‘Secret Invasion’ Director Ali Selim Dissects the Season Finale and Reacts to the Mixed Reviews

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Marvels Secret Invasion, now streaming on Disney+.

Marvels Secret Invasion, a six-episode event series on Disney+, ended Wednesday with a 37-minute finale that wrapped up the MCUs first standalone story focused on Samuel L. Jacksons Nick Fury.

Ali Selim, an executive producer, directed all six episodes of the show, which adapted a popular Marvel Comics run that plays on the audiences paranoia. Secret Invasion asks what if the characters you thought you knew and loved were instead alien invaders a.k.a. Skrulls, an alien race introduced in 2019s Captain Marvel posing as them? Then, as the shows tagline wonders, Who do you trust?

Ahead of Secret Invasions premiere episode, Selim told Variety that if he, like the Skrulls, could shape-shift into any Marvel character, hed like to become Nick Fury. As the architect behind the Avengers initiative, Jacksons character has loomed large over the MCU since he first appeared in the post-credits scene for 2008s Iron Man, but his backstory has largely gone unexplored. Thus, Selims aims for the spy thriller were simple: He hoped to present Furys perplexing and resonant inner life.

While the series seems to have accomplished that goal by introducing Furys wife Priscilla (Charlayne Woodard), who was revealed to be a Skrull operative named Varra, for example other aspects have proven less popular (i.e. the shows A.I.-generated opening credits sequence, designed by Method Studios to underline the shows shape-shifting plot, but divided fans on social media.) Though Selim was open to all critiques, reporters were instructed not to ask about A.I. in the interviews conducted Wednesday after the episode aired.

The tightly-packed finale focuses on the last stand of the great Nick Fury, a phrase that Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) the shows villain and the leader of the Skrull rebellion bellows when the two men face off one last time. Its a moment that plays for high drama as Fury attempts to squelch the uprising with the help of MI6 agent Sonya Falsworth (Olivia Colman), Varra and Giah (Emilia Clarke), daughter of Furys closest Skrull ally Talos (Ben Mendelsohn).

Their mission: find a way to separate U.S. President Ritson (Dermot Mulroney) from his closest adviser, Colonel James Rhodey Rhodes (Don Cheadle, playing a Skrull named Raava, who has been posing as the man also known as War Machine for an undisclosed amount of time) and stop the commander in chief from bombing a camp of Skrull refugees in Russia, which could start a world war.

The first part of the plan sees Fury and Sonya retrieve The Harvest, a collection of the Avengers DNA from their world-saving faceoff in 2019s Avengers: Endgame, when superhuman blood spilled all over the battle field. It turns out that Gravik was among the team Fury sent to collect the specimens, and he wanted to use it to create a race of Super Skrulls. For part two of the plan, Fury will deliver that vial which, most importantly, contains Captain Marvels blood to Gravik.

When Gravik turns on the machine designed to infuse him (and an ailing Fury) with the superpowers, he quickly realizes hes been outsmarted via a carefully planned bait-and-switch, and he must fight Giah for Super Skrull supremacy. During the high-flying battle, the two superbeings demonstrate various Avengers skills (including those of Groot, the Hulk, Mantis, Drax, Thanos and his Black Order), with Giah delivering the fatal blow by using Captain Marvels energy.

Meanwhile, the real Nick Fury corners President Ritson at the hospital where hes recovering from the rebel Skrulls attack on his convoy in Episode 4, and convinces him that Rhodey is, in fact, in league with Gravik and theyre using him to take over the world. A tense stand-off ends with Raava/Rhodey taking a bullet to the purple brain, revealing to the president that Skrulls have infiltrated the highest levels of government.

The fallout is swift President Ritson declares war on all extraterrestrial beings, inciting widespread violence and forcing the Skrulls deeper into hiding. The move also brings Giah (who now appears to be the MCUs most powerful being) into an alliance with Sonya in order to protect her fellow refugees.

Emilia Clarke as Giah in Marvel Studios Secret Invasion. Gareth Gatrell The episode ends with Fury heading back to the space station on S.A.B.E.R., resuming his mission to find the Skrulls a new home. As he reunites with Varra, he mentions the chance for renewed peace talks with their Kree enemies, setting the stage for The Marvels, which hits theaters in November.

On Wednesday afternoon, Selim joined Variety via Zoom from his home in Portland, Oregon to discuss the finales big reveals and his future in the MCU.

Now that the series finale has aired, how would you describe Secret Invasions overall message? Is there a particular scene from the finale that underlines that for you?

The theme that interested me in these scripts and in this story was the theme of other. How do we confront the other in our neighborhood? How do we confront the other in ourselves? How do we reconcile love that doesnt seem to fit into a socially acceptable box? Sam Jackson and I had a lot of conversations about that; Kingsley Ben-Adir and I had a lot of conversations about that.

Ultimately, the scene that I pushed for and really enjoyed is when Nick Fury kisses Varra at the end. That is releasing the sense of other in himself that has been a constraint or a prejudice. Its opening up the world to conversation, if not all out love and embracing. Its the very last scene of the series, and it really feels like thats what its about.

Is this the season finale or series finale what is the language?

Oh, yeah, I would say season finale. Who knows, right?

Have you heard about Season 2? What do you know?

I dont know anything about Season 2. I think theres some great threads that could be run down. But is there a Season 2? I have no idea.

Audiences have gotten conditioned to this idea of the super-sized season finale, but Secret Invasions episodes got shorter as the show went along. What was the vision for that?

Vision is a really big word, and I appreciate your using it, but its really just practical exploration and the practical evolution of a story. Its written one way; actors start performing it and it becomes something slightly different; and when you start filming the performances, it becomes something slightly different; and then when you go to edit it, you realign yourself.

I dont mean to make it practical film school stuff, but ultimately, you just watch the cuts, and you say, Thats too long. Thats unfocused. Looked good on the page, sounded good on the set, not helping our story at this point. And theres also some sense of ramping up to an explosive ending which to my mind means you go faster, not bigger and bloatier.

That honestly makes sense. But that has been one of the questions thats been floated online a critique, if you will is why make this a TV series versus a movie? Was a movie framework ever discussed? Maybe a TV movie like Werewolf by Night?

Thats a great question. By the time I came on board, scripts were written, and we were talking about six episodes. So, I dont know. I do know that some point along the way Armor Wars shifted from a series to a movie for various reasons that I dont know.

What have you made of the reaction to the series overall? Because reviews have been mixed.

Oh, I dont read reviews. With all due respect. For me, I view all the storytelling work I do as a dialogue with an audience. When the show is finished and put up on the screen, thats my half of the dialogue. And the audience then starts their half of the response to it. I think thats valuable, but I dont know. I dont know how to answer the question.

I dont feel bad about mixed reviews. If you had unanimously good reviews, every movie would gross $10 billion, trillion dollars, right? [Projects] resonate with different people at different times for different reasons, and Marvel has a very devoted even rabid fan base who have expectations and when their expectations arent fulfilled, they move in the other direction; they give it a thumbs down.

I dont know is it our job to fulfill their expectations? Or to tell the story that were telling? So, its a tricky thing. I would love it if everybody loved it, but I also dont have that expectation myself, so I feel great about the response to it.

Its a different story than Marvel has ever really told. Lets dive into some of the actual plot points of the finale. One of the highlights was the massive showdown between Giah and Gravik whose powers have been enhanced by the Avengers DNA. What will you remember about working with Emilia and Kingsley on that fight scene?

Its interesting theyre both stellar actors who bring a lot of electricity and, in most instances, in very quiet ways. Im deeply moved by some of the subtlest choices that Emilia Clarke makes. I think she could do no wrong.

When you get to a heavily choreographed fight scene or bombing sequence or an ambush sequence, its just kind of fun, right? Its actors being like, OK, I dont have to bring it today. I just have to be a 12-year-old swinging from a rope. So, theres a lot of fun in those moments and theres a lot of danger. But its not as emotionally significant or emotionally resonant as the quiet moment in Episode 5 where she and Nick Fury discussed Talos death.

The fight sequences become mathematical, mechanical, precise. Did we get it? Yes. Move on. It comes together later in edit, and then you congratulate your mathematics and your mechanics; you dont congratulate the emotional resonance.

I will ask you a nerdier question about that scene. This seems to be introducing Giahs Super Skrull as Marvels new most powerful being. How was it decided which Avengers powers she was going to get to show off?

Well, simply put, it comes from Kevin Feige, who says, Its all fair game. Thats best expressed in the moment when Gravik takes the vial from Nick Fury, puts it in the computer where it is analyzed, and we see all the pure superpowers ever. Thats like the moment where were like, OK, this is going to be something.

We storyboard those sequences for month. I had two storyboard artists working on it Aaron Sows in L.A., whos a Marvel fanatic, and Ian McCaffrey in Dublin, Ireland, who is a little more of a choreographer and less involved in the MCU. And together, the two of them found a rhythm between superpowers that had meaning and superpowers that had choreography and elegance. Then those storyboards go to stunts, and stunts work out that some of those movements are impossible to do. And then it goes to visual effects [who] say, I know this is what we planned, but it looks funny, so lets maybe go from this arm to a different arm, because we want it to be more elegant.

So, the decisions are Kevin Feige, then story and then just practicality.

Don Cheadle as James Rhodey Rhodes in Marvel Studios SECRET INVASION, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Des Willie. 2023 MARVEL. Des Willie Tell me about Don Cheadle playing Raava and Rhodey. Its mentioned that Col. Rhodes has been held captive for a long time. Was the hospital gown hes wearing when Rhodey is rescued a hint that the Skrulls kidnapped him after his spinal cord injury in Captain America: Civil War?

Yep.

What was it like working with Don on developing the deviations between Raava and Rhodey as he played them both?

A lot of that is Don Cheadles brilliant sense of logic, specificity and acting prowess.

The Raava thing was just simply, there was a point in the beginning where we were designing the Skrulls and we made the comment Would a Skrull pick a human that had its facial features? If I looked a little bit like this as a Skrull, why would I go into hiding and find a human like that looked kind of like me? So, we deviated from that and said, what we have to do is really show that, in a lot of instances, these people are hiding out in a human shell, and theyre going to pick a completely different race, a different age, and why not a different gender? Why couldnt a female Skrull become a male [human]? And thats where that came from lets just be smart about how theyre going into hiding.

From there, it was Don Cheadle [filling in] the details of what that would mean to him. Hes brilliant.

Do you have another MCU project youd want to direct?

Honestly, I worked on the show for 28 months and right now Im just thinking about lunch and maybe a bike ride or something like that. But I was deeply moved working with Olivia Colman and Emilia Clarke, and this thing thats left dangling at the end of sixth [episode] is really inspiring to me. So, well see where it goes.

This interview was edited and condensed.