Summary
Invasion Season 3 continues its trademark ambling pace in Episode 2, which is only worsened by the presence of the show’s worst character.
I don’t think there’s much point in moaning about Invasion‘s pacing anymore. I might as well save my breath, since it is determinedly unhurried, and the complete lack of urgency is baked into its very DNA. Nothing’s going to change in this regard, which can be fine depending on who you’re being forced to spend time with. Season 3 started adequately enough with a premiere focused on Trevante and Jamila, but Episode 2, “The Message”, shifts focus to Mitsuki and Nikhil, the most annoying man who ever lived, so it fares a little worse overall.
Even without Nikhil’s presence, it would still be problematic that the episode ends without us having really learned anything more about the season’s overarching plot. But Nikhil being around is like being waterboarded. I can’t stand him. Of course, he’s supposed to be unpleasant, given that he’s an arrogant billionaire, but there’s something about Shane Zaza’s performance that rubs me the wrong way as well. Since I quite like Mitsuki, his ever-presence feels even more draining, and “The Message” ends with her welcoming him to join her on the next stage of her ill-advised mission, so it’s a problem that isn’t going away.
Mitsuki isn’t faring well, truthfully. We find her hiding out in the Hida Mountains, hunting rabbits and fish to exchange for vegetables with a young girl named Sayaka and her farmer grandfather. The two of them are the only people Mitsuki has met in the wilderness. She spends most of her time booby-trapping her isolated cabin and journaling about solitude and silence. Not that she gets much silence, to be fair, since there’s a near-constant ringing in her head that occasionally makes her collapse.
After seeing Trevante’s sudden re-emergence online, Mitsuki hacks into the WDC database and gets caught, alerting Regan to her activities. Regan, in response, sends Nikhil to bring her in. Nikhil would much rather stay in the South Pole and continue drilling into the power cores of alien ships, despite the obvious and worsening dangers, but he’s compelled to go to Japan and see what Mitsuki’s up to. Given her connection to the alien hive mind, she could potentially be a threat.
Even without the alien connection, she’s still pretty threatening. Nikhil and some goons find her immediately and pursue her through the woods, and Mitsuki ends up picking them all off with a little crossbow she hunts rabbits with. Disappointingly, she’s more merciful to Nikhil, whom she’s still fuming with for essentially handing her over to the authorities. His counterpoint that she still presents a pretty considerable risk is fair, but it’s coming from him, so it annoyed me either way. He does do Mitsuki the solid of leaving her be and essentially telling Regan to shove her threats up her backside, though.
Without Nikhil, Regan turns to Kaede Tamura, who is much more eager to hunt Mitsuki down. Not that she’s especially hard to find, since she heads to Ume’s place, where Kenji is in a state of constant pain and delirium. He vaguely explains that he started hearing voices and seeing visions again after Trevante’s sudden return, and was even pulled to a hunter-killer who seems to have imprinted on him via a wound in his arm. Mitsuki theorizes that she needs to get close to an alien to figure out what’s going on, but she doesn’t get much time to converse with Kenji since Kaede turns up almost immediately.
This turns into an opportunity, at least. After slipping away from Ume’s place on Kenji’s bike, Mitsuki plants a decoy to lure Kaede away so that she can hack into the WDC computers and pinpoint an alien location. She goes there and finds a deep subterranean facility, but as she’s descending the long ladder, she has another ear-ringing attack and collapses, falling from the ladder and thudding into the ground a not-inconsiderable distance below.
When Mitsuki comes to, Kaede, who was pursuing her down the ladder, is dead, as are all of her team — mauled to death by an alien that looms over Mitsuki but only non-threateningly strokes her face. You’d think this would be where Invasion Season 3, Episode 2 ends, but there’s a bonus scene — if “bonus” is the right word given the circumstances — at one of Nikhil’s parties in California. Mitsuki meets him there and briefly explains her encounter with the alien, asserting that something’s different about them and claiming they passed on an inscrutable message to her: “They arise”.
I hope that whoever’s arising kills Nikhil off sooner rather than later.
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