"Promises" is the second episode of the Disney+ streaming television miniseries Secret Invasion and was released on June 28, 2023. It was written by Brian Tucker, after a story by himself and Brant Englestein and directed by Ali Selim.
Synopsis[]
Nick Fury grapples with the past and present.
Plot[]
In 1997, Nick Fury and Talos assemble a group of Skrulls in a community center in the London Borough of Brixton. One of the Skrulls, Varra, introduces Fury to Gravik, a young Skrull who lost his parents in the last skirmish with the Kree. He's gained a reputation for singlehandedly piloting a ship on his own to escape from behind enemy lines. While Gravik is not very social, Fury thinks he has lots of potential. Talos addresses the Skrulls, reminding them of his faith in Fury, and Fury makes them a deal: in exchange for them becoming his spies, he and Carol Danvers will help them find a new home world. To show their loyalty, the Skrulls in the room all take on human appearances.
In the present day, having just shot Maria Hill, Gravik gets into a getaway car driven by G'iah and flees. Brogan is left behind and arrested, shouting "I'm an American!" repeatedly as he's thrown into a van. Talos impersonates a plainclothes law enforcement operative to spirit Fury out of the square.
Fury and Talos board a train headed for Warsaw. Fury is now public enemy number 1, and at one point, Talos takes on the appearance of a blonde woman to shoo away two soldiers searching the train. During the journey, Fury begins reminiscing about his childhood, and what it was like having to travel by train in the 1950s at the height of discrimination in America. He and his mother played a game called "Tell Me Something I Don't Know" to pass the time, which was often an easy way to suss out when the other was being less than honest. Fury turns this sort of question onto Talos, suspecting that Talos hasn't been honest with him about all the details of the Skrulls' war with the Kree. To Fury's shock, Talos reveals that while Fury was dusted, he summoned almost all of the Skrulls that remain to Earth, and their numbers are about a million strong. Talos believes that Fury can help the Skrulls integrate seamlessly with humanity, but Fury doesn't see that as a possibility so long as people will always be in conflict with one another. The heated argument ends with Fury telling Talos to leave the train.
Fury travels to London, where Maria's body has been repatriated to be shipped back to the United States. Maria's mother Elizabeth approaches Fury. He admits to her that Maria was killed because someone was trying to hurt him. Angry at him and blaming him for her daughter's death, Elizabeth asks Fury to make sure Maria's demise wasn't in vain.
As night falls, G'iah drives Gravik to a meeting of the Skrull Council. On the way, she becomes curious, and asks him how he knew Fury would show up at the square to witness the bombing. Gravik admits he wasn't 100% certain, but was hoping he would because he wanted to see the look on Fury's face. They arrive at a nondescript building where the council have convened. G'iah tries to follow Gravik into the meeting, but is stopped by the bodyguard posted at the door. When she tries to protest, Gravik surrenders his gun to her and gives her instructions to shoot the guards if he's not out within the hour.
The Skrull Council is a group of senior Skrulls who pose as various high-ranking people of influence. Among them are UK Prime Minister Pamela Lawton, NATO Secretary-General Sergio Caspani, and American news pundit Chris Stearns, who've been going public with various statements in response to Gravik's attack. The head of the council, Shirley Sagar, makes clear that Gravik should face consequences for his crimes against innocent civilians who had died in the bombings, including children. Gravik seems to have anticipated this, and speaking in the Skrulls' native tongue, justifies his actions as being because Fury failed to honor the deal he made with them, and views war as the only way forward.
He even has a contingency planned for if they meet resistance from the Avengers or any other enemies. Lawton, who turns out to have been working in league with Gravik all this time, pushes a motion to have Gravik appointed as Skrull General and give him complete and unlimited power to wage war. All of the other council members take their Skrull forms to show their support for Gravik (although Caspani has to be physically intimidated into going along). Shirley, however, is disgusted, and refuses to submit to Gravik, remembering what happened to them when they fought the Kree. Gravik, seemingly impressed by her stand, lets her walk out. Once outside, she calls Talos and informs him of this shocking development, promising any aid she can give. Talos asks Shirley to set up a meeting between him and Gravik regarding G'iah, despite her warnings.
Gravik returns to New Skrullos, and the news of his power grab is met with a hero's welcome. However, G'iah becomes suspicious when she notices Gravik whisper something to Pagon. She follows Pagon into a secret lab elsewhere in the compound, and sees two scientists, Victor Dalton and Rosa Dalton, doing some sort of work with a machine and various DNA samples. The Daltons have been tasked by Gravik with doing something called the "Harvest", but Pagon's latest retrieval mission has come up empty.
In London, the EU heads of state and the Prime Minister have called an emergency summit. Rhodey attends as envoy for the United States. As they interrogate him about the attack in Moscow, Rhodey blanket-denies all of their allegations and insists that right now, the US has no further interest in cooperating with them until there's solid proof of US involvement in the attack. After the summit, Rhodey gets a call from Fury and agrees to meet him at a tavern for drinks.
Fury admits to Rhodey that he and Hill were actively trying to stop Gravik, which does nothing to pacify Rhodey. When Fury explains that the attackers are Skrulls, Rhodey admits he's well aware of who they are, having been briefed about them 15 years prior in a classified meeting. While Rhodey is for bringing in the Avengers, Fury feels that's too risky since the Skrulls could impersonate them and frame them for acts of terrorism. Fury would rather fight the Skrulls by himself, but he'd like Rhodey's support. To his dismay, Rhodey refuses, and instead fires him. Fury doesn't take this sitting down, reminding Rhodey, "I'm Nick Fury. Even when I'm out, I'm in". However, once outside the tavern, he sits down on a park bench and has a panic attack.
In Moscow, Sonya Falsworth visits an FSB black site hidden in the back of a butcher shop, where Brogan is being interrogated. She takes over the interview, dismissing the FSB agents. She begins by cutting off a finger from Brogan's right hand with a pair of pliers, which reverts to Skrull form. Brogan tries his best to resist Sonya's efforts to break him, just like he had the FSB interrogators, but he ultimately cracks when she injects him with a chemical that burns his blood. Under pressure, he confesses that Gravik is using a couple called the Daltons to build a machine to make certain Skrulls stronger.
In New Skrullos, G'iah continues snooping around to find out more about the Daltons' work. She gets on a computer and types Rosa Dalton's name in. To her shock, the Daltons have been obtaining DNA samples from various enhanced individuals and extraterrestrial creatures who've been to Earth in recent years, including a beast from Jotunheim, samples from Groot, Cull Obsidian's severed hand, and even Extremis vials. She's forced to hide her work when Gravik enters the room, and convinces him she was actually looking up Beto's file to see if he was ready to do some wetwork. Gravik scoffs at G'iah's claim that Beto is clearly "loyal", and insinuates that when G'iah first came to him, he was firmly convinced that her father sent her to spy on him. While G'iah doesn't retaliate, she can barely suppress her rage over Gravik calling her father a coward. The conversation changes as Gravik reveals that Brogan has been found, so they need to go pick him up.
Gravik, Pagon, Beto, and G'iah travel to the black site. Gravik and Pagon take some guns from the trunk and shoot their way into the shop, killing the FSB agents standing guard. As they do so, G'iah dismisses herself from the car on the pretense of checking around the back. In actuality, her reason for slipping out is to make a phone call to an unknown party. Gravik and Pagon eventually break into the freezer where Brogan has been interrogated, by which point Sonya has fled through a secret tunnel in the floor. They grab Brogan, who admits that he told them nothing more than a bunch of lies. However, Gravik is convinced Brogan isn't being honest with him, as when they're returning to their safe house, they find police crawling all over it (strongly implied to have been who G'iah was contacting). So instead they drive into the woods to a location just outside New Skrullos. Here, Gravik hands Pagon a gun, who removes Brogan from the car, walks him a few feet away, and shoots him in the head.
In England, Fury grabs a car from a secret storage facility, and drives to a country house where we see a female Skrull chopping vegetables in the kitchen. Fury walks in and meets the Skrull, who has taken on the form of a black woman. She tells him he's forgetting something. At this, Fury steps out of the kitchen, returning with a wedding ring, which he then puts on his finger before kissing her, as Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness" plays.
Cast[]
Starring[]
- Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
- Ben Mendelsohn as Talos
- Kingsley Ben-Adir as Gravik
- Charlayne Woodard as Priscilla Fury
- Killian Scott as Pagon
- Samuel Adewunmi as Beto
- Christopher McDonald as Chris Stearns
- Katie Finneran as Rosa
- Emilia Clarke as G'iah
- Olivia Colman as Sonya Falsworth
- Don Cheadle as Rhodey
Special Guest Star[]
Guest Starring[]
- Irmena Chichikova as Kreega
- Saverio Buono as Italian Prime Minister
- Ventsislav Yankov as FSB Commander
- Seeta Indrani as Shirley Sagar
- Alex Romashov as Russian Soldier #1
- Christopher Goh as Jack Hyun-Bin
- Giampiero Judica as NATO. Sec. Gen. Caspani
- Vladimir Kolishkin as Butcher
- Ben Peel as John Brogan
- Nina Anderson as British Reporter
- Chiraz Aïch as French President
- Anna Madeley as Pamela Lawton
- Michael Epp as Ruben Steiner
- Mark Bazeley as Victor Dalton
- Paul Huntley-Thomas as Business News Anchor
- Luke J I Smith as Skrull Guard
- Michael Amariah as British Newscaster
- Augustina Seymour as Staffer #1
- Irena Tyshyna as Fashionable Woman
- Juliet Stevenson as Mariah Hill's Mum
- Alex Skarbek as FSB Commander #2
- Lucas Persaud as Young Gravik
- Charlotte Baker as Soren
- Kate Braithwaite as Skrull Soren
Trivia[]
- This episode marks the first appearance of Fury's wife who was first mentioned in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Gallery[]
External links[]
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