Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for the Invasion Season 3 finale, S3E10, “The End of the Line” (written by Simon Kinberg & Demetrios Cokinos and directed by Alik Sakharov)
Invasion S3E10 begins with Aneesha (Golshifteh Farahani) and the WDC soldiers in pursuit of Verna (Erika Alexander), after Verna killed Clark (Enver Gjokaj) at the end of last week’s episode. I’m not entirely sure why the WDC let Infinitas retreat, regroup, and kill Clark in the first place, but it sets up a narrative tension throughout the Season 3 finale, which features a lot of scenes of Aneesha and Verna fighting intercut with the other action.
First, though, Verna finds Mitsuki (Shioli Kutsuna), whom she tries to convince of the Infinitas mumbo jumbo. Mitsuki isn’t having it. The souls of our dead loved ones are not on the alien mothership. Don’t be ridiculous!
Of course, Mitsuki does not remember her dead loved ones because of what the WDC did to her in between Season 2 and Season 3. It seems like she’s close to being swayed to help Verna just on the promise of retrieving those memories, but then Aneesha arrives and Verna puts a gun to Mitsuki’s head.
Verna runs off towards the mothership, and Aneesha follows. Meanwhile, Mitsuki communes with an alien vine, which allows her to connect with Nikhil (Shane Zaza), who is on the ship but trapped in a traumatic memory. She learns that he tried to keep the WDC from operating on her. This knowledge, along with the fact that the new message from the aliens is “attack,” leads Mitsuki to the mothership as well.
Nikhil, Trevante (Shamier Anderson), and Jamila (India Brown) get to the mothership earlier than anyone else in Invasion S3E10, intending to carry out their plan to explode a shard bomb at the ship’s core. As they navigate the ship, however, Nikhil and Trev both have their minds messed with by the aliens in a way that resembles what happened to soldiers in “Outpost 17.” They don’t get violent, though. They are just stuck in place.
Jamila seems to be unaffected, which is curious, but then Caspar (Billy Barratt) appears to her, and it will turn out that he is her traumatic memory. It remains something of a question as to whether the aliens are pulling a trick with this kind of thing, or if somehow it really is Caspar in some meaningful sense, but this scene points in the direction of it being a trick. Ultimately, Jamila is able to dispel Caspar the friendly ghost and carry on with the mission.
For Nikhil and Trev, it takes Mitsuki’s intervention. She runs into the mothership, removes the dampener from her neck, and screams. This draws the attention of all of the aliens and breaks the spell Trev and Nikhil had been under. Along with Jamila, they proceed to go and plant the bomb.
With the timer set, Jamila and Trev want to get out of the ship as quickly as possible, but Nikhil says he won’t leave without Mitsuki. They find her, but not before the bomb goes off. It doesn’t hurt them, though, because why would a bomb specifically designed to disrupt an alien hivemind harm human beings? Anyway…
Before the group can reunite with Mitsuki, a kind of gash appears above them, and Mitsuki is sucked up into it. She gets her memories of Hinata (Rinko Kikuchi) back, but then vanishes into the gash. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but it would be the big thing that sets up a hypothetical Season 4 and puts some pressure on the notion that the aliens are merely tricking people with images of dead loved ones.
Outside the ship, Verna is distraught that it has been destroyed, and Aneesha finally shoots Verna dead. We cut to news reports about how the hunter-killers that are still out in the world are vulnerable again. Trev gets a promotion for some reason. Aneesha reunites with her family. And Nikhil says he won’t sleep until he finds Mitsuki.
David Bowie’s “Starman” plays over the closing credits, which, again, is not the Bowie song I think they should be using.
It’s not clear whether Invasion will receive a fourth season, though creator Simon Kinberg has indicated that he wants one. That would presumably focus on the search for Mitsuki and the lingering alien threat, while continuing to give the shallowest possible treatment to the deeper questions the series gestures at.
Season 3 had its moments, but coming out of the finale, we still have little idea about what is motivating the aliens. Rather than playing in the space of ambiguity, Invasion has tended to oscillate between indications that the aliens are out to kill everyone and suggestions that they are more benevolent in spirit.
If Kinberg has a resolution in mind, though, then bring on Season 4.
