainly kicks all of the ass in that scene.
00:43:41
Speaker
We've talked about it before, but this series really does have a star-studded cast and a very talented voice cast. But with that in mind, I would be remiss if I didn't mention, I've been noticing how Marx High School is named Reginald Vell Johnson High.
Cultural Nods and Humor
00:43:57
Speaker
We find out that the principal is... Principal Winslow. Carl Winslow, Reginald Vell Johnson is in the show voicing this character, and they've made the character look just like him.
00:44:08
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah, I love that so much. That one got a guffaw for me. Rightly so, rightly so. And then just while we're on the subject of things that got a laugh or an audible reaction out of us, one line that I just had to write down, when Mark's quitting his job at the Burger Mart, there's an off-screen employee that yells to the manager, he's like,
00:44:33
Speaker
There's a rat in the mayo again. And the manager's like, does it look like I care? You're the manager of a restaurant. I would think you would care about that. Yeah, that was. And that scene happens very early in the comic. Because I remember that happens right after he gets his powers in the comic, he quits his job. Oh, OK. And I think they purposely delayed that scene.
00:45:00
Speaker
uh, the quitting scene just to contrast like Invincible's privilege with Titan's lack of privilege, right because Invincible is able to quit his job and just be a superhero Where you know, uh, Titan's working all the time and still has nothing To show for it. So yeah, I I just thought that was interesting that they chose to move that scene and it worked for me
00:45:27
Speaker
yeah i think it kind of solidifies my theory about it being uh the know-your-place as well because right before that scene we get him in the street in his hero suit just texting amber which i really appreciate that they actually had like typos and corrections and stuff like that that was a nice touch yeah that's how the conversation goes but people like he's getting like rocks and cars and shit thrown at him and he's just kind of like one second and like you know going back to his texting so it's like
Titan's Introduction
00:45:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we mentioned kind of like the the privilege and you know good for him that he came from a good household And whatnot, but The that he is getting Cocky at this point where it's great that he's more comfortable with his powers in regards to like his flight and controlling his strength and everything but like now he's like in public just kind of like and whatever. Yeah, I got this and We see what happens to him Yeah
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah, he kind of took his two steps forward and by the end of this he gets his one step back. Pretty serious step back too.
00:46:32
Speaker
Yeah. We got so many parallels between the two. We already mentioned the dangling of a victim that you're interrogating. Like, Titan is doing all these bad things, but he actually ends up doing more endearing actions at the end. There's the parallel between invincible holding up the building and letting the people escape, where Titan is the one destroying the building.
00:46:58
Speaker
Invincible saves people's lives, but all he does is apologize for the state of the building. The only reason to happen is because he was having this battle.
00:47:07
Speaker
And he doesn't give them any money or anything like that. He just offers his sympathy. Titan is the one that, you know, gives them a place and money. So, yeah. And I felt like we did... I just wanted to kind of backpedal and do talk about that opening action sequence with Titan, because I felt like we glossed over it a little bit. As gory as that final scene was,
00:47:30
Speaker
That was another thing that was kind of a good example of juxtaposition, as easy as things were for Invincible. This action sequence was awesome to see Titan roll in there, and as much as he's destroying everybody, it's not exactly easy for him. And he's even got that sequence where the guy's unloading on him with the Gatling gun, and he's forced to fling that handgun right into his forehead. Oh, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was intense. Yeah.
00:48:00
Speaker
Yeah, they don't pull any punches with the animation on this one. Yeah, because then you got the guy that tries to shoot him at point-blank rage and the bullet just goes right back into his head. Really interesting and dynamic ways to showcase these power sets.
00:48:21
Speaker
It's just a testament to animation being able to consistently show us these big larger than life action set pieces. And I just think if people have ever, I mean, if you're, if you're listening to this podcast, you obviously haven't written off animation, but anybody out there that just like they see something animated and they kind of overlook it, you're really just doing a disservice to yourself because this is where you really get some of the best action and some of the best storytelling because you don't have quite the same restraint as far as budgets go.
00:48:50
Speaker
Tell him how you really feel, Jay Scottie. Based off that action scene, I think we got a good sense of his personality as well when it came to the bodyguards when he was stealing the chip. And he was like, dude, you guys get paid minimum wage? Do you really want to die over this right now? And you see them just all shooting at the ceiling just to make it look like they did their jobs while he just walks out with it? Yeah.
00:49:15
Speaker
Yeah, and he doesn't kill the little kid. Right. When he's kicking the other gang off their turf. A message for you. Right, right. And that sequence when he's stealing the computer chip and he does like tell the guards to like shoot towards the ceiling, that made me think like how ineffective is like the police force in this universe or like how like have they just like
00:49:39
Speaker
complacent have they become and they just like rest on their laurels or like anybody that just like you see all these shots like fired up into the ceiling it's gonna be pretty obvious what went down but maybe maybe it's just a world where people they they live with these larger than life characters they don't sweat the small stuff like that I don't know but they covered all that in the opening dialogue of the show
Societal Dynamics of Superheroes
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah, I was gonna say there the the security guards talking about superhuman training and how like how pointless it is like right like learn how to roll away from lasers. Yeah, and then again The Mars mission where like Marcus supposed to kind of stay hidden because humans need a win. Mm-hmm
00:50:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. I think you're absolutely right that like yeah security guards totally ineffectual in this world That's one of the big things in in my hero academia is that the world has evolved to a point where it's like it's very uncommon for somebody to not have an ability of some sort and The main character is one of the few people who doesn't have one. It was just kind of like holy crap There's still a human that doesn't have one type of thing
00:50:46
Speaker
this this show kind of feels like the early stages of that where it's like they're seeing that transition between uh humans and the quantity of super-powered people and just kind of being like well like they kind of ruled this place we're just here
00:51:01
Speaker
Yeah. Those are great points you guys bring up. That's the thing about 45-minute episodes. You get so much world building. We're only five episodes in, and we have such a keen understanding of these characters in this world that we live in.
Cliffhanger Ending
00:51:19
Speaker
Did you guys have any closing thoughts or predictions for the next episode upcoming? It's a cliffhanger in the fact that we have Mark
00:51:32
Speaker
Clinging for life, but as I mentioned, I'm pretty confident he's going to pull through. I would say the thing I'm looking forward to most is the how Amber responds to his absence and how he's going to acknowledge because I imagine he's going to be, you know, he's not going to come out of this without any bruises or anything like that. She's going to see that he got messed up. So it'll be interesting to see how they tackle that.
00:51:59
Speaker
I just have two small questions. Okay. When Battle Beasts was finishing up the fight with Invincible, and they slowed down the motion of the arms going up to pound in his chest, did anybody else at that moment think like, okay, this is Romany Man's gonna fly in and stop him?
00:52:17
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I expected him to scream out dad or something like that for a second. Yeah. Like when that happened, I was like, someone's going to come in and they actually pounded his chest. Like I jumped on the sofa. Holy shit. They just broke the main character. What the hell?
00:52:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I didn't expect them to do that. But like I was curious how Omni man would respond because like would he fly in, save, save invincible and say, I told you so. Turns out no, which is like another strike against Omni man. Not that like he doesn't have a million strikes against him.
00:52:57
Speaker
But yeah, it kind of just makes you wonder what his motivation was there. You know, but as far as letting that happen. Yeah. Which brings up my next question that if he was watching outside the building the whole time, did he see his son like nearly die and then make sure that he was home early enough for his wife to get the phone call and pretend to be all surprised?
00:53:23
Speaker
He sure did. Because he was walking in from the sliding door when she was on the phone with Cecil. Yep. I was like, you bastard. Yeah, a lot of not great dads in this episode. Yeah. Is it arguable that Titan is the best father in this episode? Not very arguable. Totally arguable, yeah. I mean, he did
00:53:52
Speaker
get a bunch of people hurt and or killed to take power of a criminal organization but he's the only dad that brought home ice cream and to be fair to be fair he was killing like gang organizations and drug dealers too so it's like yeah yeah yeah like he did tell them to stop so
00:54:15
Speaker
Like low-key, Titan best dad. Father of the year, Titan. Well, as much as I talked about the fallout between Amber and Invincible's relationship, you gotta wonder now that Titan is in this position, and Invincible's gonna remember what he did to him,
00:54:36
Speaker
Is Titan going to be the big bad of the season? Because they sure as hell made me like him quite a bit in just this episode. We've also got Robot out there. So, I mean, BattleBeast is still out there. Obviously, Nolan, OmniMan is a very menacing presence. It's just, yeah, I really don't know where they're going to go. I think we have, you know, three episodes left as we're led to believe it could go anywhere.
00:55:03
Speaker
If we have the parallel of Invincible being the guy in the sky and Titan being like the street level person, I could feel I could see them collaborating a lot. Where it's like Invincible is like, I don't like what you do, but we need to work together from time to time. Which is the same thing that was kind of like what happened in Luke Cage, which is kind of like, well, I can't stop these people from doing what they do on the streets, so I'm just going to supervise it.
00:55:28
Speaker
Yeah, like I said, it'll be interesting to see where they go with it. But I imagine that Invincible's feeling pretty jaded. So if they do find a resolution and an understanding, I'd give them praise for it for taking a different approach. But my expectation is that Invincible's going to have an axe to grind. He's feeling the mode. Yeah.
00:55:52
Speaker
You know, not to drag the episode open. Well, again, but I should just point out that we see Invincible kind of loses cool in this episode during that fight, too. Ah, yeah. He screams like, I'll fucking kill all of you or something. Yeah, he's like, you're all done. Or like, and then he. Yeah. Yeah. Who's next? And that's when he goes up against Battle Beast. I want to keep calling him Battle Cat, but.
00:56:22
Speaker
I love that character design. I don't know if that's from the comics, but like. Yeah, when I was looking it up, there was more comic panels and there was like scenes from the show. OK, cool. Yeah, I I just like, yeah, from Amazon, I knew the character was Battle Beast and because I I was like, that voice is familiar. Who's doing this voice? And it was Michael Dorn.
00:56:52
Speaker
But yeah, like...
00:56:54
Speaker
obviously later in the comics than I ever read to. And now that I'm watching the show, I don't want to read the comics and spoil myself. Yeah, right. So I'm like, between seasons, maybe I can read some of the comics. Yeah. But I don't want to ruin the next season. So now I'm in that position that I think a lot of Game of Thrones fans are in. I was just going to say, wait for the TV show to finish, then read the books. Right.
00:57:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's the way I'm going to go, but it really has inspired me to want to pick up the comic source material. So just a testament to what an excellent adaptation it is and just quality entertainment. We already said it's a great time to be a fan of just fandom stuff in general, but especially animation with series like this coming out all the time.
00:57:45
Speaker
All right, well that's going to do it for another episode of Animation Deliberation. Thanks for tuning in and listening. If you've got any feedback for us, you can hit us up at animationdeliberationpodcastatgmail.com. You can follow me on Twitter at jscotforreal. And please follow Stranded Panda, everything that that network's doing, strandedpanda.com. You can join the Stranded Panda Army.
00:58:11
Speaker
There is a family of shows there that are all geared towards this geek fandom content, the Marvel Cinematic Universe podcast, Star Trek Universe podcast, as well as the Star Wars Universe podcast, and Benjers Assemble, Pandavision, and the Superhero Ethics podcast. So please take a look at all the wonderful things we're doing there and support the awesome endeavors there. That's going to do it for me. You guys got anything you want to plug?
00:58:40
Speaker
Stranded Panda trivia and after dark on Twitch every Wednesday at twitch.tv slash Stranded Panda TV You usually find all three of us hanging out there after dark I guess I haven't been there as much lately due to a series of complications, but I'll get back on the horse other than that there's the Facebook group which Scotty mentioned but I
00:59:07
Speaker
a very active group of people, a lot of talk of MCU stuff, but trying to get a little more of the invincible talk going on on Fridays through all the Falcon and Winter Soldier debate. Yeah, you need a machete to cut through that. Is your hair? Say your line.
00:59:31
Speaker
Stay well.
00:59:55
Speaker
Your hard to recycle plastics can be so much more. Participate in the hefty energy bag program happening in your neighborhood today.
01:00:03
Speaker
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