Warning: The following contains spoilers for Secret Invasion episode 3.The Marvel Cinematic Universe examines betrayal in Secret Invasion episode 3, and it does it with the help of a handful of Easter eggs. Most of the Easter eggs in episode 3, however, are not comic book nods for the Marvel fans who enjoy searching for them. Instead, they’re references and callbacks to the wider MCU, demonstrating the connectivity between Secret Invasion and the rest of the universe.
The Disney Plus series deals with a lot of betrayals in the episode as Fury begins to doubt whether he can trust anyone - Talos, his own wife, G'iah, etc. Because of that focus, Secret Invasion flashes back to the 1990s again to give more hints at Fury’s past with the Skrulls. It also brings the conflict to a head between Talos and Gravik concerning G’iah. Fans can find these particular Easter eggs throughout the story in Secret Invasion episode 3.
The First Mention Of Super Skrulls
Though there have been plenty of Easter eggs laying the groundwork for Super Skrulls in Secret Invasion, episode 3 features the first mention of them. It’s Gravik who makes the first mention of them as he works to convince the Skrull Council that he has a plan to make sure the Skrulls can win in a takeover against humans for dominance of Earth. He confirms that Super Skrulls will replicate superpowers.
Dreykov’s Men In 1998
When Fury meets up with the Skrull operative in 1998 who later becomes his wife, she gives him an envelope featuring intelligence on “Dreykov’s men.” Dreykov gets his first mention in the MCU in The Avengers when Loki calls Natasha Romanoff “Dreykov’s daughter,” and fans get to see him in action in the Black Widow movie. He’s the leader of the Red Room that creates the Widows for decades. In the 1990s, Dreykov had operatives undercover in the United States, including Natasha Romanoff and Yelena Belova who were undercover as sisters as children.
Gravik’s Healing Hand
When Gravik and Talos meet up at the museum, Talos’ temper about Gravik’s use of his daughter gets the better of him, and he stabs Talos through the hand with a knife that’s on the cafe table. After Talos leaves, Gravik simply slides it out of his hand and his hand heals itself with an orange glow coursing through his skin. That is the same color that accompanies the use of Extremis, which is one of the DNA samples seen in the Skrull computer in episode 2. This implies that the experiments with the different DNA have already worked on Gravik.
Fury’s Skrull Network
Talos points out that without himself and his Skrull operatives, Fury never would have been able to climb the ranks and have such a successful track record with SHIELD. This is actually a great retcon because it references all the times in the MCU that Fury seemed to be one step ahead of everyone. In reality, he had shape-shifting Skrulls implanted all over the world feeding him information instead of regular SHIELD agents. It’s no wonder that he always had so much information at his fingertips.
“No One Calls Me Nick”
When Talos is taken captive by the Skrull he and Nick Fury are pursuing in the episode, the Skrull attempts to impersonate Talos, but Fury isn’t fooled because the other Skrull calls him Nick, and no one calls him that. This is a callback to Captain Marvel in which Fury offers up the same line, but it’s also a hint for fans. In episode 2, James Rhodes called Fury "Nick" during their meeting in which Rhodes was supposed to fire him. It’s one of the many pieces of evidence that has been building in the series that Rhodey is actually a Skrull embedded in the US government.
The Voice On The Phone
When Nick Fury’s wife attempts to get in contact with Gravik, she uses a phone that she’s kept hidden to do so. The voice on the other end of the line isn’t Gravik. Instead, it sounds like Don Cheadle, who plays James Rhodes, indicating that all those fan theories about the character being a Skrull are likely correct.
New episodes of Secret Invasion stream weekly on Disney Plus.