TV Review: Invincible Episode 5 Unleashes Its Most Brutal Episode Yet
Nolan Comes Home for a Reckoning
Midseason episodes are where things are supposed to escalate, and this one delivers on just that on both a climactic and emotional level.
It’s the episode everyone’s been waiting for: set with massive, Dragon Ball Z-styled fights colliding with something much more grounded in its first act: set up storylines about the reason anyone goes to war in the first place.
I’m talking family. But I’m meaning purpose. The calm before the storm.
It’s the reasons why we fight to save the loved ones we’re trying to protect… even when you’re not entirely sure you deserve to be loved in the first place, like in the case with Nolan.
The hour kicks off with the return of Omni-Man/Nolan back on Earth, confronting his past, while bearing the weight of everything he’s done: season one’s destruction, the death he caused, and the fear that it left on the people on Earth. This comes to a head in multiple ways, but really, it’s one big moment that delivers the most dramatic moment of the entire series.
Without getting into spoilers (also because Prime said not to), Sandra Oh turns in a performance here that’s on another level. It lands. Hard. It’ll be the thing most talked about besides the battles this episode.
These moments of Nolan’s reflection culminate in a devastating scene with Art Rosenbaum, voiced by the legendary Mark Hamill, where the show reminds us that redemption isn’t clean. That sometimes “I’m sorry” doesn’t fix anything. Sometimes it just confirms how broken things are.
Meanwhile, Oliver steps out of the shadows and into the fire in his own self-recruitment story arc. His decision to join the war isn’t just about proving himself: it’s also about confronting Nolan, forcing a reckoning that’s been a long time coming.
There’s a real sense here that the kid is gone, and Nolan missed out on his entire childhood. And what’s left is someone trying to define himself in the middle of inherited violence.
Oliver struggles with figuring out who he is in these next few episodes and how he can make a difference. It’s a good journey of self-discovery as he’s neither like Mark nor like Omni-Man… just someone in between.
And then there’s the music. This season has been quietly stacking great songs, and Sarah Jaffe’s “Clementine” might be the best of them. It plays over a family dinner scene that feels suspended in time. A fragile moment that maybe final. The kind everyone in the room knows things are about to break.
This is also where the Viltrumite war truly begins to take shape. The episode smartly builds through some intimate character beats before unleashing chaos.
Without spoilers, it hits fast with every single character—brutal, relentless, and borderline absurd in terms of scale, with some final moments that take Invincible to the next level of intensity.
The closest comparison I can make is Dragon Ball Z, but with weight. Something where every punch here means something and these finishers are meant to leave audience flabbergasted in terms of its grotesquery.
Yet through it all, the core of it stays locked in on the family of Mark, Nolan, and Oliver; while characters like Tech Jacket and Allen widen the battlefield.
What stands out most in this one is Mark himself. There’s a shift in how he fights. It’s not clean. It’s not efficient. It’s personal. And that makes it uncomfortable in a way the show hasn’t fully leaned into before.
Because there’s a difference between stopping someone and making them suffer and this episode knows it well by leaning into the latter. Mark is bloodthirsty and angry and above all else: tired of everyone else’s bullshit.
And that’s what makes this one linger. Not just the spectacle, but the cost. All in an episode everyone will most definitely be talking about.
All episodes of Invincible are available to stream on Prime. New episodes air on Wednesdays at midnight PST.