Marvel's Secret Invasion Director Breaks Down Episode 1 Cliffhanger

Marvel's Secret Invasion has finally arrived on Disney+, seeing Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury make his return to the MCU after spending quite a bit of time hanging out in space since the events of Avengers: Endgame. And he's come home to a good, old-fashioned alien invasion.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Episode 1 of Secret Invasion.

The Skrulls, who were first introduced in Captain Marvel, have secretly invaded our planet, disguising themselves as humans. While some are living peacefully, others look to wipe out humans to control the planet for themselves. Naturally, Fury and his crew, including fellow MCU veteran Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) and the returning Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), are looking to stop it.

Unfortunately, in war, there are practically always casualties, and two familiar faces paid the price in the first episode--though both deaths were a bit suspicious.

Firstly, early in the episode, we see the death of Everett Ross (Martin Freeman), who is revealed to be a Skrull. Of course, that leaves us wondering how long the Skrull version of Ross has been here and what happened to the human version.

Secondly, the much more impactful death is that of Maria Hill. While working with Fury and Talos to track a bomb through a crowded city center, Hill realized that the team had been set up to fail, only to then be shot to death by Fury--or so she thought. It was actually a Skrull--series villain Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir)--who pulled the trigger. However, it remains to be seen whether Hill realizes Fury didn't take the shot before she passes.

This death, obviously, is a major one for Marvel. Smulders first appeared as Maria Hill in the original Avengers movie. All told, she's been in six MCU films, plus a handful of TV appearances in the role, most recently reprising her character's voice on a 2023 episode of Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.

Still, even with her long tenure in the franchise, the character's death was business as usual for Smulders. Speaking to GameSpot about the day the scene was filmed, director Ali Selim had nothing but wonderful things to say about the actress.

"She's [a] consummate professional who comes to work with a smile on her face, and you say, 'You're dying today.' And she says, 'Okay, great. Where do you want me to die?' So it's not, I mean, she just wants it to be emotionally true," he explained. "The moment that she is impacted, and realizes what she realizes at the end of Episode 1--I don't think there's any sense from her of why. Why does this make sense in the MCU? It just makes sense in this story. And, you know, the decision that she was hit by a bullet happened long before I came on. So it was really, again, just a matter of making it emotionally true for the story. And for that moment."

Is she really dead, though? That's the question fans will certainly be asking themselves for the remainder of the series. After all, we've all figured Nick Fury was dead at least once or twice since he debuted in Iron Man. How he remains alive and well. With how nonchalant Smulders evidently was about filming her character's death, maybe she knows more than we do about Hill's future.

Whatever the case, that was a major card to play in the first episode of Secret Invasion. It certainly sets a tone to expect more surprises going forward.

Secret Invasion episodes release Wednesdays on Disney+.