The fact like Secret Invasion didn't have any scenes like this at all is a crime
There wasn't a scene (or if there was and I forgot about it then it probably wasn't particularly notable), where two actors go all out where neither character, at least seems to know, if the other is actually themselves. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. had a better Secret Invasion than Secret Invasion.
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Then she escapes and bumps into Daisy and has an even tenser moment.
“The truth is, I’m not just a history teacher. My name is Phil Coulson and I am an Agent of SHIELD”
It's a similar story: a non-human that can pose as one (in this case, the first Life Model Decoy, Aida) and used to be an ally to SHIELD spies has turned on humans by abducting them into sleep pods so other infiltrators can take their place. In AoS this is revealed by showing Aida, who we just saw murder a minor SHIELD Agent she's been working with for four episodes, tending to a drugged Agent May. Then we cut to the "Agent May" we've been following for most of the episode, revealing they were switched at the start when May went to meet Aida, having a flirtatious drink with Coulson. Cut to black. End of episode.
This super efficiently builds an immense amount of tension in 4 main ways. 1) We are worried for May, a main character, being held captive by a killer robot. 2) We know a fake May robot is embedded with our oblivious main characters so we are worried for them too and want to see what hapens next with her. 3) The fake May fooled the audience for most of the episode too so we are being primed to expect more shocking twists and, consciously or not, empathize with the characters still being manipulated and fear her. 4) We have no idea what Aida's plan, goal or motivation is and want to find out.
Contrast this with how Secret Invasion introduces it's "body snatchers" story; it's the polar opposite of these ways to ratchet up the thrills. 1) Everett is a character we know so little about for all we know he was never a real person to worry about being held captive (which we only learn is the case in the ending) as it's not clear (and never becomes clear) when he was switched out. 2) Talos had already learned (off-screen, somehow) Everett was an enemy Skrull, so our heroes were never in any danger and Skrull!Everett dies so has no future impact on the plot. 3) It's telegraphed that Everett is a Skrull as we see him preparing a gun before meeting with the new character, priming us for obvious and stupid bad guys. 4) The conspiracy theorist (who we never hear about again) literally exposition dumps the villains plan to start world war 3, their goal to steal Earth and even their motivation of anger at Fury for not finding them a planet, giving away far too much info to the audience for the first scene of a supposed spy thriller.
Secret Invasion took 8 minutes to deliver this bollocks, that's mostly dialog about a nonsensical plot mostly happening off-screen, while AoS did their fantastic set up in just a 1 minute long post-credits scene with only four lines of dialog but you understand all of it from showing what the characters are currently doing without anyone needing to explain anything to you. Almost like it was taking place in a visual storytelling medium or something.
The only reason that Jarvis from Agent Carter even shows up in Endgame and announced for VisionQuest is because Feige worked on Agent Carter. Same reason with Peggy on everything like What If and Multiverse of Madness.
I dont *blame* them cause Perlmutter was a pos, but, it sucks for agents of SHIELD.
Before that episode it was just a show I had on in the background. That's what really got me hooked.
They really should never have adapted it without making it an Avengers movie. It would have been more fun as a movie where the Avengers are trying to root out shape changers in world leadership positions without knowing if one of their own is a Skrull.
S1 ended with a hook of a familiar Avenger being attacked and replaced by a Skrull. Then the early half of S2 was the audience knowing said Avenger had been replaced, but the other characters were none the wiser and the tension was this character slowly plotting for the Invasion to start, then the big blowoff.
Granted, it's kind of unfair to compare a live-action project with a cartoon where they could include a lot of established superhero/villain characters without worrying about budget strain.
In Deadpool, he was going through a normal arc and realized some people were skrulls - wait what?
In Avengers, they were going through a normal arc fighting the hand - and then we find out Elektra is a skrull - wait what?
These tiny discoveries keep happening until the illuminati discuss it and realize that a full replacement has likely already happened and that any of them could be a skrull - and one of them was - it was wild and jaw dropping and then the arc properly kicked off where you're not sure who to trust (it was heavily hinted that Iron Man was a skrull).
The TV show? Sam Jackson has a skrull wife. roll credits. BIZARRE.
Of course, the actual quality of The Defenders is proof that this isn't a panacea, but it would at least be better than what we actually got.
They really needed to make it like the White Lotus, or Knives Out, in all seriousness. Shack up all these characters at the new Sword base or whatever and have them go at each other, make alliances and break them and etc etc.
It could have actually been really cool, and a great opportunity for appearances from characters we don’t see often.
Bring in Coulson or Daisy Johnson at the end (they’ve seen this before) and it doesn’t even have to be particularly good, we all would have eaten it up.
Spend that bloated budget on the cast, we don’t need people turning into superheroes. The whole point should be the Skrull’s can’t emulate powers, and these people don’t have powers anyways.
This is exactly why the LMD arc *could* work & Secret Invasion *couldn't*. When you can only use characters who only appear in the films/miniseries, there simply isn't enough screen-time to waste for any of them to be impostors for any significant length of story-time.
And he just says Peace out, I'm going on a goofy space adventure with The Marvels now.
At least Captain Marvel had doubts and trusted no one in her first movie, fearing they might be a Skrull.
EDIT: Oy my god, it was the FIRST episode. Dear lord, this show...
And I love both the MCU and Emilia Clarke so that absolutely took me tf out.
The big thing is that they needed to be supporting characters that people liked and had grown on them, so the betrayal of them being skrulls (especially if they have been skrulls for a long time) hurts
They had Fury and Rhodes. They should have kept Hill and Ross across the series. Then add two or three more familiar faces and you're good.
Yes the Zygons were already introduced but that's the same for the Scrull
The whole point is that the Skrulls are mimicking *superheroes*. You don't know if Black Panther is really Black Panther or if you can trust him.
Fitz was my favorite character on the show before this. The performance after good initial injury showed his acting chops, but Matrix Fitz took it to a different level and was down right scary.
And then his emotional state after? Exceptionally well done.
I’d love to see him brought back as the modern days answer to Howard Stark.
The show took its time to find its footing in S1, but it showcased that network shows with 22 episodes and yearly releases do work.
Are we really to believe the earth, a planet of 7 billion people, couldn’t accommodate one million skrulls (who live where people can’t anyways) when new Asgard is literally a tourist destination?
Nick Fury- he is supposed to be this mastermind who’s always 4 steps ahead but in this series he looked like a total chump. Which would be fine if that’s they story the wanted to tell, like “never meet your heroes, Nick fury actually wasn’t some genius, his prowess came because he was utilizing a network of shapeshifting spies nobody knew existed. now he has to prove that he’s got something to offer when that asset is no longer available to him…” and they kind of did try to tell that story, with him being like “no avengers, this is my mess, I can’t bring in the avengers, you can’t rely on superheroes for everything.” But then he goes on to rely on a superhero in the next episode? And it’s not like he ended the series triumphantly… he made a bigger mess & then left… but it’s like they’re presenting what he did as like “what a hero Nick Fury is”.
He trusts G’iah with becoming one of the most powerful superbeings alive… but she only turned on Gravick when she learned he killed her mother… and she was still actively trying to start a nuclear war YESTERDAY.
Queue the montage of a string of broad daylight murders while Fury walks away like “my job here is done”
Idk it made Fury look blind and completely not self aware.
There was also multiple instances of people reacting to Maria Hill being killed, fury being blamed for it, but nothing comes of it? Fury wasn’t wanted for the murder, nor was it being used as a reason to declare skrulls as a threat…
So Feige will never acknowledge it.
Rhodey got done so fuckin dirty and we'll never get Armor Wars now.

Like overall maybe, like Loki and Agatha but individual episodes? Acting moments? Nah.
I daresay that the reason the MCU hasn’t reused these characters is because they’d be *too good* for the stuff they make
'Paranoia'
AoS nailed the feeling of paranoia and unease. You didn't know who or what to trust. Tension was built and you often felt as lost and confused as the characters trying to piece together the clues.
SI had none of that outside of the opening scene with Martin Freeman. At no point during the rest of the show are you ever made to worry or feel concern about who might or might not be a Skrull and as such the whole show ultimately felt really bland and disappointing. They really needed to go all out on the paranoia angle like AoS did, and that wouldve made for a far more interesting show.
Hoping I get through AOS with her cause she struggled and got scared with Smallville, which I was showing her to help her get over disappointment and in some cases trauma of the new superman movie. Weirdly enough she loves to watch the extremely inappropriate Peacemaker, Vigilante, Emilia, Ads, Judomaster and Eagly (and thinks Earth X Auggie Smith is such a good man and father surviving in a Nazi world), even though I have tried my best to not let her watch it. :')