This is the second in a series of episode reviews for the animated TV show Invincible, starting from the end and working backwards. See the overview here.
Last time we found out all about the noble Saiyan race.
Finally revealed! The secret origin of Omni-man’s crazy eyes.
I was delighted in the first part of this episode to find the Dragonball comparison given yet further weight by the addition of androids to the mix. This was most pleasing, as diversionary as it felt — viewing with full knowledge of the tiny robot child’s contribution to the climactic events next episode (none).
The conclusion I’m erring towards is that there’s very little deconstruction of the superhero taking place here: there’s a fairly basic superhero teen narrative that seems awfully close to something you might have seen on Justice League or Teen Titans, and then there’s a second story that’s somewhere between John Wick and Jason Bourne about an unstoppable murderous tool of the state being controlled and managed. Perpetual CIA sad-sack Cecil comments at one point that an ineffectual orbital cannon cost several billion dollars; you’ve got to wonder how much was correspondingly spent on the Omni-man project.
The fighting in the episode, was merrily animated. I did appreciate Robocop-by-way-of-Evangelion’s-seagulls — and of course the mass-production Evangelions were also the secret product of a shadowy governmental clique holding them in reserve as a trump card. I was somewhat disappointed in how Omni-man was not the devastating force of nature he was made out to be in my first episode. His failure to kill Cecil, a frail man armed only with a teleporter whose previous advantage was remaining strictly remote, was particularly unimpressive. Come on! The man is untethered from all morality and has the physical strength to tear the Immortal in two, don’t have him take hits for a few minutes first.
The teen drama is slightly more charming here than it was in the finale, and the sequence describing Eve’s morning routine looks delightful. I’m still not sure what to make of her statement “Looks like I’m helping you today”, which was so weighty that it featured in the “last time” sequence in the previous episode I watched.
The bulk of the episode is taken up with the alternately charming and irritating story of the boy android who did very little in episode 8. It’s a little contrived, but I think I can disentangle it: the episode begins with the (re?)introduction of a disfigured man in a life support tank, who tasks two burly clone-men with installing him in a new body they have grown for him. After some grousing they do this, at which point he immediately betrays them and attempts to imprison and/or murder them. Simultaneously, the disfigured man has been masquerading as a malfunctioning robot in the Justice League watchtower subplot, where he has formed a pseudo-romantic relationship with a woman who ages backwards. Their only reprieve is when he’s ordered by CIA Cecil to return to the base, an order which he obeys immediately. All very puzzling, and only reaffirming the space base as the locus of nauseating teen drama.
The best sequences in the episode take place in the family home and locale, a palpable sense of desperation as Omni-man shreds his connection to humanity piece by piece. The only moment missed is a reflection on his inhumanity in the flames of the exploded surveillance-house across the road — both Batman v Superman and Russell T. Davies’ The Second Coming do this scene with more gravitas.
This is the episode it had to be for the subsequent episode to be impactful; a measure of the existing state of affairs breaking apart piece by piece. It’s not as striking as the finale, but perhaps it can’t be.
