Invincible season 2 episode 5 deaths explained

This massacre sets plenty in motion, including Omni-Man's impending fate and Mark Grayson's brother coming to Earth under the protection of his mother, Debbie. But it's another pair of deaths that happen at the end of the new episode which will stick with viewers more — and that's because they're part of the most vile, horrific fight scene you'll see in any superhero story all year.

Soon after returning to Earth, Mark and the Guardians hear of a new threat that's heading their way from space. A ship will shortly arrive with an army of Sequids, parasitic aliens that possess organisms and control them through their all-conquering hive mind. Think Starro and its teensy starfish from James Gunn's Suicide Squad.

Most of the heavy-hitters head off to fight the Sequids while three Guardians stay behind to monitor Earth in case any more threats arise. Rex-splode jokes to Dupli-Kate and Shrinking Rae that the odds of another world-shattering event happening at the same time are nigh on impossible, but little did he know that his own world would soon shatter when The Lizard League show up to kickstart a nuclear war and butcher his teammates.

This parody of Marvel's Serpent Society and the Serpent Squad, as well as DC's Kobra Cult, "are supposed to suck," as Kate puts it, and that's why they end up being severely underestimated. In hindsight, Rex should probably regret saying that, "Whoever dies first pays for pizza," because by the end of the episode, he's the only one left still alive.

Is Dupli-Kate really dead?

Dupli-Kate's powers are mystical in nature, the result of an ancient Chinese curse that enables her to create multiple copies of herself. These clones die almost constantly in battle, but Kate will always survive still as long as the original remains unharmed.

When she arrives in Montana with Rex and Rae, the trio split up to separately take on each Lizard League member. Kate's up against Komodo, but she still outnumbers him technically thanks to all of her duplicates. The problem is Komodo's strength is almost limitless, so he crushes each clone with ease. In fact, he murders each copy quicker than Kate can generate a new one.

It's not long before only the original Dupli-Kate is left and Komodo is about to crush the life out of her, but she wrestles free by kicking him in the face with just enough time to create one more clone. Time has run out though, because Komodo manages to grab them both and smash them together as hard as he can, killing them both instantly with only a crumpled mishmash of organs and snapped bones remaining.

Rex and Rae are horrified, as are we, but is this really the end of Dupli-Kate? It certainly seems that way if this episode is anything to go by, but superheroes rarely stay dead, and as fans of the Invincible comic might already know, that's especially true of Kate Cha.

In Robert Kirkman's source material, a funeral is held for Kate as well as Rae, who also dies in the fight. The Immortal then succumbs to grief over the death of Kate, his lover, so he leaves the Guardians and heads off north for some solitude in a fortress of his own making.

But then Kate eventually shows up to reveal that she's actually alive, after all. It turns out that she's been living life out in the world through her duplicates, always keeping the original safe in case something exactly like this happened. In hindsight, that was very smart, if not a bit traumatising for everyone who was devastated by Kate's seeming demise.

Will season two follow a similar route and reveal that Kate has actually been alive all along? The series has been remarkably faithful to the comics, so we wouldn't put this past Invincible, although there is something to be said for playing with expectation, which leads us to the fate of Shrinking Rae.

Is Shrinking Rae (Rachel) really dead?

Shrinking Rae actually fares best at first in the team's fight against the Lizard League. Using her powers, Rae shrinks small enough to enter an enemy's skull through the corner of their eye and knocks around inside his actual brain, killing him almost instantly. Our hero then gruesomely emerges victorious from the corpse by pushing an eyeball out of its socket.

But then Komodo swallows Rae in her teensy form. Rex laughs it off, saying, "Hey idiot, she doesn't stay small!" As usual, Rex is the idiot though because Rae's plan to burst out of Komodo's body doesn't work.

His muscles are just as tough on the inside as they are the outside, so when she tries to push her way out, Komodo doesn't let her. Instead, we hear bones crack and break as she's crushed to death inside his body. When the struggle is over and done with, blood oozes out of Komodo's mouth, confirming that she, too, is dead.

But what if Rae's not dead? This gender-swapped version of the character has been given a lot more depth than her male comic book counterpart, whose unceremonious death didn't really register after just one vomit-inducing panel.

It wouldn't exactly be hard for the writers to conjure up a way for Rae to survive. Perhaps she shrank down again before Komodo could crush her completely. The reason she didn't escape immediately after might have something to do with her injuries or even passing out from the pain and trauma.

Now that would be the kind of twist that really subverts expectations, especially for comic book fans who — as it stands — will now just assume that Rae is dead along with the rest of us, too. Surprising longtime readers isn't easy, especially when they often clamour for accuracy, but Invincible is exactly the kind of show that would toy with us like this, so don't be surprised if Rae makes it out alive too in a future episode.

For now though, the only hero we know who definitely survived is Rex (unfortunately). Using his exploding powers, he managed to kill the last two remaining villains, including even Komodo, who ate his hand while it was carrying a bomb, thereby exploding his skull from the inside.

Whatever's next in store for Rex and the rest of the remaining Guardians, it's safe to assume that plenty more massacres lie ahead in the three last episodes of season two, because not everyone can be as invincible as Mark.

Invincible season 2 is available to stream on Prime Video with new episodes dropping weekly. Check out more of our Sci-Fi and Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what's on tonight.

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