This feature contains spoilers about the series premiere of Secret Invasion.
From the moment she was offered a role in Secret Invasion, Cobie Smulders knew she’d be saying goodbye. She’s held on to the twist for well over a year—fashioning “a whole shuffle-step dance” at press events, carefully talking around her fate in the MCU’s newest series without giving anything away. Now she can at last discuss it, and breathes a palpable, slightly melancholy sigh of relief in her first interview. “Finally it’s out there,” she tells me over Zoom. “I’ve been well trained—yeah, I’ve had to keep secrets.”
Spoken like a true Marvel veteran. Smulders has been part of the MCU machine for more than a decade, going back to her first appearance in 2012’s original Avengers movie as Maria Hill, the right-hand woman to Samuel L. Jackson’s SHIELD director, Nick Fury. The sharp, levelheaded, analytical character popped up in many more movies as the MCU’s mythology evolved and its heroes came and went; eventually, she became one of the last Phase One figures standing. Hill rarely drove the action, but took part in several of the franchise’s most indelible moments as a crucial strategic contributor, and was set to make her big return in Secret Invasion, the Disney+ series centered on Fury. This turned out to be her last chapter—well, presumably.
Hill dies at the end of the series premiere, which is set in Moscow. She’s reunited with a weathered Fury as they prepare to stop Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and his team of rebel Skrulls—shape-shifters who’ve invaded Earth and can take on the appearance of any human. An attack against Fury and his allies in a town square culminates in Hill getting shot by a Skrull who’s taken on the appearance of Fury. Hill’s dizzying final few seconds of life find her grappling with the possibility that her closest ally has betrayed and killed her. When the real Fury realizes what’s happened, he tells her it wasn’t him, but it may be too late. In that ambiguity, the series’ conflict is set in motion, fueled by Fury’s grief and quest for revenge.
We’re now firmly in the era of multiverses and time-jumps, so question one: Is Hill really dead? “I mean, I didn’t know I was an alien in Spider-Man,” Smulders cracks, referencing the twist of her appearance in Far From Home. “There is a multiverse now, so anything is possible. But I’m pretty sure this is it.” (As for rumors that she appears in this fall’s The Marvels, Smulders denies them: “I don’t know anything about that.”) During our conversation, Smulders speaks of Hill’s fate with a certain finality, having made peace with the fact that this is likely the end. “It felt and it feels strange,” she says. “Maria Hill’s passing is very real, and it’s shocking, and it feels very human.” She adds, “It was a sad day.”
David Canfield
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