Diksha Sundriyal
The fourth season of Prime Video’s ‘Invincible‘ ends with Mark’s return to Earth as he and the others prepare for a Viltrumite attack. The previous episode ended with Nolan, Mark, and Thaedus destroying Viltrum, leaving Thragg and about 40 other Viltrumites adrift without a home. Mark suspects that they have gone to Earth, which makes sense on a number of fronts. So, he and Nolan return to Earth as quickly as possible. However, what they find isn’t what they had expected, and for now, it seems to be for the best. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Mark is Haunted by the Possibility of a Viltrumite Attack
The finale opens with Thragg and the Viltrumites attacking the Earth. They destroy cities, bring a tsunami, and lay waste to whatever stands in their way. Or at least, that’s what Mark thinks is happening on Earth, while they are still several days away from home. Nolan tells him that there is no point thinking about that because it’s not going to help anyway. When Zoe asks what they’ll do once they are back on Earth, since they still don’t have any way to defeat their seemingly invincible enemy, Mark and Nolan have no answer. In fact, they are so lost in their own thoughts that they don’t hear when she presents a plan. Finally, they enter the solar system, and with only ten minutes left to reach the Earth, Nolan comes up with a plan.
Since they don’t know what to expect, he thinks that they should place the ship behind the Moon and take a look around. If they find a sign of Viltrumites being present on Earth, they will immediately send a signal back to Talescria for help. Mark, however, has other plans. He immediately flies back and is shocked to discover that there is no carnage. It seems that the Viltrumites aren’t on Earth. Or at least, not yet. That should be relieving, but it only makes Mark more worried. He returns home to meet Debbie, updating her on Oliver’s situation. While they are talking, Thragg shows up and crushes Debbie’s skull. Or that’s what Mark imagines would happen. A very much alive Debbie shakes him back to reality.
He leaves to see Eve, while Debbie is left with Nolan at her door. She chides him for letting Oliver get hurt and leaving him on an alien planet several light-years away. He tries to assure her that Oliver is in the best hands. He also asks her to give him a second chance to prove that he has changed. While she doesn’t seem ready for it now, he knows she will because she ardently believes in rehabilitation and second chances. For now, however, she doesn’t. Later, she talks it out with Paul, with whom she seems to have broken up sometime in the past few months. The break seems to have been mutual and amicable, because they are still good friends. Paul is also concerned about Oliver, but he points out that Debbie can always visit her son, wherever he is.
Allen Takes Over the Coalition of Planets
Nolan returns to the place where he almost beat Mark to death in Season 1. Cecil visits him, though he prefers to maintain his distance. Nolan assures him that he is there to make up for his mistakes and save Earth from the Viltrumite attack that is clearly on the cards. Hearing that there are about 40 Viltrumites out there, ready to attack Earth at any moment, does not give Cecil any comfort, especially when Nolan reveals that it will take the cavalry from the Coalition of Planets two weeks to reach Earth. Meanwhile, Mark reunites with Eve, who reveals that her powers are back. Mark fills her in on all the details, confessing that he is not doing well.
Later, while talking with his friends and walking around town, he has another vision of Anissa killing every single person in front of him. His friends bring him back to reality, but clearly, Mark is suffering from PTSD. On Telascria, Allen succeeds Thaedus, but the task of giving orders turns out to be much more difficult than following them. He has a meeting with the coalition where everyone has just one question on their mind: where are the Viltrumites? When Allen tries to assure them that he has people looking for the enemies, the coalition members emphasize how important it is to wipe out the Viltrumites completely.
Their casual talk of genocide does not sit well with Allen, especially when they bring up what happened to his people. He tells them that he will find the Viltrumites, but when that happens, he will decide what to do with them. Back on Earth, Cecil meets Mark and asks him to do a debriefing. But then, Mark, once again, has a vision of Thragg killing Cecil, and the panic attack makes Cecil take a step back. On Mark’s request, he decides to help him find a therapist to deal with his trauma, while pushing the debriefing to a later time. Later, Mark and Eve have another conversation. She tells him she knows what happened to her powers.
Eve Tells Mark the Truth About Her Pregnancy
Before Eve can tell him further, he has another vision of Thragg appearing out of nowhere and killing Eve, mocking Mark for thinking there would be no consequences for his action. Eve’s calls bring him back to reality, and when he confirms he is fine, she tells him she got an abortion. It turns out the pregnancy caused some changes in her body, which is why her powers stopped working. While Mark processes the fact that he almost became a father, Eve confesses that she found out about the pregnancy right before he left. She didn’t tell him about it because she wanted him to focus entirely on his own survival out there. However, as time passed and he didn’t return, she felt utterly alone and incapable of handling a pregnancy by herself.
So, she decided to abort it. Mark is devastated to discover that she went through all this himself and wishes he were there with her. It keeps nagging at him that he wasn’t on Earth when she needed him, and what makes it worse is that he knows there is a good possibility that this will happen again. Eve assures him that she, too, has thought through such situations. She has faced deep loss, so she knows what grief feels like, but that is no excuse not to live the life they have together. Her words calm her down, and the conversation ends when Nolan shows up at the door. With no sign of the Viltrumites, Nolan believes it’s time for him to return to Talescria to be with Oliver.
In case the Viltrumites come to the Earth, he has helped Cecil develop a system that will warn them as soon as the Viltrumites enter the solar system. This is not enough, but for now, it will have to do. As he is about to leave, Debbie shows up. Nolan thinks she is about to get angry at him for coming to her house, but she has other plans. She has already packed her bag and is ready to join him on his trip to Telascria. Her son is injured and needs her help. She would have done it for Mark, and she is doing it for Oliver now. It surprises everyone a bit, but it makes sense given how fiercely Debbie loves her children. She and Nolan bid a surprised Mark and Eve goodbye.
Mark Receives a Shocking Visit
With the entire house empty, Mark sits alone in his room. Seeing that he is going to spiral if he continues like this, Eve advises him to go flying, believing that this will make him feel better. As he flies over the Earth, he starts to see Eve’s point. It really does make him feel a little better. But then, he sees Thragg again. At first, Mark thinks this is just another hallucination brought upon by his trauma, but when he opens his eyes again, Thragg is still right in front of him. Deciding to end the fight then and there, Mark hits him with all he’s got, but of course, it has no effect on Thragg. After letting Mark have a couple of punches, the Viltrumite leader tells him to stop. He is not there to fight, but to talk.
It turns out that Mark was right. The Viltrumites did come directly to Earth, but not with the intention of destroying it, though Thragg makes it clear that he and his people could tear Earth in half if they wanted to. The thing is that when Thragg took the throne, he wanted to rebuild the Viltrumite empire, but now, with only a handful of them left, he is not left with a lot of options. He could continue the fight and might even win for now, but in the long run, the Viltrumites would have lost. The only way to ensure their survival now is for them to find a way to reproduce and increase their numbers. Mark is living proof that humans are great for that purpose, and that’s why Thragg brought his people to Earth.
What is Thragg’s Offer? Does Mark Accept It?
Thragg’s plan is for the Viltrumites to live on Earth in secrecy. They have already started to mingle, living as humans, mixing up with them, and producing children to increase their numbers. And they will continue to do so without creating a fuss. They will never interfere in any of Earth’s affairs, nor will they try to influence any event. No one has to know they are even there. In return, they will live peacefully, and Mark never has to see Thragg again. At first, Mark doesn’t like the idea of Viltrumites walking the Earth alongside humans. The whole idea was to wipe them out, but if they make Earth their breeding grounds, they will soon reinstate their numbers and try to rule over the universe again.
All of Mark’s instincts tell him not to let the Viltrumites stay on Earth. But then, the other option is to let war rage, leading to the deaths of billions of people, including his loved ones, like Eve. So, to protect them, he decides to accept the offer. When he laments what he has done, Thragg tells him that he has saved billions of lives. Clearly, this is for the best, at least under the present circumstances, and Mark has no choice but to accept it. In the post-credits scene, Allen receives a final message from Thragg, where he discovers that his predecessor refined the scourge virus. He didn’t use it because he feared that it would attack others with a similar genetic make-up, like half-Viltrumites and humans. However, if push comes to shove, he advises Allen to use the virus and wipe out the Viltrumites, as it was intended.
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