We’re closing in on the second half of Mark Grayson’s second run at the proverbial gauntlet in Invincible season 2, and while that’s great for us, it means that things are going to go very, very poorly for a lot of these characters pretty soon.
Indeed, with a funeral on the way and a brand new alien threat to go along with the much older alien threat that already had Earth in its crosshairs, to say nothing of whatever the hell Angstrom Levy is up to, we could be in for the punchiest four episodes of superhero storytelling out there.
At least, we’d better be, because the release schedule of Invincible season two is excruciatingly severe, even if, according to Invincible creator Robert Kirkman, there was a reason for the shape it took.
Why was there a split between episode releases for Invincible season two?
For those of you not in the know, the second season of Invincible dropped its first episode on November 3, 2023, and proceeded to roll out the following three episodes week by week, with the fourth releasing on November 24, 2023. From there, a much larger break between episodes began—a break that’s scheduled to end when the fifth episode releases on March 14, after which the weekly rollout will continue, ending on April 4.
Kirkman’s reasoning for the aforementioned break (per The Economic Times) chiefly boiled down to giving viewers a “narrative pause” so they would have time to sit with the events of the first four episodes before launching into what looks like a lion’s den of a second half. Extended production timelines and avoiding competition around the holidays were also reasons he cited.
Of course, if this was the plan anyway, it may have been wiser to drop the first four episodes all at once instead of putting them out weekly; four episodes is a healthy stopping point binge-wise, and the anticipation of waiting for a new episode every week had potential to clash with one’s ability to absorb the events of the previous episode, the latter of which Kirkman was intending anyway. It’s true that one could just binge them once they’ve all been released anyway, but let’s face it: Unwatched available Invincible episodes are quite the test for one’s patience.
All I’m saying is, The Legend of Vox Machina has a great thing going for it, and it might be wise for other shows in its vein to at least try to follow its lead.
(featured image: Prime Video)
