‘Invincible’ Season 4 review: Moving from strength to strength

Picking up where season 3 left off with the battle royale between Mark/Invincible (Steven Yeun) and the all powerful Viltrumite, Conquest (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Season 4 looks at the physical and mental cost of fights to the death… of people and planets.

We learn some of Mark’s Viltrumite father Nolan’s (J.K. Simmons) backstory. Nolan’s growing up was most definitely not clouds and puppies. As a young Viltrumite, he had to undergo a brutal initiation to prove himself an adult. After the Scourge virus decimated the Viltrumites, the super-powered beings have been conquering planets with a view to breeding themselves back to strength.

Nolan has seen the error of his ways and wishes to make reparation for the horrible things he has done. Naturally no one is willing to believe him or welcome him with open arms, including his wife and Mark’s mother, Debbie (Sandra Oh), and Cecil (Walton Goggins) the director of the Global Defense Agency, the secret organisation responsible for all things superhero.

Nolan’s tentative reaching out to Debbie is one of the strengths of the show (“I am a 1,000 years old but 20 years with you made me human”). Debbie’s tentative foray into the dating world is met with bittersweet reactions from Mark and his step-brother Oliver (Christian Convery). Mark and Eve (Gillian Jacobs) have to make grown up decisions, including meeting Eve’s decidedly frosty parents, all while the fate of the world as we know it is in the hands of a few very angry and very powerful Viltrumites.

A still from ‘Invincible’ Season 4
| Photo Credit:
Prime Video

Oliver is another fascinating character. Idolising his father, Nolan, he is crushed to hear what Nolan says about his mother, even after Nolan assures him that he did not mean it quite like that.

Conquest escapes and heads off to Viltrum to tell the Grand Regent Thragg (Lee Pace) of his failure to eliminate Mark. A coalition of planets, headed by Thaedus (Peter Cullen), gathers to defeat the Viltrumites.

Thragg is breathing fire and brimstone and wants to avenge the death of Emperor Argall (Frank Welker), who seems a particularly nasty specimen from all the available information. The Viltrumites are on the lookout for the Betrayer — the one who developed the Scourge virus to wipe them out.

Allen the Alien (Seth Rogen) provides much of the humour, including telling the coalition that he does not appreciate their “angriness and blame-ness” after they tell him they do not appreciate his “flippant-ness”.

A still from ‘Invincible’ Season 4
| Photo Credit:
Prime Video

Humour-wise, there is also Volcanikka (Indira Varma) grandly telling Damien Darkblood (Clancy Brown), “Tell Satan I am the Great Beast now and he is nothing.” Satan (Bruce Campbell), incidentally, looks quite cuddly.

The finale ups the stakes further, with Mark having to make a heartbreaking deal, and Debbie and Nolan heading off on an intergalactic trip to discover themselves and check on Oliver. The post-credit sequence shows Allen receiving a message from beyond the grave and having to make a decision that will have terrible consequences for human beings.

The voice work is exemplary and the animation kinetic. With Invincible conceived as an eight-season arc, we are at the halfway mark, setting things up nicely for the seasons to follow.

Invincible is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video