After the high point of Episode 4, “Secret Invasion” took it down a notch this week with its fifth episode.

Picking up where we left off, yes Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) is dead, and he gets a proper burial this episode from his daughter, Gi’ah (Emilia Clarke) and Nick Fury’s (Sam Jackson) wife, Varra (Charlayne Woodard). Their respects are short-lived, as Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) sends a team of Skrulls to kill Varra for defying his order to kill Fury.

Meanwhile, Fury escorts the president of the United States to a hospital, where he reluctantly allows Skrull Rhodey (Don Cheadle) to watch over him. Fury does give the president warning about Rhodey and Talos did save his life last episode, but it’s unclear how conscious he was for those events. Skrull Rhodey feeds him misinformation that Russia allied with Gravik’s Skrulls for the attack, revealing New Skrullos in Russia, and advises that the U.S. strike it, which could start World War III. I have a feeling the president might surprise us.

Gravik also uses this potential strike as leverage over Fury, as it would kill innocent Skrulls, as well as the people they kidnapped to replace (like the real Rhodey). Gravik wants DNA from the Avengers battle against Thanos known as “The Harvest” to create even stronger Super Skrulls, which Fury has.

This episode is bloated and unfocused, arguably the weakest of the series. It’s all chores in terms of setting up next episode and no fun. About 75 percent of it could have been cut with very little consequence to the series. It really suffers from Mendelsohn’s absence, as Fury and Talos’ friendship has been the one thing grounding this series.

So far, the show absolutely fails at being a spy thriller. Fury could be a compelling lead, but the show’s insistence to shoehorn humor in places it doesn’t belong and its feeble action scenes both muddy its focus and prevent it from hitting any hallmarks of the genre. I think it’s also fair to ask if Jackson is too old to play this kind of action character.

There is an attempt to make use of its shapeshifter premise and clever uses of misinformation, but they don’t quite land. This really feels like a 2-hour movie that was inflated into a 6-hour show, with the quality of everything suffering because of it.

“Secret Invasion” Season 1: Episode 5 “The Harvest” gets a 6/10