In Invasion season 3’s ending, the words “Earth—Day 1, Post Invasion” appear on the screen as a resounding confirmation of the defeat of the aliens. However, the decision to describe this as the 1st day after the aliens have been defeated, instead of just considering it to be a total return to normalcy, probably suggests that the makers want to continue making more seasons of the Apple TV+ science fiction drama, but there hasn’t been any official update on its renewal. The show is likely going to be canceled by the streaming platform for its low ratings, but we never know. With that said, let’s take a look at the action-filled (although a bit underwhelming) ending of Invasion season 3 and what will possibly happen to the main characters in the near future.
Spoiler Alert
How do the mothership’s defenses stop the humans momentarily?
Once Trevante, Jamila, and Nikhil enter the mothership, its defense mechanism kicks in and instantly stops them in their tracks, not exactly physically, but rather by using psychology. This unique defense mechanism of the spaceship goes on to provide more information about the aliens in general. The aliens, or maybe just the mothership in particular, have the ability to not only sense grief and frustration in any human that enters, but can also access the human’s brain to ascertain exactly what these feelings are rooted in. Simply put, it knows exactly what memories will trigger extreme feelings of grief and frustration in humans and makes them relive these memories. As a result, they are completely taken over by grief, guilt, and frustration and enter a sort of trance.
As mentioned in the episode, the aliens know exactly where to hit in order to hurt humans the most, as they do not attack physically but manage to completely debilitate a human mentally through a form of psychological warfare. It does not hold back from really hurting the humans, making their worst memories resurface and take over their minds. Trevante relives the moment the doctors told him that his son was definitely dying and there was no way to treat the young boy’s cancer anymore. This moment in his past had absolutely shattered him and negatively impacted his life as well. He also relives the moment when he had unintentionally led his army unit into a dangerous situation in the desert, which had led to their death.
Losing the soldiers, including his best friend, had always caused him extreme guilt, both out of internal anguish and also because many people suspected that he must have had something to do with their deaths. Trevante had to listen to such suggestions as recently as the beginning of this season, when the WDC’s Jack Hollander repeatedly suspected him of being the sole survivor in multiple unnatural situations. Similarly, Nikhil is made to relive his most painful memory, from his childhood days, when his desperate act to earn money for his family had cost his mother her life. Just like Trevante, Nikhil too had not only felt internal grief and anguish because of this incident, he had also been blamed and suspected by others, his father and other family members, to be precise.
For a very long time, it wasn’t clear whether the aliens intentionally harmed the humans in such a manner, or if it was just a way to defend the mothership against any attack, but by the end of season 3, it seemed like the aliens are evil, after all. They act like ruthless invaders, who make use of whatever weak point they can find in humans, and while they may not have a complete understanding of human relations and the associated grief rooted in these relations, they do not hesitate to take full advantage. It is even intelligent enough to modify its ability to try and trigger Jamila, as it understands that she will be more affected by an imaginary interaction with Caspar than a mere memory. The aliens’ ability to understand human grief better than the humans themselves genuinely puts them at an advantage over Earthlings. However, their connection through the hivemind ultimately works in favor of the humans, and the latter are able to continue with their mission.
Does the shard bomb work against the alien mothership?
The success of the mission entirely depends on whether the shard bomb will work against the heart of the mothership, but right after entering the ‘blind corridor,’ Nikhil figures out that it will indeed work. According to the plan hatched by Nikhil and Aneesha earlier, they only need to disable the communication channels among the aliens to bring them down. The fact that something akin to blue electricity runs through the walls of the mothership and also through the long vines that had shot out of the ground makes it easier to physically trace this connection among the aliens. Trevante had earlier reported that when he and Caspar had attacked the mothership the first time, two years back, the pulse from the core had pushed the boy back, and while in the air, Caspar had managed to drag the shard through the soft fleshy wall of the corridor.
This had cut off the power inside the corridor, because of which humans could not be sensed by the aliens, meaning that the shard is indeed effective against even the strongest and most intelligent aliens. Only the means of attack had been wrong the last time, as hitting the core with the shard resulted in the core deploying its last form of defense to repel the strike through a pulse. However, in the case of a bomb made out of the same material, no such defense can be used, and so the mothership core is ultimately destroyed by the explosion, which instantly cuts off all power and communication among the aliens, and the gardeners drop dead on the ground, while the hunter-killers all over the world suddenly become vulnerable.
Considering that the shard material, which had also seemingly come from outer space, is so effective against the aliens that it can easily destroy their best infrastructure, we still know very little about its true powers and characteristics. Once again, I am left wondering if the shard material had come from some other alien race, which might be rivals to the ones that had invaded Earth. The powers of the mothership are also slightly underwhelming, as it had seemed much more mysterious earlier.
In this regard, I had personally hoped that Trevante’s supposed 2-year-long stay inside the mothership might have had more complexity to it, as I kept wondering how he managed to feed himself for 2 years straight , along with how he managed to sleep or even relieve himself inside just one corridor. As it seemed a bit unbelievable, my assumption was that Trevante had actually been made to believe that he was there for 2 years, or that time moved differently inside the mothership, which would perhaps have been more interesting. However, no such revelation takes place, and we are left guessing about the technological capabilities of the aliens, as well as the mysterious shard material that was instrumental in their defeat.
How does Nikhil Kapur become a changed man?
When Nikhil Kapur was introduced back in season 2, he seemed to be just the evil corporate boss of Dharmax, a tech company trying their best to capitalize on the alien invasion of Earth. But as time passed, and especially in season 3, Nikhil has been gradually evolving into a more fleshed-out character, with his own motivations. Amidst all the developments this season, the gradual change in Nikhil’s character is commendable, and the ending confirms that he is now a truly changed man. The last episode gives us two major reasons to believe so, beginning with the fact that we learn about a crucial incident from his past. In this swift move, the series gives a solid reason behind Nikhil’s glaring greed for money and his questionably opportunistic nature.
Nikhil hails from an Indian family that had immigrated to the West and had had to live through extreme financial distress following the move. They could only afford a small rented apartment in a shady building complex, riddled with drugs and crime. This struggle and the morose setting gave Nikhil the motivation to do something significant with his life, not to achieve greatness or make a name for himself, but simply to make tons of money at any cost. The extreme poverty did not turn him towards drugs or crime but encouraged him to find the loopholes and opportunities in life that others completely overlooked. Thus, even as a young boy, he had started a gambling racket by himself, because of which the local gangsters who ran a similar racket in the area were angered. During a heated argument, these criminals shot and killed Nikhil’s mother, and his father instantly blamed his greed for their loss.
Therefore, Nikhil has grown accustomed to being villainized for his attitude towards life, so much so that he has internalized it and made it a part of his personality. No longer does he object to being called a cruel corporate, but there is still a very human side buried deep in him. This becomes apparent from the second clue that the show leaves about him being an important character, as Nikhil is evidently in love with Mitsuki. In fact, he had even tried his best to stop the WDC from conducting painful experiments on Mitsuki earlier, as revealed only in Invasion season 3 episode 10. He had started to genuinely care for her, even though he had never expressed this to her directly, and once Mitsuki goes missing in the end, Nikhil can be seen leaving all other businesses aside to use all his resources at Dharmax to search for her. Nikhil’s only intention from here on will be to find Mitsuki and profess his love for her, which is very different from his original goals back when he was introduced in season 2.
What happens to Mitsuki?
Perhaps the most confounding matter that Invasion season 3 ends with is Mitsuki’s disappearance, as we see her being pulled away from the mothership by a beam of light. It definitely looks like she gets abducted by the aliens, possibly because of her ability to communicate through the hivemind, as it is technically Mitsuki who plays the most important role in the humans’ victory over the invaders. If she has indeed been abducted, which is very likely, then it is possible that she will be taken to the home planet of the aliens for research. In case we get a 4th season of Invasion, then we can expect to see this home planet and learn more about its inhabitants.
But as Mitsuki rises through the beam of light, she gets back all her memories and finally learns how she was once a scientist at JASA, and how her beloved Hinata had been seemingly killed, or at least lost in space, when the alien invasion took place. There is a slight possibility that the beam of light only returns Mitsuki’s memories to her, which she had earlier lost after her experiences with the alien portal, and lets her walk away unharmed. In that case, Mitsuki perhaps goes into hiding to get away from all the intense action to deal with her internal turmoil, just like she had done at the beginning of season 2. After all, her job is done, as humanity has been saved from the aliens once again, and the invasion has come to an end. This is also what Nikhil seems to believe, as he is seen launching a grand search for her at the very end of the episode, thinking that she is still on Earth and is possibly in hiding. Lastly, it is also possible that the abduction of Mitsuki might lead to her death, thereby making her the hero who finally saved Earth and the humans from the alien invasion by sacrificing her own life.
Do the Infinitas exist anymore?
In Invasion season 3’s ending, Aneesha is seen shooting Verna in the torso, which kills her. Even if the gunshot does not kill Verna, it surely injures her enough to leave her exposed to the inhospitable conditions of the Dead Zone for hours, which will be fatal for sure. None of her militants seem to have survived either, meaning that the Infinitas group no longer exists by the end. In both seasons 2 and 3, we have seen rebellious groups that stood against the WDC and believed that the government’s response to the alien invasion was inadequate and wrong. While the Movement, in season 2, believed that the coalition government running the world was only trying to fill their own pockets and did not care about the wellbeing of the people, Infinitas were of a completely different opinion than the WDC.
Infinitas turned out to be a cult, driven by the personal misunderstandings of Verna, who felt that the aliens were here to reunite humanity with their dead loved ones. When Verna had heard her dead sister speak through the alien portal, she had gone through the same experience that Trevante and Nikhil do inside the mothership, and what Mitsuki had gone through when she spoke with Hinata towards the end of season 1. However, her deep-seated grief and anguish over having lost her sister made her cook up the entire story about aliens being the new gods, and it was not too difficult to convince other vulnerable people to join her cause. Ultimately, all the Infinitas members seem to have died, and the cult is finally wiped out.
Will the aliens return once again?
Although it’s possible that Invasion won’t be getting a fourth season, meaning we will no longer be able to follow what happens in its universe, the ending of season 3 does leave the topic of the aliens’ return on an ambiguous note. When the sky inside the mothership tears and a beam of light shines through it, which then abducts Mitsuki, it seems like an even higher power of aliens had been watching over the developments. Perhaps there is still a different race of aliens involved with the whole matter, who are impressed by Mitsuki’s ability to communicate with and defeat the invading aliens on Earth. This is maybe the reason they abduct her, believing her to be the leader of humans, in order to learn from her these abilities. If she is abducted by the same race of aliens, then she might be experimented upon, as the aliens would want to ensure that no human ever gets the same abilities as her. What is certain from the ending is that there are more aliens lurking around, but we can only wonder and speculate if they will ever come to Earth again, looking for a new home, or worse, a colony to exploit.
