This Missive, This Machination!

This episode mostly felt like the last episode, where the main story moves at a snail's pace (which isn't that bad), and I'm not gonna say they're fillers, but I think the main plot is gonna be on a roll from the next episode.

This episode had it all again, the brutal and gory fights, the funny moments, the emotional scenes, the twist ending, and you can't have an Invincible episode without a weird baffling dialogue between a couple, in which the girl in the relationship drops some baffling reasoning for her weird behaviors.

It seems like now that they made Amber more likable (which I still feel zero chemistry between her and Mark) and are trying so hard to make her likable and have her approve of Mark's decisions this season, which I have no doubt it's to please the fans, they had to make another girl annoying to fill up the vacuum I guess? I'm not sure why the added conflicts and drama between the members of Guardians of the Globe are necessary. I guess they have to have something to have a subplot for them, but surely they can do better than these weird and contrived conflicts? I mean I guess Rex and Dupli-kate were like this from the beginning and they're always gonna have drama to make up for some conflict, but it kinda feels artificial and the writing for them doesn't feel super well-done.

Anyway, that weak part aside, the episode is pretty nice and the pacing is decent too considering it has less action than the previous episode.

I think it's nice what they're doing with Mark's mom's arc and showing how she's dealing with all that stuff. But I'm not sure what the end goal with her storyline is or what it's gonna lead to. It's a nice little character study regardless and it's nice to see they develop side characters as well as Mark and not make it feel overwhelming or hurt the pacing of the story.

The story with Allen is pretty good too and I thought the whole episode was gonna be dedicated to him, but I'm glad it wasn't all him even though it was a nice story anyway. I wish they showed this part in season 1 and established his character sooner, but we'll have to wait to see how it's gonna coincide with Mark's storyline again.

Overall I think it was a pretty good episode and the ending made it even better and makes me excited for the next episodes.