(courtesy IMP Awards)
Episode 1 – “Something’s Changed”
Honestly if you’d asked this reviewer if he’d ever see a second season on Invasion, the answer would be a hard “NO”. While the first season was the very highest order of sci-fi storytelling, slowly and expertly building tension and dread in ways that cut through to the humanity of what it would be like to see your world invaded by stealth and your life upended cataclysmically, there had been little-to-no whisper of a second season and certainly no sign that this gem of a show was coming back for part two of the possible end of planet Earth. So, while Foundation came roaring back in all its emotionally nuanced, languorous glory, it seemed we had to be content with all of the build-up and none of the payoff of Invasion … until, that is, a trailer for season two popped up out of nowhere and lo and behold, the story was happily (or not so happily if you’re a character in this apocalyptic narrative), set to continue in all its civilisation shattering horror. The thing about Invasion that really strikes you, some narrative liberties aside such as the way the aliens seem to kill some groups of people and leave others conveniently alone, is how willing it is to go dark and to stare straight into the hellish abyss of the end of the world. It knows how much this would destroy society as a whole, and individual in particular, and it leaves you to feel the full impact of their grief, pain and loss. While there is an epic quality to this episode which sees us reintroduced to Mitsuki Yamato (Shioli Kutsuna), who may just hold the key to communicating with the aliens if she doesn’t go mad first, and the Malik family on the run where mum Aneesha (Golshifteh Farahani) is keeping her kids on the run with a solid mix of motherly care and scary paranoia (pretty much justified), it is, like season one, content to slowly delve into how the lives of our characters have been affected and what they will need to do to survive. It’s scary and intense but also that rare thing in TV these days – willing to take its time telling its story and unworried about ending every scene with some horrific what-if. You are utterly mesmerised and compelled to watch but not because overdone narrative theatrics are holding your attention but because Yamato and Malik are allowed to have their stories told, carefully and fully, adding a real depth of humanity to those moments when the action does ramp up. This is a singularly good episode that is riveting in all the best ways, and while you can only hope alien invasion is not our collectively existential bingo card, if it is then this is likely how it will play out.
Episode 2 – “Chasing Ghosts”
As you can imagine, the calamitous upheaval of an alien invasion, has ripped the established order of things limb from figurative limb. Some people react to that by pretending as if it has happened at all which might seem strange and wholly unhinged until you think about how scarring trauma can be and how for some people the only response they can manage is to act as if it hasn’t taken place at all. Case in point is Trevante Cole (Shamier Anderson), the US soldier who, after discovering his entire platoon in Afghanistan has disappeared into the ether and that dark otherworldly forces are at work on the planet, a discovery accentuated by coming into contact with Caspar Morrow (Billy Barratt) who has the unexpected ability, shared but to the same degree by other kids his age, of being able to somehow communicate with the aliens. Things don’t end well there and scarred by his experience of battling halfway around the world to reach his family in Florida, and more specifically his wife, he ends up at his sister’s where a party is in full swing with the family burning through their rations to have a good time. What passes for reality-ignoring sanity sort of makes sense when you realise that his family want to be with each other and stay close if this is how and when the world is ending, but Trevante can’t handle it and sets out, after some online sleuthing which Reveals Things in Oklahoma, to contribute to fighting back against the aliens where he can. It may be a foolishly quixotic mission but he has to do something, his reaction one of doing something to affect his own destiny, however doomed, rather than waiting for the end to come. Time is, of course, ticking with the aliens terraforming Earth to suit their poisonous (to us) needs, and with 25-30% already changed, there’s not a lot of time to effect a change for the invasionary better, if that’s even possible. Another person unwilling to sit back and watch the world end is Caspar’s bestie Jamila (India Brown) whom leaves her cosy extended family in search of Caspar who is supposed to be dead – at least it seemed that way at the end of season 1 – but who may have been spirited away elsewhere. She goes to London to get answers, meets up with some old school friends, Darwin and Alfie (Louis Toghill and Cache Vanderpuye respectively) who decide to leave the refugee camp they now call home to join her on her quest, with the trio joined by rich kid Monty (Paddy Holland) and his adorably forthright little sister Penny (Ruby Siddle) whose family’s car they try to steal. Both missions are likely foolish and ill-advised but the feeling is it’s better to die trying than not at all, and it makes sense in a world with so much agency removed from it that our characters would try to hang onto what they can, even if the end is nigh …
Invasion is currently streaming on AppleTV+ with episode three, “Fireworks”, dropping on 6 September (7 September around lunchtime in Australia).