Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Invasion’ Season 2 on Apple TV+, Where People On An Occupied Earth Open New Fronts In The Fight To Take It Back

Invasion premiered on Apple TV+ in October 2021, and received its renewal order soon after. The series, which presents from various human perspectives the arrival of, attacks by, and first contact with a powerful alien force, was created by Simon Kinberg and David Weis, whose credits as filmmakers, producers, and writers include Star Wars Rebels, Legion, Citadel, and Hunters. Season two of Invasion will feature ten episodes – released at a weekly clip – and return most of its core cast. But they bear scars incurred from recent events. What do the alien new arrivals want? Is Earth just another planet to terraform for vital resources? And what more will we learn about the hive mind of these spiny, prickly space invaders?   

INVASION – SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: A cacophony of voices and overlapping news reports. It’s been four months since the aliens invaded Earth, and in a televised address, the president of the World Defense Coalition says that extra terrestrial spores have infected over thirty percent of the world’s air supply. 

The Gist: In season one, we experienced the invasion and its immediate aftermath from the differing vantage points of people all over the world. For Aneesh Malik (Golshifteh Farahani), it was human folly, not alien, that took her husband from their family. Now, she steals gas and bits of food and supplies as they drive north through Canada in search of safety, still in possession of an item of alien origin. Mitsuki Yamato (Shioli Kutsuna) made first contact with the invaders, but it was through a disheartening mix of personal memory, questionable reality, and lingering suspicions over intent. We rejoin her in Osaka, where she lobs Molotov cocktails at the chittering alien foot soldiers attacking a group of masked-up civilians, but Mitsuki is soon apprehended and stuffed into a chopper operated by Dharmax Technology. And while Trevante Cole (Shamier Anderson) does not appear early on, his season one journey from the US military to the bedside of a young British boy named Caspar Morrow (Billy Barratt) remains crucial, since Caspar’s unique psychic link with the invaders seems strong enough to outlast seizures and even death.

Much of the world is under the impression that humans are winning the war against invasion. But Trevante, Mitsuki, Aneesh, and even her son Luke (Azhy Robertson) understand that isn’t the case, even if they’re still adapting to the bigger picture. Under a kind of house arrest, MItsuki is flown to Brazil, where she meets the head of Dharmax, a manic tech bro-type named Nikhil Kapur (Shane Zaza). His operation is attempting to crack the code of a massive alien spacecraft that crashed in the rainforest, the demise of which Nikhil attributes in part to coordinates worked out by Mitsuki. He calls this a win for Earth. But she knows it’s only the beginning of another phase. Nikhil ignores calls from the world’s coalition government as Maya Castillo (Naian Gonzǻlez Norvind), a cognitive scientist on his team, runs a battery of tests on Mitsuki in order to prepare her for more face time surfing with the alien, which in this form kind of resembles that shapeshifting sentient liquid from The Abyss.

After a close call with a passing army patrol – the government has posted a BOLO for the Maliks  – Aneesh, Luke, and Sarah (Tara Moayedi) hook up with Clark Evans (Enver Gjokaj), who operates a rebel cell under the banner of The Movement. Aneesh calls them anarchists, but Clark bristles at that description. And besides, his group’s got food, clean cots, and hot chocolate. And as she beds her family down for the night, Aneesh stares at the hunk of alien stuff Luke found. It seems to be moving on the inside.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? With a planet ravaged by battle, resources scarce, and societal command structures in flux, the world Invasion imagines shares some of its look and feel with The Last of Us. (Whether the cause of our downfall is fungal brain rot or a rogue ET, the effects on everyday life are remarkably similar.) And TNT’s ambitious, scrappy Falling Skies tackled a similar set of problems across five seasons in the mid-2000s; nowadays the sci-fi series led by Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood streams in full on Max.

Our Take: With Shane Zaza’s Nikhil Kapur spouting declarations like “Progress requires radical thinking” and “feelings get in the way – it’s one of our greatest failings as a species,” the early going of Invasion season two definitely has fun with the idea that a tech mogul disruptor-in-chief could one day enter a mind meld with encroaching aliens. Nikhil will be one to watch as his motives become more clear, which if we consider his real world analogues probably combine personal gain with a god complex. But it also seems clear that he’ll be in direct competition with Mitsuki, who might understand more than anyone on earth how the aliens can enter our minds, manipulate the human form, and even resurrect versions of themselves. In other words, there are Big Questions to explore as Invasion season two begins. And since it was a pretty slow burn the first time around, we might expect a similar tone. But across that span the series also put in a lot of work to establish its core characters, and the connections in their lives that not only create meaning but can become important to the evolving question of alien first contact. (There is a nice callback here of Mitsuki and the “Space Oddity” moment with her departed true love.) Clark even says it out loud to Aneesh: “Connections are the only thing keeping us alive.” And what that means from his perspective, from hers, and from humanity’s in general is a solid hook to keep us engaged with Invasion as it hopefully brings more clarity to the larger themes introduced in season one. 

And hey, if the alien horde hive mind or some other unseen force has the capacity to return Sam Neill to the cast of Invasion as Sheriff Jim Bell Tyson – or a human-adjacent version thereof – then that’s one more reason to catch its second season.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Invasion has already established the power of the mind and the untold environments within it as integral to humanity’s understanding of the aliens’ presence on our planet. And in the final moments of the season two premiere, we revisit a character whose psychic link with the invaders was always the strongest. “This tremor is rhythmic,”says a French doctor monitoring the brainwaves. “It has a pattern. It’s different this time. Something’s changed.”   

Sleeper Star: Joining the cast, Naian Gonzǻlez Norvind makes an immediate impression as cognitive scientist Dr. Maya Castillo, someone who seems like she’ll be a great ally for Shioli Kutsuna’s Mitsuki Yamato as research continues into the mysterious alien hive mind. 

Most Pilot-y Line: “We are taking you somewhere that could help us win. Somewhere you could save everyone.” While it’s true that Dharmax Technology abducted Matsuki from the streets of Osaka, the company also has sole control of the site surrounding a downed alien ship. The Dharmax group’s insertion of Mitsuki back into first contact mode is sure to have far-reaching implications for Invasion in its new season. 

Our Call: STREAM IT. “It only made things worse.” In Season 2 of Invasion, the core characters we’ve been following will be key to making those in power and the world at large understand: The war is not won, the aliens will make more moves, and sometimes the battlefield isn’t something you can touch. 

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges