As the second season of Invasion draws near its end, questions just keep piling up, and characters start acting increasingly erratic due to the relentless pressure and threat imposed by the alien assault. Some big revelations are made by the end of the eighth episode, titled Cosmic Ocean, but the issue of pacing continues to plague the series, as at times the episodes act like filler in the narrative whole.
In the previous episode, by risking her life, Mitsuki was able to decode alien language from the hive mind entity in the Amazon project. At Oklahoma, Trev and Rose were able to reach the epicenter of the first alien assault, at Ben Shelton’s farm, which they found to have become a fortified military camp—Project Idabel. The campsite is supposedly an alien experimentation center, with a peculiar crater located in the middle, which Trev and Rose suspect to be the holding site of the persons who were previously abducted by the aliens. Trev later decides to infiltrate the crater bunker all alone, promising Rose he’ll rescue the captives. At Paris, Jamila and co. rescue Caspar, whose memory and mental faculties seem to have been tampered with by the alien hive mind as he fails to remember significant events from his past and struggles to reconnect with his friends. To add to the misery, Caspar isn’t able to deter the aliens by controlling them as he previously could, leading Monty to doubt his allegiance and current state of mind. The team later decides to head towards a secretive lab in Orléans, where other teenagers like Caspar are likely to be kept. The latest episode, Cosmic Ocean, comes up with a surprise reveal that might act as a link to answer most of these questions and might set the course for an extra-terrestrial adventure as well.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Did Discord Arise Between Maya And Nikhil?
At Project Amazon, Mitsuki tirelessly overworks herself researching the communication sequence and EMP wavelengths to decipher a definite pattern in the alien language that will help her initiate a conversation, and in the process, she gradually almost wrecks her mental and physical condition. Hinata’s loss is something she never moved on from, resulting in guilt and anger, which is constantly fuelled by her failure to prevent the alien crisis. Also, the risk of getting mindwiped by aliens is another thing she needs to be concerned about, but her reckless tendencies while interacting with the entity tell otherwise. The dual pressure of research and fighting the entity’s control results in Mitsuki hallucinating randomly as well.
Psychoanalyst Dr. Maya Lopez has always been the only compassionate presence at this phase of Mitsuki’s life, and she expresses her concerns about her well-being. Later, Mitsuki discovers a pattern in the sequential communication attempt made by the previous scientists and experts, who were left in a catatonic state by the entity. Nikhil arrives at the scene and becomes disgruntled over the fact that Mitsuki hasn’t been sent back to communicate with the entity. Maya counters his request by mentioning Mitsuki’s miserable condition and calls him out about undervaluing others’ lives to bolster his own ego.
Later, the duo engage in a heated argument about Nikhil’s decision to send Mitsuki in even before she has recovered from her past interaction with the entity. Nikhil is bewildered as to why the life of a single person should be prioritized against the rest of the world, while Maya holds the opinion that to have a chance of saving the world, they need Mitsuki to be of sound mind. As Nikhil disagrees with Maya’s proposal of delaying Mitsuki’s interaction with the entity, she decides to resign and leave the operation. Before departing, Maya makes a visit to Mitsuki’s quarters and bids her farewell, not before asking her to take care of herself.
Did Trev Manage To Learn The Secret Of The Bunker?
The scene shifts to Project Idabel, at the exact point in time when the last episode ended, as Trev descends down to the crater bunker and tries to pry it open. Unfortunately for him, it triggers an alarm system, and Trev gets arrested by the military, who escort him to the main campsite. En route, Trev notices a room where all the formerly missing or alien-abducted people of the town are present and seem to be in a catatonic state. He is brought to the acting chief of the camp, General Mitchell, who shrugs off all his queries about the missing persons or the contents of the bunker, merely stating them to be classified information. Trev tries to convince Mitchell to let him rejoin the force and to let him serve this particular site, but to no avail. Just like the situation during his arrival in Oklahoma, Trev is incarcerated all over again.
On the other hand, Rose realizes that Trev has been caught by the military, and going back to her workplace—the police station—she makes a desperate attempt to ensure the continuation of their investigation. Holding her colleague and childhood friend, Officer Wade, at gunpoint, Rose locks him up in a prison cell and tells him everything about Caspar’s notebook art being a clue to solving the missing person mystery. She pleads with Wade to continue the search in case she isn’t able to make it at the end, as after taking leave, she heads directly towards Project Idabel.
Did Caspar Lose The Connection With The Aliens?
Walking through the outskirts of Paris, the teenage team consisting of Jamila, Caspar, Alfie, Monty, and his sister, Penny, finally reach the covert lab at Orléans, reuniting with all the other kids who shared a psychic connection with the aliens as well as the medical professionals, Esmee and Gabriel, who were in charge of taking care of them. The rest of the children remember sharing a psychic space with Caspar, but they were able to revert to their regular state of mind while Caspar remained in a coma. Like the rest of Caspar’s friends, Esmee questions him as to how he managed to survive, to which Caspar cannot provide a satisfactory answer. Gabriel becomes skeptical about Caspar’s condition, as he considers that, due to him sharing a deeper connection with the aliens, his mind has been hacked, or worse.
Caspar is asked to describe the psychical space in which he was later trapped during a coma, and he struggles to do so. Penny suggests allowing him and other kids to draw the psychical space, which seems to be the most efficient option for others as well, and Caspar gets busy with the teenagers in portraying the psychical space.
Did Mitsuki End The Last Hope Of Humanity?
At Project Amazon, Mitsuki, donning her tether suit, prepares to re-enter the threshold chamber to interact with the entity, and finds Nikhil to be prepared in a suit of his own as well. It seems like Maya’s verbal jab about putting his own neck on the line got to him, as he has decided to take the risk of communicating with the entity as well. To encourage Mitsuki, Nikhil shares the story of sage Markandeya from Hindu mythology, who had received a glimpse of the vast, enormous cosmic ocean in his efforts to get out of the world through Lord Vishnu’s mouth but failed and, at the end, needed Lord Shiva’s help to transcend the barrier. Although the story is a bad compilation of two Hindu puranas, the point Nikhil is trying to make is that Mitsuki needed a better guide, which he himself aspires to be.
However, soon they find out that before leaving, Maya has damaged all of Mitsuki’s tether suits to ensure she doesn’t interact with the entity before making a full recovery, which prompts an enraged Nikhil to take matters into his own hands and enter the threshold chamber. He starts torturing the entity to force a reaction out of it so that a possible connection or deterrent method can be found, and his action creates vicious turbulence and seismic activities triggered by alien entities spread worldwide which soon spread to all the major invasion centers in the world. This includes Project Idabel, where, using the turbulence as a distraction, Rose tries to infiltrate the camp but gets caught, and the lab in Orléans, where all the teenagers except Caspar feel sudden agonizing pangs and start chanting ‘Wajo’. The entire group hurriedly exits the lab, and Jamila starts doubting Caspar’s credibility as well.
The enraged entity engulfs Nikhil for a brief period of time and throws him out, rendering him unconscious. The situation prompts Maya to change her decision and return to the project site, where she and Mitsuki bring Nikhil out of the threshold chamber. However, the turbulence shows no sign of stopping, which alarms WDC President Benya Mabote as well, who presses Maya to find a way to stop it. In a desperate attempt to pacify the turbulence, Mitsuki enters the threshold chamber without protective tether gears and destroys the entity by overcharging it with EMP waves.
Upon gaining consciousness, Maya at once returns to check the details of the previous incident, and as she analyzes the changed atmospheric impact on Nikhil’s suit, she realizes that the entity was actually a portal to the world of the aliens. The episode ends with a regretful Mitsuki wondering about what her act might result in in the larger context, as the best possible way of learning about the alien invaders is gone. This reveal makes us wonder whether Caspar and the other children were psychically connected to the alien world and whether Caspar’s mind has remained trapped as well. The series is veering in the direction of Stranger Things, making Caspar take on the role of Will Byers but having none of the intrigue of it. With two episodes remaining in this season, the series will inevitably jam-pack information and exposition in the finale, just like in the first season, and we sincerely hope that speculation doesn’t turn out to be the case at the end.
