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post atom eve special and season 2 thoughts

INVINCIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!!! if you don't wanna be spoiled, don't read!!

okay.

okay okay okay OKAY.

oh my god this show is insane. debbie is everything to me. i was so genuinely upset when she and oliver were in danger that i felt sick. she is such an incredible character and the writers have done her immense justice. she's a wife and a mother and that doesn't stop her from being strong, it actually makes her stronger. her relationship with mark is so incredible and the symbolism of their matching black eyes was impeccable. they've both been hurt in similar ways, by nolan and by angstrom. they're marked by their trauma, but they share the weight together.

oliver is a delight and mark's instant desire to care for him and protect him was so wholesome and wonderful! he was willing to drop everything to care for his little brother and that, more than anything, makes him human and so very, very loving. at least nolan was willing to acknowledge that oliver is blameless in everything.

and nolan..... jesus. probably some of the most insane character development i've ever witnessed. he is so nature versus nurture, and he's become human through his twenty years on earth. maybe debbie feels like those years were for nothing, but there's proof that they had a profound impact on nolan and how he views life. he is, by all accounts and purposes, no longer a viltrumite. he's human. it's a pretty classic trope (the evil alien finds humanity redeemable and discovers that their "inferior" lives are just as valuable as the alien's), but invincible doesn't make this trope feel tired. it feels compelling and powerful, because we have a clear picture of the stakes. anissa and the other viltrumites make that very clear.

anissa herself serves her purpose: she's there to be a reminder of why mark and the coalition are fighting back against the viltrumite empire. she's fast, she's strong, and she completely lacks any form of compassion or empathy. mark barely holds his own against her, which is incredibly powerful after watching mark face off against the sequids and all the other big bads of this season. i really, really hope the show finds a way to avoid her assault of mark because i see no positive gains from that storyline. mark has already been through the wringer too many times over. there's no point in making him suffer further.

speaking of, mark in this season brought me to tears more than once. he is trying so damn hard to be nothing like his father. he's trying to be a good boyfriend to amber. he's trying to be a good friend, a good student, a good son, a good brother. the odds are continually stacked against him and yet he never gives up. he is so very human and his story is so, so heartbreaking. all three of the graysons have their fair share of trauma after this season, but i feel like mark's is somehow the worst. you have to remember that he's only eighteen when all of this happens. he's just barely not a kid, and he's pretty far from being an adult. his brain's not even fully developed yet, and he has to defend an entire planet from the psychotic race of aliens that he shares DNA with. he suffers so much. just give the kid a damn break, cecil. he needs a hug. and therapy.

the parallels between nolan and debbie were incredible. the song choices, the montage of them traveling aimlessly, both of them coming so close to killing themselves... my jaw was on the floor. even mark had a moment of suicidal ideation in the eighth episode, and that through line for all three of the graysons was so well done.

eve. eve is my perfect darling love and she has never, ever done anything wrong in her life. the special was so tragic and while the animation was stunning (those fight scenes alone were jaw-dropping), the true high point of it, for me, was the way it handled the found family trope. this trope is a personal favorite of mine, and it was a real treat to see it given the weight and power it deserves, with a terribly tragic twist. "you killed people i didn't even know i loved" is insane. eve changing her broken family portrait to instead depict all of her deceased family members so clearly was SO powerful. that girl has been through so much, and her special supplemented her character development in a way that she so deserves.

all in all, i am destroyed. i am in shambles. the writing in this show is next-level. there's things i didn't mention in the post that were utterly spectacular (the multiverse references, angstrom levy, rex's development, rick and donald's stories about bodily autonomy, kate and immortal) and of course are deserving of praise, but i am just so impressed with the way the graysons have been handled. it's rare that a family feels so strong and fleshed out not just as a unit but as individuals as well, and all three of them carry so much narrative weight in a way that makes it clear they're forever connected.

i can't wait to see what insanity season three brings. stay invincible everyone.

Your are your normal, boring self. Today, however, you’ve been abducted by the government to interrogate a super villain from another dimension - Yourself!