Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of Invasion, S2E10, “Old Friends, New Frontiers” (written by Simon Kinberg & Dan Dietz and directed by Mathias Herndl).
Editor’s Note: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Last week on Invasion, Aneesha (Golshifteh Farahani) found Sarah (Tara Moayedi) in the military base in Idabel, but then proceeded to get captured. I presumed this would mean that the others wouldn’t get away either, but it turns out that Clark (Enver Gjokaj) does somehow in S2E10—though we don’t see how.
Trevante (Shamier Anderson), on the other hand, hears Caspar’s (Billy Barratt) voice and follows it to find him on a conference call with the President (Moshidi Motshegwa) and General Mitchell (Grant Swanby). They are in the midst of planning a counter-invasion of the alien mothership in light of the experience Caspar and Mitsuki (Shioli Kutsuna) had in “Breakthrough,” so of course Trev volunteers to undertake this mission, believing it to be his purpose.
The President, though, doesn’t like that idea because she can’t control Trev (she says this), and so he is remanded back to his cell. How he got out of that cell to be present for the action in town later in the episode is anyone’s guess. Maybe General Mitchell let him go even though the President said to take him back to his cell, though that doesn’t exactly seem in character.
Meanwhile, Luke (Azhy Robertson) sees a blob alien in the sky, which I guess other characters cannot see. He also senses that hunter-killer aliens are amassing to protect this portal, so he wants to help the military now. The Movement resists, but ultimately goes along as he forces their hand by marching right out to the troops who’ve surrounded their hideout. And he convinces those troops to accept his help by getting an attacking alien to stand down.
Later, in town, the “exceptional children” in France help him take out all of the aliens that are trying to protect the portal, so I guess Luke was indeed the one they mentioned previously, and they managed to find him psychically somehow. Also, they can kill aliens with their minds, which is pretty cool.
At the same time, it always amuses me in stories like this, where it’s been established that bullets do not hurt the aliens, how the military’s reaction consistently remains to fire their guns at them anyway. It’s probably the most realistic thing in Invasion, and the perfect symbol for the stupidity of the military-industrial complex.
In the Amazon, Mitsuki believes she can stabilize the portal through some mental gymnastics so that soldiers can go through it. And in France, Caspar prepares to psychically transport to the mothership to guide the forces once they arrive. Maya (Naian González Norvind) is worried about Mitsuki, as always, while Jamila (India Brown) is worried about Caspar, as per usual.
Both ultimately allow their beloveds to proceed without their help, though it is somewhat odd that Caspar almost seems to change his mind about the idea of Jamila going with him after she’s decided she shouldn’t. He told her she shouldn’t in S2E9, so I don’t know why he acts here like he’s disappointed.
Mitsuki has to lose herself in the alien consciousness in order to keep the portal stable, and Maya lets her make that sacrifice. It’s not entirely clear what state our friend Mitsuki is in as Season 2 ends, but I think we can presume she’ll have lost her mind like the other scientists in the Amazon. I would be surprised if she’s dead.
Prior to this, though, when she was wavering, the portal/blob alien rejected the soldiers who were supposed to go through it, so the opportunity arises for it to be Trev after all. General Mitchell even gives him the greenlight (and the shard relic). This is again something I’m not sure is entirely in character for the General, but I’ll allow it.
In the closing scene of the Season 2 finale, Trev is on the alien mothership, much like we saw Mitsuki and Caspar last week. It’s not spelled out, but my inference is that he can interact with the place physically in a way they could not. Indeed, this would seem to be the whole point of the events of this hour: to get a force there physically with weapons.
Trev touches the shard to the walls of the ship, and it seems to have an effect on the electricity that they normally pulse with, but it’s not entirely clear what that effect is. Then, Caspar joins him, and I presume this is in mind but not in body, though I feel it is worth emphasizing again that we don’t really know what Caspar can and can’t do in this space as of yet.
That might be significant as this story moves forward, as Caspar’s eyes briefly change color as he tells Trev to follow him, and this would seem to be the culmination of all of the worries that have been voiced over the course of Season 2 that Caspar is not himself. Is he working with the aliens? Do they control him without his knowledge?
I don’t know, but something is going on here.
Though at the time of this writing Invasion has not been renewed for a third season, we know that four seasons are planned. So, even if the Season 2 finale takes us to a moment where humanity seems primed to deal a decisive blow against the aliens, a big twist must await to open Season 3.
As for the questions this season has posed, most have gotten a pretty straightforward answer with this finale. Luke was that one the children in France were looking for. And the rallying of the hunter-killers to protect the blob portal seems like good evidence that they are indeed on the same team.
We still don’t know where, or how, Luke found the shard relic, or if that will be important. And we still don’t know why people have been saying ‘wajo’ all the time. We still don’t know what the aliens want in any sense deeper than some suggestion like Lebensraum. And we don’t know how Caspar survived the attack on the hospital in Paris.
As Season 2 ends, Mitsuki offers up what amounts to a prayer, and it feels like Invasion wants to hit a note about the unity of humanity in the face of the alien threat that it hasn’t quite earned.
Throughout Season 2, there have been any number of squabbles, but the most significant may have been that between our protagonists and the military. Are we to believe that they’re on the same side now?
In S2E10, Aneesha confronts General Mitchell about the fact that they kidnapped her daughter. He says that sometimes when you’re fighting monsters, you have to do monstrous things. Bygones?
Equally, they kept Trev prisoner and wouldn’t listen to him, but Mitchell makes a sudden turn to letting him be the one to go through the portal. What motivates that turn? Are the soldiers just all scared after what happened to the first group who tried?
We can look past these things, and probably we should, but I’m genuinely curious if we’re supposed to conclude that everyone has finally put aside their differences, or if this will turn out to just be a small moment that offers a theme that doesn’t land.
Beyond that, I’m curious where Season 3 might take things. It seems clear that something is going on with Caspar, and there remains a lot of space for Invasion to explore in terms of what these aliens are after and how they function.
I will say that Mitsuki better not be dropping out of this story, since she’s my favorite character.
See you for Season 3, if and when we get it.
