Secret Invasion killed off Marvel Cinematic Universe stalwart Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) pretty early on, leaving fans wondering why the showrunners decided to get rid of her. Now, one producer has answered that question.
Executive producer and writer Brian Tucker addressed Hill’s death in an interview with The Direct, where he said the choice was made because the production believed they needed to kill someone to make Secret Invasion matter.
“One of the kind of just most important decisions that we had to make early on was to really illustrate the scale and the reality of the danger that Gravik and his rebels pose to humans. And to do that, we couldn’t allow all of our characters to make it out safely. This is a contest for the planet. It’s being fought on the ground and it’s gonna be bloody. There will be casualties in this conflict, and that means making those tough decisions to say goodbye to beloved characters.”
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That, of course, is a trick in storytelling as old as dirt. The removal of what people think is an important character by a sudden death is a great way to up the ante and get the audience on your side. In fact, Marvel did just that in Avengers to great success when they killed off fan-favorite Agent Coulson. The problem is that in Secret Invasion it mostly just falls flat. There are a couple of things working against Hill’s death, not the least of which is that she hadn’t shown up in a movie or show since Avengers: Endgame and that her and Fury’s entire reunion felt rushed. There’s also the fact that while the character had a following she was almost always nothing more than background fodder in the films so that unlike the death of Agent Coulson in Avengers this felt like it was almost inevitable. Someone had to die and Maria Hill was just the perfect character to be canon fodder. In short, her death felt cheap and unearned instead of the emotional gut punch it should have.
Secret Invasion is available to stream now on Disney+.
