Invasion – Season 2 Episode 4 “The Tunnel” Recap & Review

The Tunnel

Episode 4 of Invasion’s new season begins with the kids driving through Folkestone to enter France. President Benya’s message about the coordinated attack on the carrier ships keeps playing on repeat on the radio. When the kids reach the border crossing, they see everyone out of their cars and staring at the sky. Since the kids were listening to music in the car, they didn’t know about this attack. Jamila urges Monty to turn around and take the tunnel into France instead.

They ditch the car near the entrance and skip past the guards. Although Monty is sceptical to go at first as it would put Penny at risk, he decides they should go along as well. Once in the tunnel, the kids hear distant explosions. This is when the attack happened. Everyone except Jamila wants to turn around. But she convinces them to stay on course and reach Caspar as he is their only hope. Meanwhile, in the hospital where Caspar is being observed, we see patients listening to the radio where the presenter feels the attack is a big breakthrough in the fight.

Beyond the general area, we see a neurologist, Esmee, walking into the secured zone. Many children are positioned at tables and are drawing pictures. It is unclear if they are using signals from Caspar’s brain to emit an image into the kids’ brains. But something like that definitely looks true at this stage.

Gabriel, Emsee’s colleague, believes Caspar is beyond saving. But she is hopeful he will wake up one day. Up ahead, the kids find a group of dead soldiers on the tracks. They suspect it was the doing of the aliens and these men were part of the recon team, sent to explore the depths of the tunnel.  

Almost instantly after spotting the bodies, they realize that Penny is not with them. Right after, they hear faint growls coming from the shadows. It is revealed to be an alien, who starts advancing toward them. Monty’s shoe gets stuck in the ground and he is unable to move. But the alien powers down and falls to the floor as we saw in the previous episode.

Penny also shows up, explaining that she was exploring alternate routes for the group to take. She found a rather dangerous one with hibernating aliens in the middle. It is unclear at this point if they are in snooze mode or dead. 

After walking some distance, Jamila notices strange patterns forming in the water stream. She places a bottle in the midst of it and concludes that it is some sort of alien signal being sent back to the mothership. This ominously coincides with the dormant aliens left behind lighting up faintly and a special student in the secure zone telling Esmee about more dangerous aliens coming their way.

Esmee is shown the photo of a wolf, which indicates that this new swarm of aliens would be more ferocious. And that turns out to be true as an ambulance crashes into the hospital. The driver has just enough time to tell Esmee about the incoming swarm of aliens. Back in the tunnel, the dormant aliens also wake up. They start to come toward the group, who lock themselves securely behind an iron gate. Monty calmly reassures Penny, who is overwhelmed with recent events, and they quickly run toward safety as the evolved aliens start to break through the gate. 

The group’s confidence and unity teeters by the minute as they struggle to find a way out. In-fighting ensues between Alfie and Monty. The former alleges that Monty was the school bully and harassed Darwin relentlessly. But the matter is resolved when Monty emotionally opens up about his frustrations with how times have changed.

The kids come across a crashed train and soon figure out that the end of the tunnel is near. Jamila has a vision where she is able to talk to Caspar almost as if it is real life. His mental powers have made it happen.

Caspar reveals his body is close by in a hospital, while a part of him is with “them,” i.e., the aliens. They both motivate each other to keep fighting this uphill battle and that they will emerge victorious. Caspar will have a huge role to play in this since he has direct access to the aliens now.

The kids find that the mouth of the tunnel has been blocked by the military. They have riddled it with explosives and are ready to blow it out. The kids scream for help just in time for the soldiers to help them get out. The aliens almost reach the end in time but are blown away by the explosives. 

Everyone at the hospital has left, except Caspar, who still lies unconscious in a coma. The group is now even more determined to find Caspar and give an upper hand to mankind in the war. 

The Episode Review

Invasion’s Season 2 just keeps on getting less interesting with every episode. It is not savoury to bash someone’s hard work like this every week but all these bad reviews are deserved. I really wish they would have skipped this entire tunnel episode as it turned out to be a complete waste. We learnt nothing about the characters, who were horrible to each other the entire time. Every line they uttered out of their mouths has been fed for years in such disaster scenarios.

Has there been a bunch of kids this unlikeable on television recently? You’d rather the aliens get them because of the stupid decisions they have been making. There was little surprise in how everything turned out. I have no idea what the creatives were angling towards with this episode, especially given how the last episode ended. Was this response of sending more fierce alien forces just a trailer? Will we see even fiercer attacks in the upcoming episodes?

Hopefully, the CGI and direction on those won’t be as bad. A new subplot seemed likely to be introduced in the Parisian hospital only to be concluded within minutes. Jamila and Caspar’s dreamy interactions are as confusing as they are improbable. We take away zilch from this episode.