Invincible Season 4, Episode 7 Review – 'Don't Do Anything Rash'
Spoilers follow for Invincible Season 4, Episode 7, titled "Don't Do Anything Rash," which is now streaming on Prime Video. The tragedy of Thragg takes center stage in this latest episode, widely considered the show's strongest installment to date. This entry achieves a rare harmonic balance between gore, scale, and emotional stakes reminiscent of the Season 1 finale. "Don't Do Anything Rash" launches the series into the stratosphere of stellar contemporary television. While it stands as an outlier, this episode makes every prior middling entry worthwhile by tackling the story from an unexpected point-of-view that unveils powerful new dimensions.
The Rise of Thragg: A History Written in Blood
The Viltrumite War kicked off in earnest last week with a commendable episode promising further escalations as the Coalition fights back. However, before resuming the fireworks, "Don't Do Anything Rash" transports viewers several centuries into the past during the rule of Emperor Argall. This flashback details the ascension of his young, ambitious regent—the future Thragg—to the Viltrumite throne.
In this era, Thaedus serves as a Viltrum envoy who reads the tea leaves of brewing revolts and opposes Argall's cruelty. Their brief exchange finally lays out the true colonial nature of Viltrum, revealing its reliance on enslaved aliens to mine precious resources. The planet’s foregrounding of authoritarian makes perfect sense in this context as a means to keep the wheels of its empire turning. Yet, these material origins are obscured once Thaedus assassinates Argall from the shadows, forcing a dramatic changing of the guard.
Once Thragg assumes the throne, he immediately calls for a purging of all weakness and potential betrayal. This strategy quickly seeds suspicion among Viltrum’s ranks until the planet engulfs itself in bloodshed. Despite this nefarious ploy to harden the hearts of his people, Thragg is deeply hurt by Argall's death. Dialogue later reveals that Thragg was raised from birth to be the strongest Viltrumite, internalizing the idea that might is right as a pure expression of fascist instinct rooted in emotional impulses.
These flashbacks last only a dozen minutes but strongly suggest that Thragg loved Argall like a father figure. His death has left him broken beyond repair, adding profound emotional weight to his current actions and motivations.
The Coalition’s Descent into the Unknown
The saga of fathers and sons continues on the Coalition side as Thaedus recaps their plan and leads the remaining warriors into outer space. The team includes Nolan, Mark, Oliver, Allen, Telia, Tech Jacket/Zoe, and Battle Beast, all set to strike before Thragg can recover. As they travel toward planet Viltrum, the episode's downtime offers a chance for reflection through the use of moving instrumentals by Brian Eno and Phillip Glass.
Rather than ill-fitting pop tracks that have often plagued the series, this week employs music that enhances the scene's emotional resonance. During this journey, supporting characters discuss their last meals in a morose bit of camaraderie:
- Zoe and Oliver pick burgers as their final meal.
- Battle Beast hilariously chooses his own blood on the battlefield.
This lighthearted moment contrasts sharply with an uncomfortable exchange between Thaedus and Nolan regarding their future actions. Thaedus, who has long turned against his own people, is dead-set on killing every remaining Viltrumite to protect the galaxy. Nolan, a recently reformed soldier and father of two Viltrumite kids, is perturbed by this genocidal directive. While it may be the only way to stop the threat, the plan exists in a grey area even the once-dastardly Omni-Man fears to tread.
A Shocking Turn at Viltrum’s Rings
Nolan and Mark have rightly spent the season battling the Viltrumite parts of themselves, making their next move especially shocking. After Nolan delivers one last fatherly pep talk to his sons—scored with a rearrangement of the series' closing theme—the Coalition exits the spaceship sans Telia. They fly through Viltrum's rings, which are made ceremonially from the bodies of fallen Viltrumites.
Before the characters can process this macabre energy, the episode escalates tenfold as remaining Viltrumites reveal they have been hiding amongst the corpses. In the distance, hovering above the planet's atmosphere, Thragg appears chillingly still. The ensuing space battle is a nail-biting delight featuring violent reversals that incapacitate important characters before old allies come to the rescue.
The fight goes back and forth until Thragg finally intervenes by barely lifting a finger while deflecting the Graysons' attacks, sending shockwaves through the emptiness of outer space. If the season had one major flaw previously, it was the lack of a discernible relationship between Thragg and Nolan, but this episode meaningfully spackles over that problem when they crash to the surface.
The Brutal Reality of Power
Amid the crumbling remains of the empire and backed by a thunderstorm, the Grand Regent and the fearsome turncoat discuss who they truly owe their allegiance to before resuming combat. Thragg punches Nolan so hard that he burns up on his way back out of Viltrum's atmosphere. While poison darts, laser guns, and lizard creatures temporarily turn the tide, Thragg's brutality proves too intimate for the Coalition to handle.
He ragdolls Oliver to the point of knocking off his jaw and cutting off his arm. To Thragg, the half-Viltrumite, half-Thraxan is nothing more than a failed genetic experiment. As he flexes his strength with minimal effort, recalling the most vicious of Dragon Ball Z episodes, the Coalition is left with nowhere to turn but towards fighting fire.
