‘Invincible’ Episode 4: Team Explains Hell Battle With Bruce Campbell & That Epic Musical Moment
Spoiler Alert
This week, Invincible heads to Hell, and it’s a stark reminder of the show’s twisted genius, where a palate cleanser of animated brutality and savagery somehow becomes a refreshing trip to the underworld, complete with Satan himself to perk you up and raise your spirits. Warning: Spoilers ahead for Season 4 Episode 4, “Hurm.”
How did Mark get involved in a battle for Hell?
In Episode 4, “Hurm,” Mark (Steven Yeun) is still reeling from killing Rus Livingston (Ben Schwartz) — or rather, what Rus had become after becoming infested by Sequids — and from the rage he’s finding increasingly difficult to control. He visits tailor Art (Mark Hamill) about returning his costume, claiming he “doesn’t deserve to wear it anymore.” Art tries to convince him to reclaim his old suit, but Mark isn’t in the right headspace.
Meanwhile, in the Underrealm, Volcanikka (Indira Varma), ruler of the Magnamites, has used her army to conquer Hell, much to the chagrin of Damien Darkblood (Clancy Brown) and his warrior sister, Domina (Kate Mulgrew). The siblings make a last stand against Volcanikka in a battle of fire against fire. Unfortunately, Volcanikka proves nearly impossible to kill, regenerating after every blow, knife strike, and decapitation. With a single punch, she strikes Domina down, filling her body with magma and blowing her apart.
Damien summons a lowly demon he refers to as “Master” (teased in a Season 3 post-credits scene in a very dramatic satanic ritual). Small and weak, this puny creature is what has become of Satan (voiced by the great Bruce Campbell). He wants his throne back from Volcanikka, but it’s a lost cause unless they get help. So Damien summons reinforcements in the form of Invincible.
Even Hell needs a hero occasionally
Once Mark realizes he isn’t there to fight Satan — which the Dark Lord was actually kind of into (“Dude, gross.”) — Damien explains that Hell, demons, and Satan are real, just not in the way he thinks. Cecil (Walton Goggins) exorcised Damien to Hell to keep the truth about Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons) from Mark, and now there’s a power struggle brewing that requires his help. “Look, I’m not in a good place right now, but I can’t… work for the Devil. Aren’t demons bad guys?” As it turns out, not exactly. Earth, or at least this version of it, exists because of Satan. Without demon sacrifices to the beasts (“The Vile”) that once ravaged the planet, humanity would never have evolved. Satan led the demons against the Vile so others could live in peace.
In other words, humanity owes him one.
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Once Damien lays out the threat of Volcanikka to Mark and her plans to possibly destroy Earth, the two dive into a seemingly never-ending bottomless pit, the real reason why Mark was summoned (though Damien confesses he was actually trying to summon his father). where they have a surreal and hysterical conversation about the need for a retracting horned helmet in a society built on torture (the answer: to look cool), as they set out to retrieve the crown of Hell and restore Satan to his full power.
As Satan puts on the crown, he takes his true form. Mutating into something monstrous, his muscles swell, his stature grows, his eyes blaze, and his fangs lengthen. As the Beast rises, so does the music behind him. “We must quake these caverns with our might until our victims beg for mercy through jaws crushed beneath our heels,” Satan growls in full glory. “Yeah, baby! I’m lookin’ big!” he adds. “I’m back!” Damien bows. Mark does not. (“Um. I’m not bowing to Satan.”)
Damien, Mark, and Satan prepare for battle, and as Volcanikka raises her army, ready to destroy the Earth, she hears a voice call out to her. “Hey, brimstone brat! I’ve had as much of your sh*t as I can take, lady!”
And the battle for Hell begins in earnest, and with it comes a familiar tune for those who have long embraced the dark, the metal, and all things beastly…
“Raining Blood” by Slayer. The perfect song for such an occasion.
What the cast and crew had to say about the battle for Hell
A battle for Hell. The rise of Satan. Bruce Campbell. And Slayer. Episode 4 of Invincible isn’t just a treat for fans; it’s an original twisted tale outside of the comic’s story arc that was chaotic bliss for all those involved. TV Insider spoke with Invincible showrunners Robert Kirkman and Simon Racioppa and star Steven Yeun about crafting what may be the most metal moment in all of streaming right now, one created specifically for the series.
“We wanted to add something that was new and different,” said Kirkman. “When I’m writing episodes, I’m usually adapting my own material, and it’s boring and tedious sometimes. So, I would always kind of daydream, ‘Oh, what if I was doing something new?’ And so as we got closer and closer to Season 4, we kind of identified a pocket where we had some room to do something new and interesting and different.”
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“I had this Hell storyline that I wanted to do in the comics. And to be honest, it was vague to the point of, ‘I don’t know, superheroes go to Hell in Marvel and DC books all the time. Wouldn’t it be interesting if Invincible went to Hell?’ I really didn’t have much more than that,” explained Kirkman. “And so actually getting in and figuring out the rules of demon society and where Hell was and how it fits in the Invincible universe, and all the mythology around it was super exciting and super interesting.”
“It was a lot of fun to roll my sleeves up and work out something different, and that exists only within the show, which is really cool. So, yeah, it was a super fun episode,” said Kirkman. “We like to think of it as a palette cleanser before we actually get into the nitty-gritty of the actual Ultramarine war.”
As for Mark, actor Steven Yeun felt the scene was a brief reprieve from the darkness of the impending storyline. “It was kind of a reprieve for him to be able to be brought into another world,” Yeun told TV Insider. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get to work with Bruce Campbell, but to be in the ADR booth and to watch the episode back, for me, I was just enjoying the show as a fan. We got to go in a different direction for a minute, visit something else.”
“We created something that doesn’t exist in the comic, so I was just watching the creators and the animators have a great time, and it was fantastic,” said Yeun.
And it was fantastic. As Slayer rages one, demons battle each other, spearing, stabbing, impaling, as the piece each other hide, remove each others heads and spill endless blood (or is that magma?) on the floor of hell. After Mark beheads Volcanikka several times, she turns into molten rock and seeps into the crevices. Mark promises to help when they need it.
And as for the rest of the episode…
Invincible abandoned Riley (Chloe Bennet) when he was exorcized, leaving her to stand down Ka-Hor (Brown again) and his sh*tty misogynistic attitudes by herself. But her anger only lasts a few milliseconds when she realizes she is slightly screwed. Ka-Hor then takes her body as a vessel.
Eve (Gillian Jacobs) tells William (Andrew Rannells) she is pregnant, who believes it will be the hottest superbaby of all time. Eve is still very conflicted with what to do as the pregnancy is very much unplanned.
Debbie (Sandra Oh) breaks the news to Mark and Oliver (Christian Convery) that she wants to move in with her beau, Paul, and sell the house.
Just as Mark starts to feel okay with his life and his mental health, he sees something he never thought he would ever see again: his father, Omni-Man, floating with Allen the Alien (Seth Rogen). “I’m sorry, Mark. We need you. The time for war is upon us.”
Invincible, Season 4, Wednesdays, Prime Video
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