The Book of Rannells: Invincible: Season 2, Episode 5 – “This Must Come as a Shock” (2024)

*Spoilers for episode 4.*

I’m watching it all together, but season 2 originally aired with a months-long hiatus in the middle. This was the first episode back after the intense, bloody fourth installment. Personally, I don’t think it quite hits as an anticipated follow-up to that one, although it gains momentum as it goes.

In episode 4, the Viltrumites come for Nolan, raining hell down on the planet where he’s been living since leaving Earth. Despite his anger at his dad, Mark helps to fight them for the sake of the innocent aliens who’ve gotten caught up in this. Nolan is brutalized within an inch of his life and taken back to Viltrum. Now, Mark is back on Earth with a little surprise: his half-brother, who Nolan fathered while he was away. As Mark tries to pick up the pieces of his dad’s mess yet again, a major disaster is headed for Earth.

I’d say Mark and Debbie are handling all of this about as well as can be expected—which, really, isn’t all that well. Debbie, who hadn’t even known if Nolan was still alive, gets slapped in the face with the realization that he started a new family, and now she has to figure out how to take care of her murderous ex’s alien toddler. And because Mark’s “quick trip” to space wound up being two months, all kinds of trouble has piled up for him at home: he’s on academic probation at school, he missed being there for Amber through some tough stuff, and it looks like he may be heading for a power struggle with Cecil.

By the way, in the midst of everything she’s going through right now, Debbie manages a bit of top-shelf shade against Nolan in this exchange:

MARK: “He’s my brother, I can’t just abandon him!”

DEBBIE: “You must get it from my side of the family.”

Debbie Grayson, nothing but net!

The first half of the episode is pretty character-driven and talky, but the action gears up in the second half. There’s more than one big threat going on here. The biggest calls back to a loose thread from season 1, when Mark was sent on a mission to Mars to rescue some human astronauts. An unresolved issue from that mission has come calling in a massive way, and Mark and Eve need to team up with Martian-in-disguise Shapesmith, along with the particular Guardians who won’t be susceptible to the deadly foe that’s coming for them.

Another episode where William is in just one short scene, so not much Andrew Rannells again. He’s pleased but startled when Mark reappears at college after his long absence, and he’s the one to break the news that Mark is on thin ice with the dean. When Mark protests that William had promised to cover for him, William replies, “I did! For a while. Two months, Mark—that’s more excuses than anyone can make up!”