The third season of Amazon Prime Video’s hit comic adaptation “Invincible,” sets the bar high for animated shows going forward.
The season arrives a year after season two, which included a strange and disappointing midseason break.
Season three had its ups and downs, especially with the animation and plots.
The animation as a whole was lackluster, consisting of many still frames with PNGs dragged across and small tweaks to make it look like it was moving.
It felt like the budget for animation was very tight, leaving the best of the animation to the last two episodes of the season, where it shone with impact frames and better flow.
Amazon’s decision to be stingy with the budget of this viral show makes no sense, especially with how much money they make in general, and let alone from this show.
Compared to the first and second seasons, this season’s animation is noticeably different.
Meanwhile, the voice acting and casting for characters such as Conquest and Powerplex were superb.
Steven Yeun is a generational talent who never disappoints with the emotions he is able to convey for the character of “Invincible,” especially during episode seven of the “Invincible War,” where he voiced various types of the same character but still made each one feel unique.
Aaron Paul’s delivery of the troubled and deeply hurt character, Powerplex, truly makes you feel compassionate for him and is very similar to his performance of Jesse in “Breaking Bad.”
The most anticipated casting was of the villain Conquest, which went to Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
His performance was spectacular, with his voice perfectly fitting the cynical, old and conqueror of planets monster that the character is.
It was also entertaining to see these two actors interact with one another since the first episode of season seven of “The Walking Dead,” where Morgan plays a character named Negan and kills Yeun’s character of Glenn.
All around, though, the whole cast did a great job with each of their performances, making the voice acting a bright spot in the season.
In addition to bright spots of the season, the plot and character arcs show just how great the writing for this show is.
The plot for the season was well-paced, especially with all the big events and character arcs finishing and developing.
It did not feel rushed, and despite one disappointing episode that felt like a filler, it was overall very good.
We were introduced to Oliver Grayson, Invincible’s younger brother, alongside seeing the change Rex-Splode went through from being a terrible person to someone who finally felt like he was in a good place.
Equally as entertaining, we finally got to see the return of Omni-Man, Allen and Battle Beast in a prison break-out scene, completing Omni-Man’s arc of the battle of his viltrumite ideology and his love for humans, such as his son and wife.
This story has been one of the best in the show but has taken much more of a backseat in the overall plot, which will hopefully be more involved in the next season.
Season three, compared to the previous two, is definitely not on the same level of animation, but story-wise is far greater.
