r/Invincible • u/mwthecool Omni-Mod • Nov 17 '23

Invincible [Episode Discussion] - S02E03 - This Missive, This Machination! EPISODE DISCUSSION

Episode 3 - This Missive, This Machination!

Mark starts his college career, Debbie struggles with personal trauma, and Allen the Alien returns home to find a new threat facing the Coalition of Planets.

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1.8k

u/bobw123 Nov 17 '23

I know they are Viltrumites but man they put 0 effort into trying to get information out of Allen

1.0k

u/mmcintoshmerc_88 Battle Beast Nov 17 '23

Viltrumite's, it turns out are not great at interrogation. Makes me laugh picturing one of them as a detective and saying "Alright! What were you doing at the docks that night when-oh uhh chief, yeah I uhhh squashed another head. Yeah, sorry."

162

u/Theoldage2147 Nov 17 '23

Reminds me of when I'm playing an RPG game where a mission requires me to be sneaky or interrogate enemies to get information but I rather just kill them all cus I can just do that easily and still finish. That's how the viltrumites view it, they're so strong they can just destroy anything and bypass any need for diplomacy, stealth and side quests.

12

u/cancerinos Nov 18 '23

They're so used to winning by force, they haven't developed other skills.

9

u/DoktorLuciferWong Nov 18 '23

All 140 trillion stat points into strength

4

u/tayroarsmash Nov 18 '23

I always enter stealth missions in good faith then someone sees me and I have to go blasting again.

2

u/RIPLimbaughandScalia Nov 23 '23

There's a character in Magic the Gathering faced with this kind of scenario, and he openly says to his face "Power makes you stupid."

That guy rages a bit but then says "How?"

"You're so strong that you've never needed to solve any problem any other way than with your strength. Were I to best you, I would need to be smart or cunning, something other than outright conflict, because otherwise, you would win. But you don't. Because you're that strong... Which makes you stupid."

1

u/TheGoblinounours Nov 19 '23

Or, in some cases, they missed lunch and they're hungry.

1

u/AttitudeAndEffort3 Nov 21 '23

This is sooooo spot on lmao

77

u/zoon_politikon_ Brit Nov 17 '23

"If you refuse I will kill you. Please, refuse."

29

u/MSochist Anissa Nov 17 '23

"You have no idea how much I wanted you to say that."

21

u/eightNote Nov 17 '23

Nolan did well enough

"he has to really believe you're going to drop him"

Grabs the guy from mark, then drops him

"See, now he'll tell me everything"

2

u/Geno0wl Nov 20 '23

Nolan spent 20 years on earth and picked up tricks from there.

1

u/JustALittleGravitas Nov 21 '23

Nolan clearly took lessons from Darkwing.

14

u/HappyStalker Nov 17 '23

You’d think a race of people who spend up to 500 years integrating one planet would have a little more patience to get what they want from one guy.

13

u/MrBranchh Nov 17 '23

"WHERE ARE THEY?" *slams head onto table* "TALK"

7

u/Sexylizardwoman Nov 17 '23

I would definitely be intimidated if a interrogator slammed his head onto a table

5

u/pseudo_nemesis Nov 19 '23

You never go for the head first... the victim gets all fuzzy.

8

u/TreeTurtle_852 Nov 17 '23

Vilttumites after decimating someone's spine and organs: TALK

6

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '23 edited Nov 17 '23

"Well ya sees boss, he said he wasn't telling us nuthin!"

"Did you try to convince him otherwise?"

"Well... not very hard. But we did. And then we ripped his head off."

"Well I cant stay mad at you youve already done everything I thought of."

3

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23 edited Nov 18 '23

"I barely touched the guy!"

"Bruh his head is in another zip code"

"I'll bring it back and reattach it!"

"You're lucky he's a species where that actually works this time."

2

u/Antedelopean Nov 17 '23

Viltrumites are just murderhobos on super steroids, confirmed.

417

u/Jack1066 Nov 17 '23

I'm a bit confused how Allen was even alive the first time he got beaten by the Viltrumites (in his background story)? They don't seem like the people to leave someone half dead, or maybe they couldn't gauge how durable he was and just thought that was enough to kill him?

Either way, these viltrumites do not seem geared for anything but war. I know their purge got rid of anyone 'weak', but does that mean it got rid of anyone who didn't just think the exact same way?

328

u/AreMoron Nov 17 '23

They left him half dead this time too

284

u/finnjakefionnacake Nov 17 '23

tbf i think anyone would have assumed that was the end of him lol

6

u/tarraxadraws Nov 19 '23

I certainly did, that scene was gory af, I thought it was about it (I didn't read the comics)

4

u/TheGoblinounours Nov 19 '23

Over the past few years, I've seen quick comics snippets online suggesting Allen will be a regular, and that scene still had me thinking "Woah, he's dead for sure!"

I mean, props to alien tech if they can patch up Allen's arm, which has been ripped off. That's gonna feel weird for a while. Let's not even mention the eye, OOF.

7

u/pseudo_nemesis Nov 19 '23

don't forget the gaping hole in his chest leaving his guts floating in the vacuum of space!

alien science ain't so bad.

1

u/TheGoblinounours Nov 19 '23

Yeah, they might as well say that they're giving him some of Piccolo's cells.

5

u/Shantotto11 Nov 20 '23

I mean, if The Boys taught me anything, it’s that you can just say “fuck it” to the source material and somehow make something better out of it.

2

u/TheGoblinounours Nov 20 '23

I guess, yeah. But naaah, no way they're killing-off Allen the Alien. He's too good of a character.

The main thing I'm impatient to see if the whole deal with the Great Thaedus seemingly being threatened into being the mole. Either that, or he's a red-herring and Telia (who I've JUST learned is voiced by Tatiana Maslany who was playing She-Hulk in the MCU) is the real mole.

2

u/Great_Huckleberry709 Feb 02 '24

This is why I love this show so much. You have J Jonah Jameson, She Hulk, Optimus Prime, and Seth Rogan all in the same show lol.

3

u/TheGoblinounours Feb 05 '24

Seth Rogen? Don't you mean... Donkey Kong? ):D

3

u/Gasster1212 Nov 19 '23

I did too

This show kills people all the time , it felt like we’d seen the end of him and his final narrative purpose was to introduce us to the council or whatever and that lady who I assumed was taking his place

22

u/2SP00KY4ME Nov 17 '23

Yeah but in that flashback he basically just has a bloody nose. Here they eviscerated his entire midsection and punched out his eye.

139

u/SatinySquid_695 Nov 17 '23

Imagine punching somebody and they travel a few miles before making a crater. Who really has time to track his trajectory and investigate?

26

u/tristenjpl Nov 17 '23

People who can fly faster than light probably.

29

u/SatinySquid_695 Nov 17 '23

But they could be flying somewhere else faster than light instead to do something more important

17

u/tristenjpl Nov 17 '23

"Hey, should we go make sure that dude is actually dead? It would take us a fraction of a second, and it's not like time matters to us since we literally live for thousands of years."

"Nah, we got Viltrumite things to do."

36

u/_Xertz_ Nov 17 '23

For me I thought of it like:

If I'm walking and I find an ant on my shirt and I smack it off

Why would I bother checking if it's dead? 99% chance it is, and if not, meh.

1

u/eightNote Nov 17 '23

The also have to understand whether the alien is dead or not

14

u/AllinForBadgers Nov 17 '23

He’s a bug compared to them. They literally don’t care if he lives or dies because it makes no difference

2

u/zach0011 Nov 17 '23

Lol and all of Star wars started because the empire cheaped out on ammo. Sometimes ya just gotta except the little.plot contrivances

2

u/virgilhall Nov 17 '23

They checked and Allen had no life signs?

2

u/22bebo Nov 18 '23

The best part is that the "Viltrumite things" they have to go do are probably the same thing, just beating the shit out of someone else and then not making sure they are also dead.

8

u/Radix2309 Nov 17 '23

Yeah, like killing a bunch more other people.

If he's alive, they can just kill him later.

1

u/murple7701 Nov 19 '23

Plus most races that viltrumites encounter get eviscerated in a single punch, so they definitely did not go down to the crater to check because they assumed he'd be paste.

79

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

60

u/Negativety101 Nov 17 '23

There's a reason people were surprised Kirkman wasn't familer with Dragonball. Viltrumites have a lot in common with sayians.

2

u/bankrupt_bezos Nov 21 '23

Well, for one they don’t take a whole season to power up to their fighting level.

16

u/Corazon144 Nov 17 '23

Yeah, I’d imagine it was more of a spectacle for everyone on the planet. To show even their mightiest genetically engineered warrior is no match for them. And to show how merciful they can be, they allowed him to live. As well as show they don’t fear him, by letting him live.

2

u/Koanos Nov 17 '23

"We didn't kill you because you're not worth it, we didn't kill you to send a message. To show the Coalition of Planets their strongest among them is no match for us, and never will be."

13

u/Full_Plate_9391 Nov 17 '23

The show said several times that Viltrumites keep underestimating his race's will to survive.

3

u/redopz Nov 19 '23

Allen's lackadaisical personality is a good juxtaposition to the centuries of his race's dedication to surivive and spite the Viltrumites culminating in his creation.

9

u/BardtheGM Nov 17 '23

When you're an invincible god of war, actually finishing off your enemies has no consequence. They're harmless now, they'll be harmless if you finish them off. They'll also probably die of old age in 100 years so they're basically already dead anyway, so it's not worth the extra effort to make sure they're dead.

3

u/Jack1066 Nov 17 '23

I like this explanation. It ties into Nolan's speech to Mark at the end of S1 about outliving everyone else too

2

u/Oxcidious Nov 21 '23

I can’t imagine the “extra effort” is all that much when you’re that strong. One hit KO

7

u/Limp-Ad-5345 Nov 17 '23

They're basically alien nazis, so yeah they kill anyone "weak" and omni was going to kill mark and just make a new kid.

6

u/Lego_Gasgano_Minifig Nov 17 '23

They pretty much have a Pol Pot conundrum where they’ve killed all the smart ones.

5

u/Bbgirl4lato Nov 17 '23

They killed anyone not strong enough to kill them and anyone not willing to fight. What was left of their race and culture was a spartan god complexes. It's a good question though... they really seem like an ultra homogeneous culture.

3

u/RunningNumbers Nov 17 '23

They killed anyone who could keep the lights running and the trash collected.

3

u/Bbgirl4lato Nov 17 '23

Smh those poor public service workers 😒

4

u/TerraSollus Nov 17 '23

Omniman did say that Robot should’ve never been born despite the fact he’s a hyper genius who could probably accelerate human growth by several centuries. So maybe Viltrum isn’t as hyper utopia as we think, or maybe it was a hyper utopia until the whole civil war killed off everyone not roided the hell out. Could be an Imperium of Man situation where they have amazing tech they don’t understand but the strength to dominate everyone else around them. Why learn to do quantum mechanics when you can enslave a race to do it for you?

3

u/Kaserbeam Nov 19 '23

or maybe Robot's hyper genius still doesn't compare to Viltrum? the bug planet Omniman took over looks pretty utopian, and their promise of eliminating all of Earths issues when they take over are presumably true as well (after murdering all of the resistance).

3

u/Reggiardito Nov 17 '23

maybe they couldn't gauge how durable he was and just thought that was enough to kill him?

Yeah this is what the chief of the council said, that they underestimated his race's will to live

4

u/JimothyJollyphant Nov 17 '23

I also don't understand the context of his fight with Omniman, that they've mentioned a couple of times

5

u/Jack1066 Nov 17 '23

Allen's fight with Omni-Man? I think Nolan would fight him like some annoying bug that kept popping up every few years. If he knew he was from the federation of planets I think that might have stopped him from murdering him? To make sure that Earth was just ticked off the list and no alarms had been raised. Although I'm not sure yet how involved Nolan was with the Viltrumite tactics, if he knew there was a mole in the federation anyway

3

u/hellyeboi6 Nov 17 '23

yeah that's what i think as well, they got rid of everyone that wasn't strong so there's very few smart viltrumites

3

u/ConfusedJonSnow Nov 18 '23

Allen can take a stupid amount of punishment, not even the Unopans know what's the upper ceilling of his healing.

2

u/Future-Muscle-2214 Nov 17 '23

At least kuddo for not killing everyone in the reataurant.

2

u/lordolxinator Rex Splode Nov 17 '23

Maybe...for sport? They have this rebel champion bred to fight them. Obviously beneath them, but if he's the apex of their resistance then maybe leaving him alive continues to make him the (tolerable) best hope they have against Viltrum? Plus Allen is just gonna come back, be the equivalent of a younger brother throwing a tantrum when you're play wrestling, so then you slap him to make him stop when you've had enough.

Might also be move to rally the anti-Viltrum resistance together, promoting Allen as this best hope against Viltrum even managing to survive against them, adding more rebel worlds to the roster. Then Thaedeus acts as their man on the inside, selling out planets that war-hero Allen manages to coax out of hiding into openly opposing Viltrum. Almost like an unintentional recon agent. He finds civilisations and or individuals with the potential to stand against Viltrum, his prestige as someone who has survived a Viltrumite fight convinces them to join the council, and then Thaedeus sells them out to Viltrum. Smarter method of population control. Allen is the poster child for the resistance doing wonders for highlighting Viltrum targets.

2

u/nerdguy1138 Nov 20 '23

Might be exactly what it means.

Purges are not very accepting of different points of view.

2

u/GTMoraes Nov 20 '23

I know their purge got rid of anyone 'weak'

got rid of anyone who didn't just think the exact same way?

you answered your own question.

2

u/Zankman Nov 23 '23

but does that mean it got rid of anyone who didn't just think the exact same way?

That is how fascism works, yes. :D

2

u/healyxrt Jan 28 '24

Their mindset definitely reminds me of the Spartans. That lifestyle introduced some interesting problems in the long run.

1

u/theonegalen Apr 01 '24

does that mean it got rid of anyone who didn't just think the exact same way?

That is generally what fascists mean when they say they're getting rid of the weak, and there aren't much more obvious fascist parallels in fiction than the Viltrumites.

176

u/regretfulposts Doc Seismic Nov 17 '23

"Okay let's do bad cop, worse cop, and enabling cop."

–Thula probably

6

u/weirdsisterarrakis Invincidrip Nov 17 '23

I want to upvote you several times lol

1

u/HermitG4 Nov 17 '23

Jaja tula jaja

1

u/t_moneyzz Robot Nov 20 '23

Viltrum PD, would watch

21

u/Negativety101 Nov 17 '23

Omni-Man has a intro in Mortal Kombat 1 where he tells Baraka Viltrumite medicine could cure his disease, and all I could think was "That claim seems highly dubious."

12

u/Thebatboy23 Burger Mart Trash Bag Nov 17 '23

Man was probably thinking of prescribing him a strict "knuckle-sandwich only" diet tbh

8

u/Testo69420 Nov 17 '23

Maybe the Viltrumites didn't INVENT a medicine that could cure his disease, but they almost certainly conquered a world that could or did invent such a medicine.

Either way, they'd probably call it Viltrumite medicine.

5

u/LordVaderVader Nov 18 '23

It was said in show they cured a cancer though

16

u/Guedezinn Nov 17 '23

Allen also say the byclops line to piss them off and make them go full murder mode.

11

u/Smash96leo Invincible Nov 17 '23

Soon as he said they all look alike to him, they almost killed him. They may be intergalactic conquerors, but at least they don’t tolerate racism.

9

u/Shardersice Nov 17 '23

Like Allen said, shoot first, asks questions never

2

u/dumbfuck6969 Nov 18 '23

It seemed he was surprised they were asking questions at all lol

5

u/TheAzulmagia Nov 17 '23

To be fair, Allen does say that they're going against their usual style there. And they can always just check Earth if they're so inclined.

3

u/shadowst17 Nov 17 '23

Brute force is all the Viltrumites know.

3

u/Weird_Suggestion4006 Rus Livingston Nov 17 '23

Reminded me of when Omniman was teaching Mark how to interrogate people and all he did was drop a guy from really high up

3

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '23

Viltrumites don’t do the whole “good cop vs bad cop”. Just bad cop.

3

u/kjm6351 Allen the Alien Nov 17 '23

Allen was right. That really wasn’t their style

3

u/ConfusedJonSnow Nov 18 '23

No spoilers, but it's kind of a recurring theme that one of the Viltrumites bigger flaws is that they try to brute force any issue.

2

u/FaithfulBarnabas Nov 17 '23

I thought after the eye destruction they would ask one more time before finishing him off

2

u/someguyfromtheuk Nov 17 '23

What info do they need they apparently know exactly where the CoP planet is why haven't they taken it over yet?

5

u/LinuxMatthews Nov 17 '23

That's what I thought if I'm honest

They just left for dead their most powerful fighter what are they going to do?

That said my money is on the leader being a viltrumite so I guess they need it for something?

1

u/Cheesemacher Nov 17 '23

I was wondering about that, but they do have a spy so it makes sense to let the resistance gather in one place before crushing it strategically.

2

u/MyARhold30Shots Nov 17 '23

All they had to do was find someone he loved and threaten them instead. When he turned and smiled at his girl I thought one of the Viltrumites would pick up on that/ realise he was on a date and threaten to kill her but nah they just beat him to death lol.

Also why were the even interrogating him? What would Allen the alien know that they couldn't get from their mole informant? The viltrumites just need to ask the mole what Allen told them and keep in contact with the mole for more information.

1

u/Nemyosel Nov 18 '23

I think that'll probably be the end of them. They're strong as hell... just a little dumb.

1

u/RockCornPeaStone Nov 19 '23

Why would they care? They have the ultimate source of information... the almighty bald guy of the chamber

1

u/bobw123 Nov 19 '23

In that case why bother ask Allen instead of killing him on the spot? Or better yet why not wait until Allen has finished telling Mr Bald Guy everything they want to know and then assassinate him?

1

u/Gasster1212 Nov 19 '23

Tbf he’d already told them by proxy , so when he didn’t deny it or act confused they knew it was true

1

u/greaseballdharmann88 Nov 27 '23

i felt like that death made no sense, i have no idea what allen's goal was over there at all and those incompetently impatient viltrumites brutally this guy apart after he made a racist joke

1

u/Tsole96 Nov 28 '23

I said the same thing! Very stupid of them