Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for the Season 3 premiere of Invasion, S3E1, “The Ones We Leave Behind” (written by Simon Kinberg and directed by Alik Sakharov)
Invasion S3E1 begins with a brief glimpse of what occurred shortly after the events that concluded Season 2. The alien mothership crashes to Earth, but we don’t see what Trevante (Shamier Anderson) and Caspar (Billy Barratt) may have done inside of the ship to cause this. Instead, Season 3 cuts to two years later, with humanity celebrating the anniversary of the event and believing that the alien threat was defeated.
I was a bit surprised by this narrative decision. Ultimately, I think it works to set up what happened on the ship as a mystery as opposed to showing us in a direct, linear fashion. On this front, we should recall how Caspar’s eyes turned color in the Season 2 finale, which might indicate that he had been taken over by the aliens. Also, we should recall that Caspar had travelled to the mothership psychically, while Trevante used a portal to go there physically. The world believes they both died, but in Caspar’s case, they had a corpse, and Jamila (India Brown) watched it happen. So, if Caspar returns to this story, it’s going to have to be as some kind of ghost.
(I just realized that, given his name, that is going to happen.)
The cold open of “The Ones We Leave Behind” centers on a family we’ve never seen before. They are watching the ceremony commemorating Caspar and Trev for heroically sacrificing their lives to save the species. Their dog, Armstrong, gets out of the house through a cracked door, so the father, Steven (David Sullivan), goes to fetch him.
He does not fetch him. He gets killed by an alien. Cue the opening title sequence.
I don’t know if we’ll see the rest of the family again in Invasion Season 3, but we probably should since virtually everyone in the world believes that the alien threat has been eliminated. At the same time, I’m not sure this show needs more characters. The Season 3 premiere doesn’t check in with a number of people we’ve come to know through the first two seasons, and while I’m sure Episode 2 will remedy that, this will take us away from Trevante and Jamila, who feel like the locus of the action by the time S3E1 ends.
Trevante shows up in an alien portal that humanity had sealed off but has been keeping an eye on. We don’t know where he’s been for two years, but neither does he, and he doesn’t remember what happened on the ship.
He’s grilled by Jack Hollander (Eric Lange), whose job is to assess all possible threats to humanity. Hollander isn’t sure Trev is really Trev, since they know that the aliens could do some mind control stuff and all of that, but he doesn’t get a lot of time to do tests or anything because someone has leaked that Trevante—the greatest hero that humanity has ever known—has reappeared.
President Zhou (Terry Chen) isn’t very happy about that, but he’s savvy enough to know that they need to present Trev to the people. So, Hollander and General Bryant (Aaron Pearl) give Trev a quick polygraph. Then it’s time to prep him for his public event.
Jamila has been trying to get on with her life (as represented by her painting hobby and new boyfriend), but after she sees that Trevante is alive, she can’t help but go to his speech to reconnect with him. She does, and she’s upset to learn that he doesn’t remember what happened on the ship.
When Trev sees Jamila’s drawing of Caspar’s ECG, though, he has a flashback. He knows that the alien threat isn’t over. He saw another kind of alien on the ship.
He runs to tell General Bryant, but the man is convinced that Trev just has PTSD, so Trev decides to run. Meanwhile, Jamila has decided she can’t move on without knowing what happened, so she joins him. They take off in her car.
Hollander is furious and commands that Trevante not be allowed to leave the city. The world’s greatest hero is now its most wanted man.
Fin.
Overall, Invasion S3E1 sets up what should be a compelling season of television. This show isn’t really deep, but it does manage to hit some emotional beats, and there’s enough mystery to give us some things to think about.
In the margins, the Season 3 premiere hints at geopolitical shifts in the wake of the alien invasion, but it doesn’t really explain them. I’m not sure how much it will matter. Is President Zhou, like, President of Earth? I guess? Fine, whatever.
General Bryant mentions that the mothership crash site has become a toxic dead zone where terrestrial life cannot survive and says that the hunter-killer aliens have been retreating there to die. I get the feeling that no human beings have actually gone down there to check it out, which is only somewhat plausible.
I can’t wait to check in with Mitsuki (Shioli Kutsuna)! At least we got some more David Bowie in the closing credits.
See you next week.
