I came here to talk about exactly this. This episode was a missed opportunity. So much more could have been done to bring this fight to life with those good character moments you mentioned. Highlighting Mark’s growth while also pointing out how he needs to improve would have been a great way to transition to Mark no longer getting his ass kicked as much. He learns that he was taking his powers for granted and needs to push himself to get stronger and faster. They completely left that out. I guess they wanted to make the scene where he starts fighting back against Thula as opposed to struggling his way through, but Mark struggling to keep up with Viltrumites was kinda the point. It was tense when we watch him struggle to stay away from Lucan and he thinks he’s about to get himself, Andressa, and his brother killed. That fear and him getting tired allows him to feel vincible. This would serve as a segue from him to actually become…….INVINCIBLE!
And yeah I also missed the Nowl-Ahn pronunciation. One of the weaknesses of the comic was that we never really got into Viltrumite culture enough. The show has a great chance to explore that. A good first step was the name pronunciation to make them feel more alien and more unique. Missed opportunity.
They should have cut the Eve, Debbie, and Donald content, added more to the Thraxan content, and made Nolan and Mark’s reunion and subsequent need to save Thraxa and Oliver the entire story. If they felt that there wasn’t enough material for an entire episode then I would suggest they add more to it like they added the Amber stuff and Donald stuff. That stuff was fine, but felt out of place in this episode. Especially since this is the last episode that we are getting for a while.
Yeah given how they went out of their way to make Nolan’s fight with Mark more brutal in the show, they kind of had to treat the reunion this way. Big actions require big consequences. There needs to be more room between Mark’s anger at his father and Nolan’s redemption. I also think the contrast between Viltrumite culture and human culture needs to be expressed more. We need to feel Nolan’s inner conflict and why he’s so torn about upholding Viltrumite values while also loving the compassion and empathy he learned while pretending to be human.