In Review: Invincible (S1 – Ep5) That Actually Hurt

Synopsis: In ‘That Actually Hurt’. Feeling confident in his new abilities, Mark risks a team-up with a local villain to take down a crime lord, while simultaneously juggling school and a new relationship.

The Story

Mark is finding the life of a new superhero a bit of a challenge. Between training with his father Omni-Man, his day job, school, and a new girlfriend. He is perpetually late for every occasion. Added to that. His new girlfriend Amber is not particularly impressed.

Feeling confident in his abilities. Mark takes down a number of villains and gets the attention of Titan who wants Mark’s help. Titan has been under the employment of local crime lord Machine head but wants out. So he asks Mark to help him take down Machine Head, but it’s a job that proves far more difficult than Mark could have possibly imagined.

Voice Acting

‘That Actually Hurt’ has some fantastic voice acting. Jeffrey Donovan does a fantastic job of voicing Machine Head who is the main villain of this story. I loved the machine-like sound effects that came through when he was finishing his sentences. Credit should also go to Mahershala Ali for a solid performance as Titan who can turn into a literal rock man. Which makes him bulletproof. Titan’s scenes with Invincible (Steven Yeun) are well executed.

Overall

Another solid episode, which had some great character development for Mark. The episode’s title ‘That Actually Hurt’ is a big hint for how the episode ends as we see Invincible take one hell of a beat down. I really liked the character of Titan and the fact that he for all intents and purposes is just a regular guy doing what he has to in order to secure the safety and security of his daughter.

One of the great things about this show is that it is giving us much more complex characters. It’s not back and white in terms of the characters or their motivations. In Machine Head we had an irredeemable villain. Whereas with Titan. We have a villain that has the potential to redeem himself. Should he eventually get that opportunity.

It’s also great that the heroes don’t win every week as well.