Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for the Invincible Season 2 finale.
The Big Picture
Angstrom forces Mark into a brutal multiverse trial due to his trauma and rage.
Mark unleashes his Viltrumite strength against Angstrom, struggling with his actions.
Future Guardians help Mark return home after a devastating battle, setting up Season 3.
Invincible Season 2 has formally come to a close with the Season 2 Part 2 finale, which finds Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun), aka the superhero Invincible, once again confronted by the deranged Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown), a superhuman with the power to open portals to multiple dimensions and realities.
Earlier in the season, a previous run-in with Invincible shattered Angstrom’s mind, physically deforming his body and causing severe mental damage. Angstrom’s memories also merged with the alternate versions of himself that he brought to the current reality to work on his machine. The experience left Angstrom traumatized and obsessed with revenge against Invincible, which brings the second season to a brutal, shocking, and dramatic ending.
Invincible
Invincible is an adult animated superhero series that revolves around 17-year-old Mark Grayson, who’s just like every other guy his age — except his father is the most powerful superhero on the planet, Omni-Man. But as Mark develops powers of his own, he discovers his father’s legacy may not be as heroic as it seems.
Release Date March 25, 2021
Creator Robert Kirkman
Seasons 2
Developer Simon Racioppa
Streaming Service(s) Prime Video
It’s Across the… ‘Invincible’-Verse(?) in the Season 2 Finale
Holding Invincible responsible for his current predicament, Angstrom Levy—already knowing Mark’s true identity—goes to Mark and Debbie’s (Sandra Oh) home and takes Mark’s infant half-brother, Oliver, hostage. Consumed with rage and an unquenchable thirst for vengeance, Angstrom transports Invincible across multiple alternate dimensions and realities, forcing Oliver to endure various trials and tribulations. Mark pleads with Angstrom to leave his family alone as Debbie tries to get through to Angstrom, explaining how her son (in this reality) is the good guy, while Angstrom is the villain. Unfortunately, this only enrages Angstrom further, and he brutally breaks her arm. The trauma of Angstrom’s memories of his original dimension makes it impossible for him to distinguish between the different versions of Invincible.
In one dimension, Invincible has to avoid intelligent, carnivorous talking dinosaurs, and in another, he encounters exported characters meant to resemble Spider-Man and Doc Ock (in the original comic version, Invincible’s trip across the multiverse led to a stop in the Marvel 616 universe and a crossover with Spider-Man, as well as a character—who we can assume from Mark’s comments—is Batman). Eventually, Angstrom sends Mark to a post-apocalyptic wasteland for their last battle. While Angstrom has gained super strength, he’s still not strong enough to beat Invincible. Angstrom’s actions finally push Mark over the edge, and he unleashes all his Viltrumite-based super strength, beating Angstrom to a literal pulp in a blind rage. Once Mark stops and realizes what’s happened, he’s in total shock at what he’s just done, mournfully saying, “I thought you were stronger!”
Mark Has a Run-in With the Guardians of the Globe in the ‘Invincible’ Season 2 Finale
With Angstrom seemingly dead, Mark is stranded in the current wasteland dimension with no way to return home. Thankfully, he’s not left stranded for long, as he’s visited by the Guardians of the Globe. Eventually, the heroes are able to pinpoint the dimension in which Mark was lost and use a time travel device to send him home. The future that the Guardians came from without Invincible is catastrophic, but Robot (Zachary Quinto) warns him about timestream disruption. Before Mark can return home, the older Atom Eve (Gillian Jacobs) confesses that she has always loved Mark, and she was emotionally devastated to lose him in her timeline. She requests that Mark tell Atom Eve in his original timeline how he truly feels so she can move on with her life.
When Mark returns home, he reunites with his mother, who is recovering at a government facility thanks to help from Cecil Stedman (Walton Goggins). Cecil later consoles Mark, who fears that killing Angstrom means that he’s becoming more like his father, who caused massive devastation on Earth in the first season.
Later, The Immortal (Ross Marquand) takes a sabbatical up north as he mourns the recent loss of his girlfriend, Katherine Cha, aka Dupli-Kate (Malese Jow). After returning to the cabin where he’s staying, Dupli-Kate reveals that she’s been alive the entire time. While everyone thought Dupli-Kate died against the Lizard League, Kate’s original version was in hiding as a safety precaution. She was ready to walk away from her job as a superhero for good, but her love for The Immortal led her to spill her secret to him; The Immortal embraces Kate, joyful over her return and that she’s still alive.
The ‘Invincible’ Season 2 Finale Leaves Behind Emotional Scars
After the incident with Angstrom Levy, Debbie and Mark are healing physically while their home is being repaired, but their emotional wounds have taken a heavy toll. Mark admits to his mother that he’s quitting college, as he no longer sees the point in it. The recent events finally cause Mark to break down, feeling that if he doesn’t become better as a hero, he will lose control of his rage again and commit the unspeakable atrocities that his father did in Season 1.
Later, Mark flies to meet Atom Eve alone on a bridge, who has been brought up to speed on what happened to him and informs him that she’ll always be there if he needs a shoulder to cry on. Now that Mark knows the truth about Eve’s feelings for him, it appears that he’s about to share that he knows how she feels, but he just can’t bring himself to divulge the truth. However, the two share an intimate scene, demonstrating their growing closeness as characters, as Eve comforts Mark after his emotional ordeal with Angstrom.
Related We’re Here for Allen the Alien’s Glow-Up in ‘Invincible’ Season 2 Allen is not playing around with his upgrades.
In the finale’s epilogue, Nolan Grayson (J.K. Simmons) is still imprisoned aboard a Viltrumite command ship awaiting his execution. However, he finds an unlikely ally in the valiant and heroic alien, Allen (Seth Rogen), who speaks to Nolan telepathically while sitting in a neighboring prison cell. Allen was purposefully taken prisoner aboard the ship to find Nolan and break him out in order to join the Coalition of Planets’ resistance against the Viltrumite Empire. Allen tries to convince him to help the Resistance against the Viltrumites, but afterward, Nolan confesses that he misses his wife, Debbie.
What’s Ahead for Season 3 of ‘Invincible’?
Image via Prime Video
Season 2 of Invincible was quite the emotional rollercoaster for Mark Grayson and the supporting cast. With his college life not what he hoped it would be, and any hopes of a relationship with Amber (Zazie Beetz) or a “normal” life broken, Mark has been left emotionally shattered. His guilt and emotional trauma are understandable because, at his core, he’s a genuinely good, compassionate person who doesn’t wish to kill or harm anyone, even those who bring it upon themselves.
The stage is now set for a massive Season 3, as Earth could soon face multiple alien invasions from both the Viltrumites and the Sequids. One Sequid creature did manage to survive the fight earlier in the season, possessing the astronaut, Rus Livingston (Ben Schwartz), after he returned to Earth. Even after all the villains that he’s faced and the tribulations he’s endured, Mark’s life as Invincible won’t be smooth sailing anytime soon. However, Mark’s father, Nolan, seems to have reached a significant emotional breakthrough, and his path to redemption appears well underway. The good news is that Invincible has already been renewed for a third season, and the wait will not be as long as the one for Season 2.
Invincible is available to watch on Prime Video in the U.S.
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