Invasion – Season 1 Episode 4 “The King is Dead” Recap & Review

The King is Dead

Episode 4 of Invasion begins in England, with Casper and the other kids waking up on the bus. The driver is unresponsive and cold as they come to the realization that he’s dead. This is an ominous wake-up call, as the children contemplate just what to do next.

There’s a real Lord of the Flies dynamic going on here, typified by Monty and Casper’s continuous bickering. Unfortunately Monty brings up the abuse in Casper’s home, and how he sat by and watched as his mum was thrown down the stairs and confined to a wheelchair. Casper snaps. Silently, he walks past the other kids and climbs up the cliff-face to the ground above. This sets off a chain reaction, as all the other kids join him and climb up as well.

On the ground level, Casper notices chunks of the downed satellite and realizes he’s actually sketched this himself. Opening up his book to confirm as much, the Russian block capitals he’s written match that on the chunk of metal completely.

Meanwhile, Aneesha wakes up and notices Ahmed sobbing while on the floor, looking at his phone. Now, it turns out Luke has a chunk of metal too, presumably from a downed satellite outside their old house. He’s keeping this hidden from his parents though, as it becomes apparent that we’re in the calm before the storm. Authorities declare a state of emergency and as light breaches the world, the family are forced to move on again.

Aneesha glumly looks at Ahmed’s phone while he’s out the car, finding baby scan photos on his phone. She suddenly comes to the grim realization that things between Ahmed and his mistress are far more serious than she initially thought. She thinks twice about leaving Ahmed and locking him out the car, instead bringing up her findings with him in front of the kids. When they stop by the side of the road and continue bickering, Luke disappears after heading out to use the toilet.

Meanwhile, Trevante is led through the desert to a nearby town. It’s eerily quiet as he makes his way to the hospital, where he finds numerous people dotted about. Following a signal, Trevante descends down into the basement alone. He finds one of his own there but gunshots above signify that more fighters are on the way, especially if the English-speaking doctor is telling the truth.

So Trevante, seemingly the only healthy soldier, heads up and fights his way through several rogue enemies to a nearby car.

In Japan, Mitsuki is interviewed over what happened to the space shuttle. Her superiors contemplate whether it may have been space junk that crashed into the ship, while taking no disciplinary action over her breaking into the vault and stealing his badge. “You’re all f*cking idiots,” Mitsuki eventually calls out, rushing out of JASA and over to see Ikuro, her lover’s father.

Now, the news reports a massive explosion in Mumbai (sure would have been nice to see that wouldn’t it?) as Invasion continues to defiantly skip out of the invasion part of its premise and focus on character melodrama. The focus here is on Ikuro’s relationship with Murai, and Yamato calls him out for hiding her away and keeping her sexuality a secret from the world. Only, that’s not actually the truth.

The reality here is that Ikuro wanted Murai to open up about who she really was and tell the world, but she herself decided to keep that a secret. That’s why the pair stopped talking.

There’s a montage here of all our different characters as they go about their business, including Monty pushed out from the kids, Aneesha and the gang seeking refuge with a stranger in the woods and Mitsuki interrupted from her chat as the ground begins shaking. FINALLY something happens relating to this invasion! But then we fade to black. Ah well, there’s always next week.

The Episode Review

Good grief that was a bad episode. I’m all for character melodrama and progressing characters but what did we actually learn from this chapter? Ahmed as been sleeping with his mistress and has got her pregnant. Which seems like a moot point given she may actually be dead. Mitsuki reconciles with her lover’s father while Casper takes charge. That’s it, that’s the whole episode.

Trevante’s busywork to find his soldiers results in nothing of consequence occurring while the rest of the hour is just padded out with unnecessary fluff.

It’s ironic really, that a show called Invasion doesn’t feature a single bit of alien invasion in its fourth episode. While some of the characters are quite enjoyable, the trailer and promotional material for this feels a bit misleading given how slow and laborious this has become. (Actually go back and watch the trailer, most of the material is actually from episode 1!)

Hopefully the rest of the season can improve, and the ending does seem to hint at that, because in essence, this was an hour of filler.