RIOTUS

It’s been a wild season for Mark Grayson/Invincible (Steven Yeun)—alien invasions, a return of some old enemies, a battle to the death against a mighty Viltrumite warrior, and then a faceoff against the remnants of Viltrum itself. Wow. Let’s dig in!

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR INVINCIBLE SEASON 4
MAKE SURE YOU’VE WATCHED BEFORE PROCEEDING

First, let’s back up a bit and review all the wild things that happened this season. We watched:

• A battle against the human-possessing Sequids, forcing Mark to kill an innocent who was their prime host, as well as fighting a mutated man named Dinosaurus;
• A bit about Nolan’s (J.K. Simmons) brutal upbringing on Viltrum, including his rite of passage (a vicious beating by his parents), along with the revelation that kindly Thaedus (Peter Cullen) was in fact the Betrayer who enacted a genocide on Viltrum (his own people no less), after which Nolan and the others seek out allies for a war against the few surviving Viltrumites;
• A turf war against gang boss Titan (Mahershala Ali) leads to Oliver (Christian Convery) and Mark fighting the dragon Mister Liu (Tzi Ma), while the Guardians of the Globe battle the returning alien Flaxans, losing Rudy (Ross Marquand) and Monster Girl (Grey DeLisle) on the other side of a collapsing portal—oh, and Mark’s girlfriend Samantha/Atom Eve (Gillian Jacobs) learns she’s pregnant;
• Damien Darkblood (Clancy Brown) summons Invincible to Hell (it’s a real place) and tells him its history: demons have fought for millennia to protect the world from monsters called the Vile who would destroy all life, so Invincible has to work with the devil (literally) to restore his power and keep the Vile imprisoned, though Darkblood returns to Earth to find out why Volcanikka (leader of the Vile, voiced by Indira Varma) was so riled up;
• Mark and Oliver go with Nolan to join the Coalition forces, along with Tech Jacket (Zoey Deutch), the alien Space Racer (who has an unstoppable weapon, voiced by Winston Duke), and Battle Beast (Michael Dorn), but before they can make it back, they are ambushed by Conquest (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and a few Viltrumites—Mark is disemboweled but manages to kill Conquest, before a months-long convalescence on an alien world (quick note: it’s a fun inversion on a moment from The Walking Dead, where Morgan’s character Negan killed Yeun’s character Glenn);
• The Viltrumite War begins once Mark, Nolan, and Oliver reunite with Thaedus, Allen the Alien (Seth Rogan) and the others on Talescria (where Nolan met Oliver’s mother), where Grand Regent Thragg (Lee Pace) and the Viltrumites are making a first strike to kill Thaedus; the Viltrumite attack fails and Thaedus chooses to pursue them back to Viltrum, hoping to surprise them; but…
• “Oh no, they were ready for that!” happens when the Coalition walks into a trap—and although several Viltrumites are killed, the battle is going badly for the Coalition, until Nolan, Mark and Thaedus literally rip Viltrum apart from the inside; left without a world, Thragg and the remaining Viltrumites disappear, after Thragg brutally kills Thaedus.

In “Don’t Leave Me Hanging Here,” the season finale of Season 4 of Invincible, the good guys have just defeated Thragg’s Viltrumites. But victory seems hollow as the enemy vanished in the aftermath of their world’s destruction.

Mark is convinced that they’re going to Earth.

Hurrying home, heroic teen Tech Jacket tries to keep up their spirits but both Mark and Nolan are preoccupied by visions of worldwide annihilation. Once home, however, things are… utterly normal. Mark heads home to find his mom Debbie (Sandra Oh) has split amicably from her boyfriend Paul (Cliff Curtis), only to see her torn apart moments later by Thragg… which proves to be a horrifying hallucination.

The waking nightmares persist as he reconnects with Samantha, who has major news for him about her erratic powers. (It turns out she had an abortion during his lengthy absence from Earth, feeling she was unready to be a mom on her own.) He listens… but then screams at seeing Thragg dismember her too. It’s another hallucination, along with imagining his college quad strewn with bloody bodies.

Meanwhile, Nolan talks with Cecil Stedman (Walton Goggins) about the war, sharing the news that the Viltrumites vanished. Cecil doesn’t take that well; he rages that Nolan put Earth directly in the crosshairs of vengeful supermen that Earth can’t hope to stop. Nolan, dismayed, sets up an alarm system around Earth and then heads to Talescria to be with the badly injured Oliver—only to find Debbie insists on going with him, persuaded by Paul that she can go into space because that’s who she is: Oliver’s devoted stepmom.

When Mark and Samantha finally have a chance to talk, she understands the post-traumatic stress he’s suffering and encourages him to fly around and see what he’s protected. He does… and sees Thragg floating before him.

It’s not a hallucination.

Attacking the unbeatable Viltrumite, Mark is shocked to find that Thragg is not inclined to kill him.

Instead, Thragg offers a deal: the remaining Viltrumites will live on Earth, posing as humans like Nolan did. They will interbreed with humans, restoring a semblance of their race, without interference from Mark, Nolan, or the Coalition; Mark cannot tell anyone where they are or what they’re doing. In return, Thragg’s people will not interfere with or harm the Earth in any way, so long as they are left undiscovered. The alternative, of course, is that Thragg’s handful destroy the planet, starting with mankind.

Do they have a deal?

Mark agonizes. He’s not ready to make this bargain on behalf of Earth… and yet the alternative is unthinkable. He knows Thragg can (and would) make good on his threat. So he agrees. He will keep their secret from everyone so long as the truce holds. Thragg flies off, saying Mark will not see him again. Mark is left floating above a nameless mountain range, wondering what he’s done.

In the mid-credits scene, Allen—now the ruler of the Coalition with the death of Thaedus—gets a message from beyond the grave. Thaedus tells him he’s developed a “perfected” version of the Scourge virus that obliterated the Viltrumite race… and he wants Allen to use it, even if it kills genetically similar species like, oh, humanity. It’s in Allen’s hands now.

Which brings us to this episode.

What a story it’s been. Yeun and Jacobs have been stellar as Mark and Samantha, navigating huge emotional ups and downs, while Simmons and Oh are truly wonderful as a couple broken by unforgivable betrayal and hurt. (Worth noting is that Thaedus’ Peter Cullen, a masterful voice actor, is better known as Optimus Prime from The Transformers. But seriously, look at the cast list for this show, it’s unbelievable.)

What will happen next? Who knows? But Season Five is in the works. We’ll have to wait a year or so to see if Rudy and Monster Girl get home, if the truce with Thragg endures, and so many other things. But we’ll be there.