Cinepals - INVINCIBLE 2x8 "I Thought You Were Stronger" FINALE Reaction & Review!

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

The second season to Invincible is back on Amazon Prime! The show stars: Steven Yeun (Minari & The Walking Dead), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash & Spider-Man), Sandra Oh (Killing Eve & Turning Red), Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2 & Joker), Grey Griffin (Batman: Arkman City & The Loud House), & Kevin Michael Richardson (Lilo & Stitch & Mortal Kombay (1995)).   Join our Patreon www.Patreon.com/JabyKoay for the full length reaction to this show and many others ans subscribe to our YouTube channel for the cutdowns www.youtube.com/@cinepals   SOCIAL MEDIA ~CinePals~ Twitter, Instagram, & TikTok: @TheCinePals   ~Achara Kirk~ Twitter & Instagram: @AcharaKirk

Pals! We are here to watch the finale to Season 2 of Invincible. Thanks so much for joining us again. Here we go. Here we go. What? What is it? I think...

I miss my wife. Oh. Oh, my God. Oh. Which one? No, we know what he's talking. Don't ruin the moment, Kirk. We know what he's talking about.

Oh, wow. That got me a lot more than I was expecting it to. Oh, I don't think she's going to take him back, though. After everything that's happened, I just don't know if she can find it in her heart. Maybe she doesn't, but that's still a remarkable moment for him, because that requires a degree of empathy that we didn't think was possible in him. Yeah. Like the fact that he feels any sort of remorse is huge. to long for this woman who he thought was an insect at one point, that's ginormous.

Like, that's well beyond the scope of anything we could have imagined. Yeah, he's really changed. And so irrespective of whether or not she takes him back, that's almost irrelevant to me. Obviously, we can hope, but he's awful or he was. And so he needs some kind of punishment, right? The fact that he got there, though, is tremendous. That's huge. Wow. And so we know the trajectory of where this is headed now.

I'm happy to see more of Invincible's mom. I'm excited for that for season three, for sure. Don't do that to me. Don't do that to me. Okay. Let's talk about the episode. I really hope it doesn't take as long to get to season three. But there are so many things now to look forward to.

You know what I mean? They had you hook, lot and sinker, with the romance thing. Oh, yeah. Because they couldn't do it just yet. It's like I always knew that that would not be fulfilled this season. They had to give you something for season three. Sure. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Am I frustrated? Yes. Do I understand why they did that? Yes. So, okay, fine. At least I really appreciated it when future Eve showed up and was like, hey. Yeah.

Just so you know, I'm there and I'm waiting for you and I'm interested in you, you dumb boy. Yeah. Like, figure it out. At worst, it kind of nudged him forward in that direction. You know what I mean? Because otherwise he would just be like, oh, in my feelings. But at least he has that to maybe take him somewhere positive eventually because it's sort of just, it'll percolate for a while.

Yeah. And I think it's also for her because she's in limbo and she feels so strongly about him. Either way, it's going to put her out of her misery, right? Like either he's going to say. That sounds horrible the way you're afraid. No, but either he's going to say, I like you. and then, you know, they can have a relationship together and then they'll be happy.

Or he says, I don't think of you that way. You're totally friend zoned. And then she can move on and like... Either way, it gives her some relief. Exactly. Yeah. Whenever I hear the phrase put them out of their misery, it sounds like death. Death.

A figurative death, as it were. What's the name of the Brainiac guy? I forget. Okay, well, anyway, we know what we're talking about now. That guy is so, like, I thought he was going to last more than this episode. I didn't think he was going to go out the way that he did. And so the writers, the showrunners, the filmmakers involved in making this surprise to me because I didn't think it was going to end just like that. Because of the way he had been

built up for a while, like kind of flashing an image of him towards the end of an episode, kind of like the way they did Thanos at the end of Marvel films. I'm thinking it's going to be as epic on the scale of like Avengers, right? Maybe not to that scale. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but more than what they did here. So they kind of caught him like Snoke in episode eight of Star Wars. And I was like, oh, but my feelings here are better than episode eight of Star Wars. Insofar as it did a lot emotionally to Mark. It wasn't just like they killed him.

Now we're done moving on. He's having to live with this guilt and evolve from it. Right. And I mean, honestly, what could he have done to save the situation? What could he have done, apart from take this guy out? He was not going to stop until he had hurt Mark. And not only just hurt Mark or killed Mark, but, like, killed his whole family as well. And it would have been one thing if he was like, I just want to take you out.

But the fact that he was willing to kill his mom and kill his brother or hurt them was just too much. But yes, you're right. It is really interesting the way this has affected him because now he's crossed the line. And it's like, what does that mean going forward? But it's heartening to see him take it really seriously and get really affected by that. Because I think we can have faith that, you know, this is something that he's going to think long and hard about doing again, if ever. One thing that hasn't directly been addressed. They kind of mentioned it is Mark is so important.

He's like the John Connor of this universe. Yeah. He's so important that his friends had to develop time travel to go and save him from this other portal where he ended up. Like, that hasn't been acknowledged by Mark himself. Like, that's how important he is. He wasn't disposable. Like, we needed to get you back in order to correct the timeline. Right.

Like, that's how crucial you are to all of this. And he's all, woe is me. It's like, no, dude, but like, you got to get past yourself. There's too much at stake here for you to be stuck in that. And so I'm glad that he's found his way. I mean, naturally, that's where the episode would have to go. He's found his way to a place where he's like, I got to get stronger. I got to get better.

Cool. Like, let's do that. Speaking of getting stronger, though, I've really enjoyed his mom's arc throughout the whole season because she went from being someone who was so devastated, so broken by the revelation of like her relationship with Nolan and what he said about her and all of that. And now she's the one who is the pillar of strength.

Like she was strong for little baby Oliver, which I kind of feel like maybe Oliver was the best thing to happen to her right now because it's given her, like, a renewed sense of purpose. Because she's a really great mom. Something to fight for her. Exactly. And so, you know, with a new little bitty person to take care of, she's so focused on being the best mom ever for Oliver.

But to see her at the end fight back against that guy, knowing full well that he's so much stronger than her, but she had to fight. And then seeing how well she handled it with. her recovery and everything and then also being there for Mark and being a good supportive mother that we know her to be and just kind of, you know, listening to him and being his support and all of that. I think it's a really great arc for her character. No, I think you're right. I think that she has come a long way from like just being also woe with me and just devastated and stuck

in that cycle to now being this person who's like standing up to a superhero. Yeah. Even if it means her life. The level of strengths she demonstrated there was actually remarkable. I was completely buying into the reality of it, even though it's a cartoon. I'm like, I'm buying into her situation and her peril. I'm looking at Mark who's just like freaking out. It's just wild the dichotomy, you know, the juxtaposition of those two. Well, if you think about it, right, like he inherited superior genetics and physical strength from his father, but equally you could say that he inherited empathy and resilience and emotional strength, perhaps, from his mother. Yeah, totally.

Yeah. I like that. You know what was remarkable about this is action-wise, I mean, they did send him to different dimensions. I don't know the complexity is of that in terms of animation and that process, right? But so much of it took place inside of his house. You compare that to the end of season one of the battle between Omneman and Invincible and just how crazy the production value was on that.

Yeah. Right? It was just so epic. And this mostly took place in the house. I didn't mind that. I thought it was actually cool how they managed to create something so epic within such a small space. Well, the stakes were so high and it was so perilous, you know, like with Oliver and with his mom and everything and like being scared for them. And then also having the sense of like, oh my God, he can't seem to win.

This guy is so strong. They did such a good job of just ramping up the tension on that. Well, instead of, like, scale, they went for emotional stakes, right? Because it's his mom, Oliver, and then, of course, the battle with himself now having to realize what he did and the lengths he went to to stop this guy and the guilt he's overcoming. I would say that's as big or bigger than what we got at the end of season one, you know, he's really come a long way. He gets his ass kicked so much during the show, like, to the point that I don't know how I feel about it anymore because it happens so often. I'm like, he keeps getting wrecked. I know.

But I suppose, you know, what doesn't kill you, you know, makes you stronger. So there's that. I mean, he comes back from it every single time. And hopefully he's learning something from it. Resilience is definitely one of his superpowers. Yes. He's got the Rocky, the Italian stallion, you know, whatever that is. Or, you know, you keep hitting me, but I keep coming back.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. That scene between Monster Girl and Rudy was interesting. Because I understand what they're aiming for, what they're trying to accomplish. She's like, look, don't just treat me like one of your things that you have to fix. Like, I'm a person. I want to just have regular conversation as well. But, like, for him, regular conversation is taking measures to fix things.

Like, that's what he knows. Right. He doesn't know how to talk about Ninja Turtles. Like, he knows how to adjust things to improve them. You know, and so it's like, she's like, I just want you to talk to me. It's like, okay, I want to fix you. Like, that's what he was doing. Well, he's still learning too, right?

How to human? Yeah, exactly. He's so smart. He's so good. at so many things and like, yeah, the thing that he's really good at is solving problems and fixing them. But now he's having to learn the complexities of what it means to be a human being who's multifaceted and can have emotions and talk to a girl about other things, you know? Yeah, well, focusing on the simple pleasures rather than the high-stakes stuff, right?

Exactly. Because like, she goes, I just want to be taken out on a date. He goes, okay, for my date, I'd like to put you in this box and fix you. Like, I feel like it would always go back to that. Like, his zeros and ones would equate to helping her be better so she survives and not, you know, regresses to a younger and younger state. Right. But it's an interesting, you know, dichotomy. It's an interesting relationship that they're showing there.

Like, he's very sweet. He just wants to do right by her. That's all he cares about. I wish she could see that and respond with more empathy along the way because she's so in her feelings and so angry about it. It's like, can't you see like, he just, he's, he, loves you and he just wants to help you yeah but you know she's she's a complicated girl she's a complicated woman and she's just like yeah you know I get that but also like I want to feel

like I still am empowered that I still have agency and also that like you can just be my friend or my partner you can have all the agency you want after I fix you have agency until your heart's content. I just need to make you better. I mean, they were really leaning into the whole relationships thing in this episode as well, because, you know, we had Kate coming back to immortal. You were right. You called it from the start, which was like, you were like, oh, well, if I, if I were her, I would just have my original self just hanging out somewhere else. And like, of course, that seems like such a no, duh. That's a really great idea. So to have her,

come back. I wonder what implications that's going to have for him if maybe they're just going to be like, you know what, let's just go off the grid and live together for a while. Well, the rule I've noticed with these things is in order for things to be effective emotionally, the undo button has to be far away. For instance, the end of Avengers Infinity War, right? You kill off half the Avengers or whatever. Yeah. You wait till almost the end of part two to that film to bring them all back. Sure. Right. So you have time to feel some sense of grief before you undo it. And so they did something similar here where they killed her like two or three episodes ago. So for a couple of episodes of watching him go through his grief, you buy into the possibility that she's actually gone and dead. Right. Yeah, yeah. Whereas if they did it right at the end of that episode, it wouldn't be as meaningful. No, it wouldn't. You know? Absolutely not. No. But it's like, of course. Come on. Like, of course she's alive. She had a funeral and everything. I was just.

a little bit perplexed as to why she was in her outfit as opposed to just like shorts and a t-shirt or whatever or a sweater. Yeah. This whole thing with the pharaoh that came back to life, I didn't really understand what the significance of that was. I'm sure that's going to come back in season three. Just a seed for season three. Yeah.

Like I wonder if he's going to be some sort of like really big, maybe super villain or something. I just thought it was funny that he was like, wait, like, wait, but you're women. I cannot possess the body of a woman. It's like, why not? But also, good save for them. One of the things they brought up here is that Mark had been fighting to not be his father the entire journey that we've been on with him, right?

He's been fighting that. And what was interesting is, especially to see this towards the end of the episode, is his father's been kind of fighting something similar. We just haven't been as witness to it, which is he's been fighting his resistance to be like a human being. To have a heart. Yeah, exactly. To have empathy. And it's just slowly kind of taken over him over time.

And his son is the one that really pushed him in that direction. It's kind of wild to finally see him like go towards the direction we've been wanting him to go. You know what's so funny. So my best friend has only just recently started watching Invincible. And she just finished season one. And she's all like, oh my God. I can't believe what Nolan did. Like I'm so shocked.

And I said, wait until you watch season two and then we'll talk. But I think as far as Nolan goes, he's also had a tremendous arc. If you look at where he was at the end of season one where he's like, you know, they're just insects and they're not like us and all of that. To now feeling absolute regret and remorse for every single horrible thing that he's done on Earth and other planets before it, you know, it's like a complete turnaround for him. to go from saying they're just insects to making a baby with literally an insect yeah it's crazy anyways you guys thanks so much for hanging with us hopefully you enjoyed that i'm jabby kui this is achara kirk peace out