Here’s where we stand after Invasion‘s sixth episode:
- Aneesha and her family escaped from an alien, who’d inexplicably decided to take a break from planetary domination to stalk them through a house in the woods. Ahmed should be dead after getting attacked by the creature, but unfortunately survived.
- Trev is working on getting home to his wife Learah.
- Casper, Monty, Jamila, Alfie, and some other kid named Darwin are walking to their homes in London.
- Mitsuki’s boss let her steal equipment to aid in her quest to discover what happened to Hinata.
- Sheriff Tyson is still dead.
This week, we go back to seeing multiple perspectives of what might be the most boring alien invasion imaginable.
As always, the recap portion of this review will contain plenty of spoilers. The sequence of events has also been streamlined for the sake of clarity.
Family Vacation
Invasion (AppleTV+)
The episode opens right where we left off last week with Aneesha driving her family away. She asks Luke where he got the rock that killed the alien, but his answer is interrupted when Ahmed picks that exact moment to start dying from his injuries.
Dude is seriously the worst.
Aneesha, on the other hand, uses this moment to prove that she’s an absolute badass. After stopping the car, she MacGayver’s a flutter valve, inserts it into Ahmed’s lung, performs CPR, and saves his life. To Ahmed’s credit, he immediately realizes how grateful he should be and thanks her.
Invasion (AppleTV+)
Later, Aneesha’s family finds an abandoned diner along with a much needed respite from the horrors they’ve recently faced. As Aneesha fires up the grill, Ahmed asks why they never did more fun stuff together as a family like before.
I wish I was kidding.
Aneesha points out that they did, but he was never there for it (ugh). Ahmed replies that he’s “here now” (UGH). This cringe worthy moment is made even worse when the family sits down together for dinner and the kids talk about how thankful they are to be together. As their family has its first genuinely happy moment that we’ve ever seen, the camera pulls back to show a Space Invaders arcade game.
Once again, I really wish I was kidding.
Invasion (AppleTV+)
The next day, Aneesha takes her family to a makeshift refugee camp so that Ahmed can receive proper medical attention. She ends up running into the doctor she worked with back in Episode 5 (David), which is both surprising and ridiculous.
After the most awkward patient exchange ever, Aneesha and the kids are led to their own private living area. Turns out the soldier in charge of the camp was in the town where she briefly worked as a doctor. He also remembers how awesome she was, thus affording her special treatment.
After the soldier leaves, Luke asks his mom if she gave up on being a doctor because he was born. Aneesha responds that she wanted to be his and Sarah’s mom more than anything. This somehow leads to Sarah asking what will happen if everyone goes crazy like Kelly did back at the house they escaped from. When Luke tries to assure his sister that they’re normal, Aneesha explains that even though they aren’t “crazy,” no one will ever be normal again after what the world is experiencing.
Blood and Water
Invasion (AppleTV+)
While driving to a military base (Camp Travis), Trev comes across a dead alien along with a tanker truck who’s driver is burnt to a crisp. He sees a family walking nearby and demands to know what happened. The father informs him that Camp Travis has been destroyed, as well. He then asks Trev to join his family on their 200 mile walk to Kabul in the hopes of finding a plane out of the country. Trev instead offers to drive them.
On the ride over, Trev gets ticked when the father allows his son to drink an entire bottle of water without rationing it. This leads to a discussion about how hope is like water, which leads to a discussion about how the man’s children are equipped for this crisis because their homeland has always been part of an invasion.
*Side Note: Neither sentiment is anywhere near as profound as the show seems to think.
The man then asks Trev about his children, claiming that he could tell the soldier was also a dad because he had “the father’s eyes.” Instead of answering, Trev decides to be a big ole jerk and gives him the silent treatment.
Invasion (AppleTV+)
The group arrives to the Kabul airport to find it empty, but decide to check things out, anyway. Sure enough, there’s a military cargo plane being swarmed by civilians desperate to leave the country (and fly into the air where planes are being shot out of the sky by aliens).
Unfortunately for the potential passengers, the soldiers guarding the plane are only allowing those who give them bribes to board. Trev is able to muscle/intimidate his way on, but the family he traveled with isn’t. He manages to get them onboard by offering the soldiers his gun.
As the plane begins to take off, the father tells Trev that God watches over him. Trev has a hard time agreeing with him, especially as he watches all the people on the tarmac still desperate to board the aircraft as it prepares to take off.
Homecoming
Invasion (AppleTV+)
Casper & Co. stop by a phone booth to see if they can reach anyone. Unfortunately, all the phone and power lines appear to be down. Just when they’re about to give up hope, Monty spots a vehicle speeding in their direction. The driver tries to go past them, but Casper steps into the middle of the road and forces her to stop.
When they ask for a ride to London, the woman explains that she won’t go back in that direction on account of an alien killing her entire family. Despite living in a small town outside of the city, the creatures still came for them.
The kids are shocked by her claims, with Alfie and Darwin still believing there to be a more earthly cause behind the disaster surrounding them. Casper once again asks if she can help him and his classmates get back to London. This time the woman agrees.
Invasion (AppleTV+)
After getting dropped off on the outskirts of the city, the kids find it to be in pretty bad shape and eerily quiet. Alfie and Charles head off to their homes while Casper and Jamila head in the opposite direction toward theirs. Monty, on the other hand, decides to go off on his own. As far as he’s concerned, whatever’s happening in the city still can’t be as bad as returning to his family.
Before going their separate ways, Monty gives Casper a genuine and heartfelt apology. Casper accepts, allowing for at least one good thing to come from the world falling apart around them.
Invasion (AppleTV+)
With that strangely touching goodbye out of the way, Casper and Jamila first head toward Casper’s house. As they start to get close, Jamila tells him that she knows he’s hiding something. After hesitating to reveal anything, Casper admits that his epileptic seizures now feel as though they’re accompanied by a voice, hence the drawings he was able to make that we saw back in Episode 4.
For some reason this inspires Jamila to kiss Casper. Before their lips can meet, however, the pair hear an alien coming toward them and hide.
*Side Note: Guess the aliens don’t like painfully forced romantic moments, either.
As Casper and Jamila hold their breath and each other’s hands, the creature hears gunfire in the distance and heads off to kill another random person.
Needle in a Haystack
Invasion (AppleTV+)
Mitsuki, Ikuro (Hinata’s father), and Kaito (Mitsuki’s friend/coworker) head toward a government satellite station with the equipment Mitsuki was allowed to steal from JASA. Kaito doesn’t believe they will discover any new information or that Hinata is still alive, but Ikuro and Mitsuki refuse to give up hope.
Thanks to some online finagling, they’re able to gain entry to the satellite station with relative ease. Mitsuki is also able to convince the crew inside that she’s in charge via supreme self confidence and sheer force of will. With that minor task out of the way, she commands them to pinpoint the source of the weird sound from the recording of Hinata’s shuttle being destroyed.
Once that’s done, Mitsuki intends to find a way to send a message back.
Invasion (AppleTV+)
After a bit of fancy sciencing, Mitsuki is able to determine that the sounds they’re picking up in space are coming from the alien invader’s network. The high volume of separate voices/patterns all happening at once also makes it likely that the network is some sort of hive mind.
Mitsuki tells the satellite station crew see if they can lock in on the singular voice (Hinata’s) inside the network/hive. It takes a few hours, but they finally manage to find the distress beacon that was emitted from Hinata’s shuttle before it got destroyed.
Unfortunately, soldiers burst in and take Mitsuki into custody before she can do anything with the information.
The Verdict
Invasion (AppleTV+)
I was really hoping after last week’s episode that things were going to get more interesting. Instead, each plotline got significantly worse while the overall narrative became even more disjointed and boring.
At least Trev’s story makes sense, although I fear the family he found (the father in particular) will be yet another good samaritan who’s forgotten the next week. That might be for the best in this case since the conversations between Trev and the father were like something out of a screenwriter’s book of clichés.
The Casper and Jamila plot still has potential, but took a big hit when it was confirmed that Casper’s epilepsy is linked to the aliens and Jamila tried to kiss him after he told her about it. Combine that with Monty’s truncated redemption arc, and I’ve pretty much lost interest.
Invasion (AppleTV+)
Speaking of redemption arcs, I am not ready for one with Ahmed — especially when the brief dialogue between him and Aneesha sounded like a Hallmark movie with the volume lowered and the music taken out.
As for Mitsuki, I honestly wish I could tell you what she’s trying to do or how she keeps figuring out where to locate random sounds in space. Much like the rest of Invasion, this subplot appears to think it’s much smarter than it actually is. It’s also saved by very good acting, which is about the only thing the series has going for it at this point.
It’s also worth noting while this paradoxically complex and dull alien invasion unfolds, a couple early plot threads appear to be either completely abandoned or gearing up for some deus ex machina action:
- Luke’s nose not bleeding when all his other classmates’ did.
- Sheriff Tyson/Deputy Grady
I’ve pretty much given up on #JusticeforSheriffTyson, but Luke’s immunity to the alien’s proclivity for making little kids’ nostrils bleed should play a part in things.
At this point, however, Invasion only has three episodes and a lot of ground to cover to make us care about how it will end.
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