The following review contains spoilers for the season 2 premiere of Invincible, "A Lesson for Your Next Life"
Season 2 of Invincible kicks off with a look at what lies ahead for novice superhero Invincible/Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun), in oblique but alluring fashion: A peek into an alternate reality in which Mark joined forces with his father, Omni Man/Nolan (J.K. Simmons), and conquered the world. This vision of what could’ve been if Mark hadn’t been betrayed and battered by Nolan not only establishes some of the story’s emotional stakes (the idea that Mark’s rage and unpredictability makes him scarily like his father, a genocidal envoy from the planet Viltrum), but it also introduces us to a potential antihero, in the form of the dimension-hopping Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown).
Back in the world we know, “A Lesson for Your Next Life” serves as a re-introduction to the show’s rich ensemble, by carrying forward its penchant for creative music choices. Set to Radiohead’s “Karma Police,” a moody montage sees Mark going through the motions of being a superhero in his father’s absence – an abandonment with which he hasn’t yet come to terms – as he takes care of colorful villains and soars through the skies, albeit upside down. Director Sol Choi does a remarkable job setting the stage with these images. They’re familiar, and yet, something is amiss.
Back home, Mark’s quiet despondency is matched by that of his mother, Debbie (Sandra Oh), who wasn’t part of the fight with Nolan the way Mark was, and had to have her indignities served to her second hand. Word of Nolan’s most cruel revelations has gotten back to her: the idea that she was more like a pet to him than a wife, which adds to her exhausted sense of agony (which we see on her face, under her eyes), like she’s been crying for far too long. This is the emotional baseline from with the new season operates, and it’s an extremely strong place to start, especially when the widowed Olga (Grey Griffin) – wife of the fallen hero Red Rush – returns to the show and offers Debbie helpful advice, further establishing how much the sting of Nolan’s departure feels like grief.
Elsewhere, a version of Levy breaks the Mauler Twins (Kevin Michael Richardson) out of the GDA’s high-tech prison, compelling them to work with him for the common good, albeit in a way that leaves them with little choice (either they help him, or he’ll leave them stranded in a deserted alternate dimension). Levy doesn’t reveal the full extent of his plan all at once, but it seems to include the mind-swapping device the Maulers helped build for Robot last season so he could operate in a fully-functioning teenage body – a tale of consciousness and questions of the self that was left half-formed.
The device’s return offers keen narrative promise when it turns out that dozens of versions of Levy have been hidden away in safehouses on our Earth, as well as on several others, with the main Levy (the dimension-hopping one) aiming to replicate and absorb their memories, so as to find solutions to humanity’s plights across the multiverse.
Mark – under the orders of the GDA once more – shows up just in time to stop this process, leading to the Maulers and several of their alternate selves attacking him, sabotaging his sabotage. Levy, however, is a pacifist, and proclaims “I won’t build my utopia with blood!” He saves Mark but throttles his own machine in the process, accidentally killing not only most of the Maulers, but the other versions of himself as well. According to GDA boss Cecil (Walton Goggins), they had it coming, a fascist streak that entwines nicely with Mark’s ongoing story, in which – unbeknownst to him – he’s fighting to avoid becoming the authoritarian making proclamations from giant viewscreens we see in the opening scenes.
Thus far, everything surrounding Mark, Debbie, and Levy lays the season’s foundation in interesting ways, though the season premiere does buckle a little when other supporting characters are involved. For instance, scenes of the New Guardians of the Globe fighting villains and bickering among themselves offer little by way of intrigue or insight – with the exception of Robot (voice by Zachary Quinto in mechanical form, with Ross Marquand playing his human avatar), who feels fear for the first time now that he’s actually at the center of these battles.
With Mark and his girlfriend Amber (Zazie Beetz) both getting into the same college, the episode ends on a promising note – both for Mark and for the series, as an opportunity to progress in a new environment – but despite its strengths, it can’t help but feel bogged down by its dialogue scenes. Each time “A Lesson For Your Next Life” slows down for a chat, it mostly repeats what the episode’s deftly crafted montages have already expressed without words. And while Yeun has clearly grown more accustomed to voice acting since we last heard him in the role of Mark (he uses breaths and intonations much more skillfully to convey Mark’s story), most of the other regulars who primarily work in live-action, like Goggins, continue to struggle.
The show just isn’t very interesting when people are standing around and talking. But as an entry in the superhero genre, Invincible is in the perfect position to complement (if not outright replace) its conversation scenes with dazzling action and eye-popping colors to set the mood. It’s also high time it figured out a way to integrate cliffhangers and progressing plot into the episodes themselves, since “A Lesson For Your Next Life” hinges on not one, but two different mid-credit scenes revealing the fates of the Maulers and Levy. Whether season 2 will lean into or subvert this and other major comic book movie/TV conventions will be an interesting question to see answered.
Verdict
With a peek into an alternate universe, Invincible’s season premiere establishes both its physical and emotional stakes, even though its supporting ensemble is often left floundering. The question of how Mark Grayson and his mother Debbie will deal with the fallout of Omni-Man’s betrayal is the primary driving force behind the plot, ensuring that the first part of season 2 is off to a promising start, despite occasionally using entire dialogue scenes to repeat its main motifs.
