The Season 2 finale of Invincible left Mark Grayson a new person, forcing the young hero to focus on self-discipline and momentarily shift away from his life as Invincible. Fans have eagerly awaited the arrival of the show’s third season on Feb. 6, with expectations as high as they’ve ever been. Despite these high bars, Invincible exceeds itself delivering an amazing season with nuanced writing, strong character development, incredible voice acting and a phenomenal finale of its own.
One of the best parts of this season was the overarching story about morality that is present during nearly every episode in many different ways. This theme is introduced in the first episode, “You’re Not Laughing Now,” when returning villain Doc Seismic is able to capture every superhero in the U.S. except for Invincible and Atom Eve. When they aren’t enough to stop Doc Seismic; the director of the Global Defence Agency (GDA), Cecil Stedman, resorts to using reanimated soldiers and former hero Darkwing to shut Seismic down. However, these reanimated soldiers were created by former villain D.A. Sinclair who would originally kidnap people to create them. Darkwing was forced to stop fighting crime because he was killing people in the process.
Cecil brought the two former villains into GDA to reform them and use them for good, believing people with such power cannot be wasted when trying to protect the planet, which we get more insight in the following episode. Mark disagrees with this, claiming it’s wrong to work with murderers and they need to pay for their crimes by being put in prison. In this moral battle, Mark is viewing things in black and white and representing the idea of “doing the right thing.” On the other hand, Cecil represents the opposite by making decisions that would be described as morally gray and representing the idea of “the ends justify the means.” Cecil later has a quote that perfectly paints this moral dilemma where he says, “we can be the good guys, or we can be the guys that save the world. We can’t be both.”
The show developed many characters this season through new moments or relationships. The most prominent character that experiences this is Rex Splode, who rebuilds a team after splitting from the guardians and grows close with those he cares about most. Rex truly goes from one of the most disliked characters when he was introduced in Season 1 to now being a fan favorite that regrets of how he mistreated people in the past like Atom Eve and Dupli-Kate.
We also see character development through flashbacks, notably about Cecil and giving further explanation on why he acts in the way he does. We are shown that Cecil previously worked for the GDA in a smaller role and nearly died protecting citizens from two villains. Later on, it is shown that the GDA reformed the two villains he stopped as they came to help Cecil and previous GDA director Radcliffe. At this time, Cecil too believed in the “doing the right thing” mentality, leading him to killing the two reformed criminals after they saved Cecil and Radcliffe from an attack by the Lizard League. Cecil was arrested and spent his time in prison reforming heinous villains. After a couple months, Radcliffe visited and shared he’d be stepping down and viewed Cecil as the best man to take the job. This shows the growth that Cecil has had as a character and puts even more weight on the quote he shared with Mark about not being able to be “the good guys” and “the guys that save the world.”
Fans were also treated to a multitude of big name actors voicing characters this season, such as Aaron Paul, Simu Liu, Xolo Marideaña and more. All of these actors did a wonderful job giving a voice to these characters and it showed that Amazon is willing to throw some extra money towards the show. However, that money could’ve been spent elsewhere, leading to only one complaint about this season.
Many people have mentioned it as the season went on, but the only consistent complaint has going for it is the animation. Throughout the first six of eight episodes this season, the animation isn’t up to par, especially compared to the first season. Considering that Amazon is funding the show, there isn’t an excuse as to why the animation has gotten worse compared to the prior seasons. If time is the issue, it’d be much better to give animators more time to come out with a smoother and better-looking product. Seeing the true potential of the animation in the last two episodes of the season had fans wishing the same level of animation could’ve been there all-season long. While it isn’t a deal breaker, it’s odd and disappointing that a show of such popularity as well as capability to be funded practically as much as they need, doesn’t result in consistently masterful animation.
While the poor animation isn’t constantly there, the times where the animation was great was stunning, such as in the last two episodes of the season. The last two episodes, especially the finale, were some of the most action-packed episodes of any show produced in a while. Mark and the other heroes are truly tested and the show delivers on packing in as much as they could without making it feel very rushed. In fact, the season finale, “I Thought You’d Never Shut Up,” blew away fans to the point that it received a 9.9 rating on IMDb, making it one of only 21 episodes to ever receive that score or higher.
This show only continues to elevate itself time and time again. While it’s unfortunate the animation isn’t as good as it could be, the show is still an absolute must-watch, Season 3 of Invincible gets a 9 out of 10.
