The science fiction drama series on AppleTV+, Invasion, continues with its 3rd season, as the threat of another alien invasion looms large. In the season opener last week, we had seen Trevante Cole make a miraculous return to Earth two years after disappearing from the alien mothership, and how he feared that the aliens were about to return very soon as well. Now, in Invasion season 3 episode 2, we follow Mitsuki Yamato, as she is once again pursued by the WDC government because of her special ability to communicate with the aliens.
Spoiler Alert
Does Mitsuki still have a connection with the aliens?
When Invasion season 2 had ended, Mitsuki Yamato had last been seen collapsing to the ground at the site of the crashed alien spacecraft, deep inside the Amazon forest, which had been turned into a private research facility by the tech company Dharmax. Mitsuki had been given the task of communicating with an alien entity, which appeared in the form of a glimmering beam of light, and she had then discovered that the entity was actually a portal to the alien mothership. It was because of Mitsuki’s efforts that the government learned that there were multiple such portals all across the world, and they decided to reach the mothership to destroy it. When Trevante Cole had stepped up to the task, Mitsuki had had to use all her energy to keep the portal open for a considerable amount of time, which made her collapse to the ground and lose consciousness.
The beginning of Invasion season 3, episode 2 confirms that Mitsuki Yamato is indeed still alive, although she is as far from the research facilities in the USA as possible. Not only has Mitsuki returned to her homeland, Japan, but she has been living the life of a hermit, far from the modern advancements of cities and technology. The young woman has been holed up in a small hut deep in the Hida Mountains of Central Japan for the past two years, meaning that she moved there only some time after her return from the Amazon. She is seen hunting and gathering her own food, and the only human interaction she’s been having throughout the time is with a young girl and her father, who live in the secluded area as well. Mitsuki often brings gifts for the little girl and shares a sweet, albeit not close, relation with the family.
Most importantly, she has been keeping away from using any technology for a very specific purpose—Mitsuki knows that the World Defence Coalition authorities are still looking for her, even after all these years, as they believe that she will be crucial in solving the mystery of the alien invasion. Mitsuki does not want to have anything to do with such investigations and research, though, as she already hates the experience of having been taken away by the WDC from the Dharmax facility. She still bears physical marks from that experience, as she later shows a deep and long scar running down her head and neck later in the episode, and so she does not want to sacrifice her own life for some futile research.
But despite wanting to stay away from anything to do with aliens, Mitsuki’s ordinary primitive life is interrupted by a very specific physical development. Over the past few days, she has been experiencing a sharp shooting pain in her head, accompanied by a strange pulsing and ringing sound, which gets so intense that she loses consciousness and collapses every time this happens. The sound that she hears inside her head, along with the pain that she experiences, makes Mitsuki quite sure that this new development has something to do with the aliens, as she had had similar experiences while researching them. But Mitsuki does not know what to do about it other than keep a record of the sudden pains, which have been happening every day, as she does not want to reach out to any government authorities, like the WDC or Skywatch. However, she does decide to conduct her own research to better understand what is going on with her, and so Mitsuki pulls out her old laptop and fixes a satellite antenna to access the internet.
She is first shocked to learn that Trevante Cole has returned to Earth in a mysterious manner, as she too had believed, just like everyone else, that the ex-soldier had passed away aboard the alien mothership. Mitsuki immediately searches for more information and hacks into the WDC’s internal database to find the exact date and time of Trevante’s return to Earth through the portal in the Atlantic Ocean. She is shocked to realize that Trevante had emerged through the portal on the exact date and time when she experienced the pain and ringing in her head for the first time, a few days ago. This makes Mitsuki realize that the two matters are connected and that it requires more investigation. But as soon as Mitsuki had hacked into the WDC’s database, the authorities had been alerted of her position, and thus she landed herself in trouble of being arrested once again.
Why does Nikhil Kapur agree to work with the WDC?
The wily corporate from season 2, Nikhil Kapur, is back once more, confirming that he had survived being pulled into the alien portal and then thrown out of it. It is revealed later in the episode that Nikhil had only lost consciousness for the next few days before waking up and realizing that Mitsuki had already been taken away by the WDC authorities. When she confronts him about letting the government take her away so easily, despite him having promised her safety earlier, Nikhil argues that there was really nothing else he could have done, as the government would have done what they wanted anyway. However, this is clearly not true, as Nikhil Kapur continues to be the brash and conniving businessman who does everything only for his financial benefit.
Nikhil first appears in Invasion season 3 at a Dharmax facility near the East Antarctic Ice Sheet in the South Pole, where a downed alien spaceship is being researched. As the lead chemist at the facility explains, Nikhil has been brought to the place because of his prior experience working with a downed alien spaceship, especially since the core of the ship has started emitting X-rays and gamma rays, along with emanating a blue glow that is visible to the naked eye as well. The company has been essentially mining the spaceship for the shard material that is now used to manufacture bullets to be used against aliens, along with whatever other resources can be found to be sold for high profits. Although this new development scares the lead chemist into believing that they should halt the mining process, Nikhil disagrees and fires the man, making it evident that he hasn’t changed.
But Nikhil Kapur is now in even more direct communications with the WDC government, particularly with the head of its intelligence wing, Regan Byrne. Among many other things, Byrne had also been tasked with finding Mitsuki and bringing her back for more research, and now that there is a chance to get hold of the young woman, she contacts Nikhil for his help. Although it is not directly mentioned what Nikhil has to gain by establishing a line of communication between Mitsuki and the government, it is implied that doing so would greatly help the direct deals between his company and the government. After all, Dharmax supplies the government with the necessary materials required to make the anti-alien bullets and also the medication required to keep the aliens being experimented on in a docile state so that research is possible. While Nikhil agreeing to do the WDC’s bidding would definitely improve his situation and possibly bring him even more profits, he is also intrigued to know what Mitsuki has been up to. It is evident that he still sees her as an asset whose ability to communicate with the alien hivemind can be of great use, and thus he seeks her out in the forested mountains of central Japan.
Who are Ume and Kenji?
After Mitsuki has a run-in with a team of WDC agents and then a long conversation with Nikhil, she decides to leave her home in the forest, since the location has been compromised, and move to the city of Kanazawa, where she had seemingly returned to from South America two years ago. At present, Mitsuki goes to the house of a woman named Ume, and the latter’s identity is revealed through the conversation that they have. Two years ago, when Mitsuki had somehow managed to reach her homeland after escaping the WDC facility and avoiding their agents on her long journey, Ume had provided her with shelter, which had helped her survive the ordeal of being hunted. But she had also left Ume’s house unannounced after spending a few days there, as she realized that staying in the city was still very dangerous, and Mitsuki must have moved to the forest in the hills from here.
At present, Mitsuki returns to Ume’s home in search of a young boy named Kenji, who is another new character introduced in Invasion season 3. Ume’s nephew by relation, Kenji, has the ability to communicate with the aliens as well, as he has been experiencing the same shooting pain and the ringing inside his head since the last few days, like Mitsuki. The boy, who is now bedridden because of the effects of this taxing daily experience, claims that he had gone through similar pains earlier during the first alien invasion, but had believed that he had been relieved of the pain when the mothership had been destroyed. However, Kenji has again started having the experiences from the very day and time that Trevante has returned to Earth, meaning that his pains are directly linked with the experiences of Mitsuki.
At Ume’s house, Mitsuki also learns about the re-emerging alien hunter-killers, which were first found in a cavern by a group of miners a few days ago. After learning of their presence, Kenji had gone to make contact with the aliens, since he felt a strange pull towards them, and had seen a vision of some alien creature, which is seemingly about to attack Earth soon. From this conversation, Mitsuki realizes that she too must seek out the alien hunter-killers and make contact with them, since she can understand them better than the others, like Kenji. She also learns from Ume that when she had first arrived at the house, Mitsuki had been carrying a sticker of a star with her, which is indeed the same one that Hinata had left her before her space mission. However, Mitsuki has no recollection of what the sticker means at present, meaning that her long-term memory, or at least the ones regarding Hinata, had been wiped during her experiences with the alien portal.
Does Agent Tamura die in the end?
While Regan Byrne’s plan of assigning Nikhil Kapur to establish communications with Mitsuki fails, her boss, the WDC head of defense, Jack Hollander, refuses to give her or the capitalist any more chances. Hollander wants to use direct force against Mitsuki and does not believe that it is necessary to convince the woman to work with the WDC, and so he hires the service of a certain Agent Tamura, who seems to be a professional hitman of sorts, currently working as an agent for WDC and Skywatch. Although Tamura is first seen killing alien hunter-killers and trying to notice the pattern in which they have started to re-emerge at present, she immediately changes course with the goal of finding and capturing Mitsuki upon the orders of Hollander.
Thus, Tamura and her team first head to Kanazawa and to Ume’s home after tracking Mitsuki entering the lane from the security cameras. A cat-and-mouse chase follows, in which Mitsuki helps Ume and Kenji from the Skywatch agents before giving them the slip once again to enter their base and find the exact location of the cavern with the alien hunter-killers. As soon as Tamura realizes that Mitsuki is headed to the cavern, she also leads her team there but ultimately overestimates her abilities. As Mitsuki has another painful episode, followed by losing consciousness, while climbing down the ladder, she wakes up only to find herself lying among the dead bodies of all the agents.
When Mitsuki lost consciousness and fell down into the shaft, Tamura and her men must have jumped in to save her from the alien beings. After all, Mitsuki is an asset to the government who must be protected at all costs, and so they did not hesitate to jump in. However, they are ultimately killed by either some other alien being or by a mutated version of the hunter-killers, since their bullets, which are earlier seen killing the beasts, are of no use against them anymore. Therefore, the hitman-turned-government agent, who seemed to be tough and dangerous, is dead by the end of the 2nd episode, signifying that the stakes against humans are much higher in Invasion season 3.
What is the message being sent to Mitsuki by the aliens?
As Mitsuki wakes up in the mining shaft and is approached by one of the alien hunter-killers, she makes contact with them and is finally able to understand a message, or an impulse, as she calls it later on, that the alien hivemind has been trying to send. It is unclear whether Mitsuki is the intended recipient of the message or if she is simply able to tap into it and decipher the code because of her established communication with the hivemind. This message, as she has understood, reads, “They arise,” meaning that the aliens are awaiting the arrival of some other alien being, or life force, which has been referred to as “they.”
Mitsuki immediately travels to the USA to meet up with Nikhil again, seeking his help this time. She shares this new knowledge with him and asks for his help getting into a certain place. It seems like Mitsuki wants to access some WDC facility to conduct more research, and she will be able to do so only with the businessman’s help. Nikhil does seem to agree to help her out, as he intends to stay a step ahead of everyone else solely because of the advantage to his business, and we can expect to see more intense situations in the upcoming episodes of Invasion season 3.
