The Ending Of Invincible Season 2 Part 1 Explained
Amazon Prime debuted its adaptation of Robert Kirkman's "Invincible" comics in 2021 and proved that there's still some life left in superhero stories, even ones that are two decades old. The story follows Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun), a high school senior who inherits everything from flight to super strength to, well, invincibility from his alien father Nolan aka Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons). Mark wants to become a great superhero like his father, but at the end of Season 1, he learns that Omni-Man is really a Viltrumite tasked with taking over the planet.
"Invincible" Season 2 sees Mark struggling to come to terms with the truth about Omni-Man while he and his mother, Debbie (Sandra Oh), grieve the loss of the man they thought was a loving father and husband. In typical "Invincible" fashion, all that emotional drama comes with a healthy dose of space travel, interdimensional portals, and heaps of cartoon violence. The first half of the season races through a ton of plotlines before finishing on a wild cliffhanger that could change the face of the world as we know it (again). The ending of "Invincible" Season 2's first half — the second half is set to premiere in 2024 — leaves Mark in a precarious position that's perfectly set up to make the second half the most exciting part of the series to date.
What you need to remember about the plot of Invincible Season 2
"Invincible" Season 2 starts with a peek at an alternate reality. In this world, Mark sided with his father, Omni-Man, and helped take over the Earth. The planet is decimated, and the few people who are still trying to resist the Viltrumites are hunted down and brutally murdered by the father-son duo. This peek is like an "Invincible" version of Marvel's "What If...?" series. It also serves as an introduction for Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown).
Angstrom has the ability to open portals to other dimensions, and he's in the process of building a machine that will merge every version of himself into one super being that has the knowledge necessary to create a utopia on multiple Earths. Back in the standard "Invincible" reality, Mark is still reeling from what happened at the end of Season 1, and he agrees to work for Cecil (Walton Goggins) to assuage his guilt. One of Cecil's jobs leads Mark into a confrontation with the Mauler Twins (Kevin Michael Richardson), and the ensuing fight destroys Angstrom's machine and leaves his mind fractured between different versions of reality.
While all of this is going on, the rest of the world is also trying to move on from the Omni-Man incident. The Guardians of the Globe are struggling to get their mojo back while saving the planet from various catastrophes. Mark's friends are getting ready to start their college careers, and his mother Debbie is dealing with the loss of her husband.
What happened at the end of Part 1
The first four episodes of "Invincible" Season 2 cover a lot of ground, but this first part of the season ends in an entirely different place than it began. After Mark's collision with the Mauler Twins, Angstrom Levy's story is left in the dust, but longtime fans of the "Invincible" comics know that he'll eventually be returning in a big way.
The season shifts to focus primarily on events taking place in outer space. Allen the Alien (Seth Rogen) returns to the Coalition and tells them about Mark, who could be an important ally in the Coalition's ongoing fight against the Viltrumites. Unfortunately, the Coalition has seemingly been infiltrated by a Viltrumite double agent, and Allen finds his life and his adopted homeworld at risk. He gets attacked by Viltrumites, and as he begins to recover from the brutal encounter, Mark finds himself on a space adventure of his very own.
An insect-like alien comes to Earth to ask Mark for help saving a planet with billions of inhabitants. Mark agrees and takes off for the stars, but when he arrives on the planet, he discovers that Omni-Man has been living there since he left Earth six months ago. Omni-Man reveals that he married a woman in the world and had a son with her. He tells Mark that he's changed and asks for help fighting the Viltrumites. They attack the planet and nearly kill Mark and his father. Omni-Man is taken off-world, and the Viltrumites order Mark to prepare Earth for their invasion.
What does Debbie's decision mean for the future?
Debbie is really going through it this season. She was married to Omni-Man for 20 years, and she never had the slightest inkling that he was really on Earth to dominate the planet. At the end of Season 1, she had to listen to Nolan call her a pet and watch him murder thousands before nearly beating their son to death.
Throughout Season 2, Debbie is torn between grief and rage. She's disgusted by the things she witnessed Omni-Man doing, but she still misses the Nolan that she knew for two decades. She tries to join an anonymous grieving group for spouses of deceased superheroes, but that blows up in her face when she realizes that Omni-Man murdered heroes and caused other people to be in that group alongside her.
Debbie's attempts to heal don't seem to get her anywhere, but she makes a surprising decision at the end of the season that could set her life on a new course. Cecil has been supporting the Graysons by passing along money from Nolan's books, and Debbie decides to start refusing the money because she doesn't want to feel like the family owes Cecil. Now that she's truly separated from the superhero world, Debbie might actually be able to start healing. And now that Cecil isn't supporting the family, Mark might have more leeway to become his own hero.
Did Mark's brother survive the Viltrumite attack?
On Thraxa, Nolan introduces Mark to his wife Andressa (Rhea Seehorn) and their infant child. He explains that the Viltrumites have strict rules about who they're allowed to partner with, and any beings that aren't humanoid are strictly forbidden. If the Viltrumites find Omni-Man's Thraxan family, they'll kill Andressa and the baby.
When the Viltrumites first attack the planet, Mark tries to hide Andressa and her son in a nearby cave. They end up being discovered, but before anything too terrible happens, Omni-Man swoops in and stabs the attacking Viltrumite through the chest. Unfortunately, that Viltrumite survives Omni-Man's attack and comes back at the end of the episode to put an end to Mark and his father.
The episode doesn't check back in on Mark's little brother, but it's safe to assume that he's still alive for two reasons. In the show, we've clearly been shown that the Viltrumites are driven by power and anger more than logic. As the battle on Thraxa rages on, their focus becomes entirely centered on beating Mark and Omni-Man, and they likely forget about Andressa and her baby. Outside of the show, comic fans once again have some deeper insight here. "Invincible" has more or less followed the comic book storyline up to this point, and assuming that the show isn't going to suddenly buck that trend, we know that Mark's brother has quite the story ahead of him.
Is Mark trapped on Thraxa?
The first half of "Invincible" Season 2 leaves Mark in a pretty bad spot. As the episode "It's Been a While" comes to a close, Mark is bloody and beaten, laying on Thraxan ground as he watches his father get carted away by Viltrumites. His only stroke of luck is that he's still alive, but much like Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man at the end of "Avengers: Infinity War," Mark is trapped a long way from home with no clear path back.
Unlike Iron Man, Mark's abilities aren't limited by the need for some kind of power supply. Omni-Man flew to Thraxa from Earth, and there's no reason Mark can't try to do the same thing. He almost left the planet, but his father warned him that finding his way back to Earth would be a serious challenge and the travel time would be significantly increased without a Thraxan ship.
All that means Mark has two different ways he might be able to get back to Earth. If there are any Thraxan ships still intact, they could take him back home, but Mark would probably also need to find a surviving Thraxan to pilot the ship. Otherwise, Mark will be stuck flying back home on his own, which could potentially take him months or even years if he gets lost along the way. Whatever path he takes back, he's likely going to have his little brother as a plus-one for the journey.
Why didn't the Viltrumites kill Omni-Man?
Even after a season and a half of "Invincible," we know very little about the Viltrumites and their empire. We've learned that they conquered huge portions of the galaxy, and we know that Mark's father was one of their top officers because he was sent to take over Earth all by himself. We also know that the Viltrumites only became supremely powerful after killing all the weakest members of their own species. They're a brutal and power-hungry civilization, and they believe that weakness should always lead to death.
That makes their choice not to kill Omni-Man at the end of "It's Been a While" seem more than a bit strange. Omni-Man betrayed the empire, abandoned his post, fathered an illegal son, and killed several other Viltrumites while defending Thraxa. You'd imagine that after finally beating him in combat, the remaining Viltrumites would have delighted in smashing his head to bits.
The severity of Omni-Man's treason is actually what ends up saving him. Earlier in the season, we learned from Allen's report to the Coalition that no one has ever seen a Viltrumite turn against the empire. Omni-Man's change of heart threatens the integrity of the entire empire, so the Viltrumites can't just kill him. They need to take him back to their homeworld and make a terrible example out of him.
Why didn't the Viltrumites kill Mark?
When you look at the big picture, it makes sense for the Viltrumites to — temporarily — keep Omni-Man alive, but their decision to leave Mark alive is a bit more confusing. At the end of "It's Been a While," Gen. Kregg (Clancy Brown) tells Mark that he needs to return to Earth and prepare the planet for the Viltrumite invasion. He also threatens to kill countless humans if the planet doesn't stand down when the Viltrumites arrive.
Kregg seems to genuinely think that there's still a chance to sway Mark to the Viltrumite cause. Since Mark's father is the first Viltrumite to ever betray the empire, Kregg still doesn't understand what caused Omni-Man's change. He doesn't fully appreciate the part of Mark that's human, and that leads him to underestimate Mark's commitment to the planet, his friends, and his family. His threat is just a bit of extra insurance to sway Mark.
The Viltrumites probably should have killed Mark. We've already seen from Allen how Mark's very existence has the potential to rally more fighters against the Viltrumites. Mark may not have the strength of an entire Viltrumite army, but he still has the potential to be a thorn in their side. The future of "Invincible" just might prove that Gen. Kregg made a fatal mistake when he left Mark on Thraxa.
What has Robert Kirkman said about the rest of Season 2?
When "Invincible" first premiered, the name Robert Kirkman probably still sounded familiar to newcomers. Kirkman is the creative force behind "The Walking Dead," and he started writing the "Invincible" comics long before his zombie series was first in print. Now he's a writer and executive producer for the Amazon series, and his comments about the series have shed some light on what we can expect to see after the end of Season 2.
"I look at it like it's a second draft or revision," Kirkman told The Playlist when asked about his approach to the "Invincible" TV series. He acknowledged that this time through the story he's able to more easily set up moments that happen later in the series, and he's been able to make some small adjustments to certain lines and characters that make them fit more easily into the story as it exists today.
So we can't take the comics at face value, and what happened to Mark after the Thraxa event nearly 20 years ago might not play out the same way today. On the other hand, it sounds like Mark's story is going to follow the same trajectory as it did in the comics. "There have been little things with lines of dialogue and things that I've been able to throw in," Kirkman said, "that harken to our eventual ending place that I think is enhancing the story." The journey might see some changes, but it looks like TV Mark is, for the most part, headed for the same ending as his comic book counterpart.
What has Simon Racioppa said about Invincible Season 2?
Simon Racioppa is a longtime TV writer who works as the showrunner for "Invincible." In an interview with Temple of Geek, Racioppa opened up about the themes of the series and how they evolve alongside Mark's mentality. According to Racioppa, Season 1 was all about Mark wanting to become his father, and that journey reached a dramatic conclusion when Omni-Man turned out to be a terrible murderer. "To me, the kind of logical next theme that we sort of talked about was, 'Okay, you wanted to be your dad your entire life. What if that happens now? ... What if you're fated to become him?'"
Throughout Season 2 we see Mark struggling to prove that he's not his father, and even when other people believe him, Mark seems to be constantly doubting himself. The ending of Season 2 Part 1 has forced Mark to once again view his father in a new light. Omni-Man is still a murderer, but now Mark has seen that he not only deeply regrets what he did on Earth but also that he's changed as a person.
It's likely that the second half of the season will delve deep into how Mark processes that information. He may or may not lose that fear of becoming Omni-Man, but he'll almost definitely start to find a new path to follow. So far the biggest moments in "Invincible" have really been about Omni-Man, but as he breaks from his father, Mark can really start to take center stage.
What's next for Invincible?
The first half of "Invincible" Season 2 had an ending just as dramatic as Season 1's finale. Waiting for more of the story to be unveiled is going to be torturous for fans, but at least they know that there's plenty more coming. The second half of the season airs in early 2024, and a few months between parts of a season is nothing compared to the two and a half years that separated Season 1 and Season 2.
The second half of Season 2 is sure to be packed with plot. The Angstrom Levy storyline will undoubtedly continue, so the season will spend at least some of its time building to one of the most dramatic incidents in the "Invincible" comics. At the same time, Mark will need to spend his time getting ready for the return of Gen. Kregg and the Viltrumite invasion of Earth.
There's almost no way that both of those stories will be resolved by the time that Season 2 ends. The good news is that before the ending of Season 2 Part 1, the cast of "Invincible" had already finished recording their lines for Season 3. The stage is set for multiple epic storylines, and Season 2 could very well end on a cliffhanger, so fans should be prepared for a roller coaster of emotions.