Invincible Season 4, Episode 6 Review – ‘You Look Horrible’

Thankfully, the breezy track is slightly more apt for the montage’s other half: the growing relationship between Nolan and Oliver, as they train and hunt on a desert planet. Mark’s grisly injuries afford the fledgling father-son duo some downtime to finally get to know each other, a bumpy process that begins with a much-needed confrontation over Nolan burying Conquest’s body, and maintaining sentimental connections to Viltrum’s culture. Oliver, it turns out, also overheard Nolan telling Debbie that his mother Andressa meant nothing to him, forcing Nolan to take further stock of his words. He’s also similarly forced to reappraise his actions when retrieving protein for the injured Mark by way of stealing eggs from a feral space lizard, which the former (and slowly-reforming) Viltrumite is ready and willing to kill. In a fun surprise, it’s the once-vicious Oliver who begs his father to show mercy, though in order to fully convince him, the teen hero has to reach for the purely utilitarian excuse of allowing the mother insect to lay more eggs down the line. It’s a small but vital step; words are one thing, but actually making Nolan confront his actions and consequences are entirely another. It hasn’t necessarily happened yet, but this feels like a definitive start.

The quiet downtime in “You Look Horrible” is not tonally dissimilar from the season’s fourth episode, the middling, Damien Darkblood-centric “Hurm,” but it’s also significantly more proficient at externalizing its characters’ withheld emotional dilemmas. Its empty, rural setting, with Nolan establishing a base camp and hunting for his children, strips bare the series’ focus on nuclear family by breaking it down to its prehistorical essentials and centering survival in its purest form. This allows Nolan to be paternal in the most primal sense, forcing him to actually be a father to Oliver in every way that matters — including helping his younger son complete his fight training. By the time Mark finally awakens, Nolan and Oliver have built a harmonious rapport. They even go fishing.

While time passes for the Grayson fellas, the same can’t really be said for the war itself. Events certainly transpire, but the actual face of the war is left to dialogue and gestures, via references to liberation that we never really see. The Viltrum Empire is, theoretically, on the back foot, but this is at best depicted in passing; it’s hard not to wonder if this conflict might’ve deserved its own entire episode (if not several). However, once the Viltrumites attack Talescria directly, the war finally takes on intimate dimensions, allowing for a brief but effective emotional rollercoaster where the Coalition experiences significant losses, before Mark, Nolan and Oliver arrive to even the playing field.

Invincible Season 4 Images