Secret Invasion (Disney+)

WEBVTT

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Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.

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I'm a producer, writer of film
and television and now a podcast producer.

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And despite having every streaming service,
I never know what to watch. So

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anytime I watched something good, I
talk about it on this show. This

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way, you'll never have the same
problem I do. I watched this tonight.

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There's always something good to watch.
Let's get started. Today. In

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the show, we are talking about
the new Disney Plus series Secret Invasion.

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So I was excited about this show
because it seemed like I had the potential

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to be a bit more grounded,
which is kind of what I'm into.

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I think that when I had Jack
Austin on and we talked about all the

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different Marvel properties, I think this
came up. It's a really interesting premise.

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It's so basically it is that there's
an alien race called the Scrolls,

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and the Scrolls are here on Earth
and Samuel Jackson promised to get them a

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new planet. They're basically like refugees, but it's taken a while and they're

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starting to get pissed off, and
there's a faction of the Scrolls that are

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like the extremist faction of the Scrolls
and they've decided, well, we're just

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going to take this planet because it's
taken too long to get us our own

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planet. So that's an interesting setup, and the opening sequence I think it's

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pretty good. You know, definitely
plays on kind of like the thing vibe,

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where you know, you never know
if the person you're talking to is

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or is not a Scroll because they
can the key element of the series that

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they can make themselves appear like anything. They can look like anyone. They

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can sort of you know, they
could be anybody. They could be your

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best friend, your wife, your
brother, or your kid. They can

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make themselves appear like that, right, So that really sets up a pretty

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useful device for an espionage spot.
I kind of, you know, paranoid

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thriller type of thing. And I
was excited because also it's a big showcase

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for Sam Jackson. You know,
he's front and centering the art. It's

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like, this is gonna be the
Sam Jackson show. Great, I'm in

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and I watched the first half hour
and I gotta be honest with you,

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I turned it off and I was
not going to do this episode. And

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then I went on Twitter and I
just typed in Secret Invasion because I was

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like, am I being too hard
on it? And I saw a whole

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bunch of tweets about the end of
the episode, which I will not spoil

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until the end of this episode,
and I said, all right, I'll

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go back, and I finished it, and I do think the second half

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of the pilot kind of picks up
some steam. What was a real surprise

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to me though, in the first
half of the pilot was that Sam Jackson

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seemed bored. You know, I
have done I have been involved in enough

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films where I know the actor was
kind of just showing up and like,

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wasn't that into it. And you
can sort of tell, like there's some

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actors where if they're not feeling it
for whatever reason, and it might be

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maybe they're not getting paid enough money, maybe they don't like the script,

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maybe that particular day something happened,
maybe they don't get along with the director

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or whatever it is. You can
kind of tell when they're sort of not

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that into it, And the first
half of this it just seemed like he

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wasn't that into it. It just
seemed like he was sort of like,

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you know, planning a vacation in
his head or something. Like doing his

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grocery list. Like, Sam is
such a great actor, a legitimate,

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lay stellar actor, and I was
so excited for him to have the showcase.

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And I almost wonder if it's like
because they have him doing a lot

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of stuff in the first half that
is a bit expositional, and I wonder

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if maybe that was the issue.
It doesn't seem like they've given him again

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in the first half that really strong
emotional kind of material to bite his teeth

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into, and then in the back
half they give him a little bit more

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of that. So there's a moment
where he's sort of interrogating someone that ends

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up being a Scroll, and you
can tell he's like having fun, like

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he's sort of it's the energy is
picking up. It seems like he's he's

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being playful, but in a scary
kind of way. And it's also that

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particular scene is one of the better
scenes of the episode because it has some

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real moral ambiguity. There's something that
Sam Jackson does the end of that scene

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that's sort of not cool, like
he Ben Mendelssohn plays like the good Scroll,

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like the scroll who's like part of
the you know, trying to help

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out the humans kind of thing,
and he's there and he's almost like Sam

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Jackson's partner in the show, and
he tells Sam not to do something,

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and then Sam does not listen to
him, and it really does have a

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moment of moral ambiguity, and I
like, you know, it's also you

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can understand the motivation of the scrolls. You can understand why they would be

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upset. Like I like that.
I always like when the villain has a

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motive where you're like, man,
I would totally I might do the same

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thing if I was in the villain
position. That's something that works really well

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in the first Black Panther film.
I think it works well here. So

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it has great elements, but I
wanted more. I really wanted more from

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this pilot, you know. I
think that the it's so this is there's

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so much you could do with this, and there's so much opportunity to comment

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on issues in the real world,
and I just felt like it didn't totally

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get there for me until the ending. I'll wait a second before I spoil

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it. This is a really good
cast. Ben Mendelssohn, Amelia Clark.

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You know, it's it's well directed, it's well shot, it's well acted.

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It's an interesting world. Again,
a lot of positive elements. But

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if you look at this which I
think it has been well received, I

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think people are liking it. I
couldn't help but have this feeling of like,

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is this what is good now?
Is this what we're sort of happy

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with? Is something that's like,
yeah, it's pretty good, It's like,

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it's not. I think about I
recently rewatched the first Mission Impossible film,

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and I think the difference between that
film and some of the later Mission

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Impossible films is relevant here. The
first Mission Impossible film is very nervy and

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weird. It's a weird it's it
has a real edge to it, and

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it's it's sort of yeah, it's
like left up, it's strange, it's

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it's not it's not sort of clean
um. Where it's later films, there

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is a generic quality to them,
meaning that we're not really like exploring the

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dark soul of Ethan hunts, right, We're just sort of it's it's fun,

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it's action. The lines of who's
good and who's bad, you know,

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I think are mostly pretty clear.
It's not it doesn't have that sort

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of weird edge to it. You
know, if you go back to the

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First Mission Possible film. A lot
of the lines of dialogue are really good,

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and it has this sort of cynicism
to it. I don't know,

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it just has it feels like it
has more on its mind, is what

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I'm saying. And and I feel
like there was such opportunity for that here.

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And it's not like you can't do
that within a genre show. I

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mean, we just we just saw
that with Andor Right and Or very similar

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situation where you're telling a show it's
a genre show, but it has opportunity

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to comment on real world stuff.
And and Or from episode one made choices

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that you know, you could see
those things Ron's mind. And I think

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the jury is still out on secret
Invasion from what I understand. The second

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episode also ends in a crazy way. And I'm going to get to the

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spoiler now I've been teasing here in
a second. So look, I want

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to give them the benefit of the
down, right, because even Game of

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Thrones, if you go back to
the Game of Thrones pilot, it's kind

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of slow, like it was.
I think I was on the fence where

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I would watch another episode of Game
of Thrones, and the end of that

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episode of the pilot was so crazy. You were like, all right,

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I'm gonna watch another episode, and
then it really clicked into gear. So

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you know, I've only seen the
first episode. It is entirely possible that

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this finds its footing in the second
episode. That's pretty common, and I

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think a lot of shows have that
situation. It's very difficult to especially the

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first half of the pilot, just
come out of the gate storm and hot

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like that. That's not an easy
thing to do. So I am cautiously

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optimistic, but I would say this
is definitely a mixed recommendation. And now

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I got to talk about what happens
at the end of the pilot. So

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if you haven't seen the pilot,
stop listening, or if you haven't seen

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it but you don't care, if
you haven't spoiled, you can keep listening.

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And if you have seen it,
keep listening. Okay, end of

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the pilot. So we have this
sequence which is very reminded me a lot

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of blowout actually kind of like a
big crowd scene. And then Sam Jackson

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shoots my name is Kobe Smolders.
Great name. It's always hard for me

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to remember exactly Kobe Smolders. Apologies
to Kobe Smolders. He has Kobe Smolders,

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so he shoots her at the end
of this pilot and then we obviously

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it's a scrull that's you know,
looking like him that did it. But

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it's a big choice because the way
they set up the pilot, you expect

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her to be an integral element of
the show. Obviously, her character has

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a long lineage in these Marvel properties. So it's a big choice and it

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lands. It feels big, and
it's it gives Sam something emotional now to

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play going in episode two, which
he kind of didn't really have that much

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in episode one. So it's promising, you know. I like the choice.

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I also I wonder if it's almost
like, you know, Marvel now,

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it's been going on for so long, I'm sure some of these actors

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are ready to like do other things. So I wonder if it's like,

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you know, if you're the Marvel
executive, You're like, all right,

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well, these seven actors are tired
of doing Marvel movies. Let's just bring

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them in the Secret Invasion for an
episode to kill them off. I do

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wonder if that might be part of
the calculus there. But yeah, look,

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I'm definitely gonna watch another episode.
I love Sam Jackson. I want

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to see Sam Jackson fly and be
the focus of a series. And I

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gotta think that it was just that
kind of wobbly first half of the pilot,

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you know. I gotta give him
a mull again for that. So

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I'm hopeful we'll see what episode two
is like. I'm very curious to know

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what you think. Did you enjoy
Secret Invasion? Do you think it came

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out the gate strong? You think
you showed up on the fence. You

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can always reach me at benamore Dan
on Twitter, watch The Night on Instagram,

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watch The Night podcast on TikTok,
or you can join on our Facebook

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group. That is the episode for
today. Thank you so much for listening.

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Until next time, Bye bye,