This should go without saying, but there are spoilers ahead, lots of them. If you haven't seen the finale of Secret Invasion or any other MCU 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Disney Plus show and you don't want them spoiled, stop reading here and come back when you're all caught up.
Now that's out of the way, what the hell is up with the MCU’s season finales? Secret Invasion is finally over and while it wasn't the best thing Marvel has done, there was a point halfway through the season 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:when I pleaded with people to st💯ick with it. I sincerely apologize to anyon꧂e who jump🍬ed back in based on my recommendation.
If you're familiar with the Secret Invasion comic, then you already know how badly the MCU fumbled its adaptation. Samuel L. Jackson pissed off back to space, claiming he wanted his wife to come with him but only inviting her when she showed up at the last second, and even though there’s now a Super-Skrull who possesses the powers of every Avenger, I’ve got a feeling the MCU will carry on as if this show never happened. Kind of like it has with Eternals. A celestial burst out of the Earth's core and its corpse is just lying there in the ocean, but the only mention so far is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it easter egg in She-Hulk.
Before I rallied around and tried to get everyone to watch Secret Invasion, I should have considered the MCU finales that have come before. She-Hulk might be the worst offender, and I'm not even one of those people who pretended they hate the show because it 🐭had a female lead. In fact, I loved She-Hulk, but the finale let me down. I know a cornerstone of She-Hulk is breaking the fourth wall, but the stuff with Kevin Feige leaned too far into appeasing terminally online fans. Let’s face it, your average moviegoer doesn’t know who the hell Feige is. Not to mention yet another moment Marvel will conveniently forget, the introduction of Hulk's son, Skaar. Remember him? No, Marvel doesn't either.
Hawkeye almost nailed it. It told a terrific side story that didn't have a big effect on the MCU as a whole, so no need to make excuses for where the rest of the Avengers are or ignore the body of a world-ending giant lying in the sea. However, Hawkeye’s finale was guilty of something that has really been bugging me🌠 lat🍬ely in the MCU: it killed off a terrific villain.
Even worse than the deaths of Gorr and Killmonger, Hawkeye gave us back Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin and then took him away again. You know a villain's good when their death hits you just as hard as a hero's. Yes, I know he'll probably be back, but I don't like that either. The amount of people coming back from the dead in the MCU has made death itself feel like a minor inconvenience. I swear to Arishem, if Tony Stark's Iron Man is ever brought back, I may well tap out.
Killing great villains isn’t the MCU’s biggest problem with finales. The thing that has spoiled almost all of the MCU's Disney Plus endings is a focus on what's next. A reminder that the finale isn't really the finale, and that's why it might be something Marvel is never able to truly nail, at least not consistently.
Take Ms. Marvel, ano🌳ther show I thoroughly enjoyed right up until the end. Rather than wrap things up, the final episode felt run-of-the-mill until the final few seconds when Kamala switched places with Captain Marvel. A great moment, but 🌺not only was it the final few seconds of an otherwise humdrum finale, it was an unwelcome reminder that the entire series was just a means of getting to something else, in this case, The Marvels.
Even though Moon Knight wasn't just a TV show advertising a movie, it did something similar. Another finale that didn't blow me away until the final scene when Marc and Steven's third alter ego Jake revealed himself…. which does little more than tease the second season that’s who knows how long away given that the MCU has god knows how many projects on the line-up. It’s something Marvel has been guilty of for a while now. Relying on a single moment right at the end of a project, sometimes even as late as the credits, to carry the entire thing. It might work for movies, giving people something to excitedly talk about as they leave the cinema, but it doesn’t work for TV shows.
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WandaVision came incredibly close to nailing the formula at the first time of asking. An amazing show that only fell flat towards the end because it moved away from the setup that made it so popular. Had it stuck to what made it special during those initial episodes, and the whole show had taken place inside the isolated world of Westview, it may well have pulled it off. The only time the MCU has hit a season finale out of the park was when it did exactly that with Loki.
Most of Loki takes place inside the TVA and on timelines untouched by the rest of the MCU. It’s a perfect stage on which to tell a story that doesn't have to affect anything else and doesn’t require additional viewing before or after. Even though it introduced Kang in its finale, I didn't wonder what all this means for the wider MCU and what I need to watch next as the credits rolled. I didn’t even crave a second season, 168澳洲♛幸运5开奖网:although I’m happy we’re getting one. That’s what more of Marvel’s Disney Plus shows need to be. No half an eye on a side project it’s trying to connect with, no need to watch every other minute of the MCU to understand what's going on. Just good quality shows telling great stories. With so much good TV on right now, if Disney wants to keep doing this, its future MCU shows can't be anything less.