Season 3 of the Apple TV+ science fiction drama series Invasion has been entirely focused on the return of the alien species to Earth, and humanity’s mixed reaction to this unexpected event. Over the last few episodes, we were introduced to a new revolutionary faction called Infinitas, who had been leaking government secrets to the public with regard to the alien invasion, and their leader was finally revealed to be Marilyn Tanner. On the other side, the WDC decided to lead a mission to the depths of the Dead Zone, surrounding the crashed alien mothership, with the help of Trevante Cole and Mitsuki Yamato, which had gone sideways when the helicopter carrying the two central characters had seemingly crashed. Invasion season 3 episode 5 deals with both these sides, with their paths eventually converging to a shocking resolution in the end.
Spoiler Alert
How do Trevante and Mitsuki survive the crash?
Invasion season 3 episode 5 begins with Trevante waking up inside the helicopter, in the thick forest the aircraft had crashed into the end of the previous episode. When the enormous vines had shot out of the ground and hit the helicopter, it had seemed like there was no escape for the characters, as the crash would surely kill them. However, it is now confirmed that the only casualties from the crash are the two pilots, who have seemingly passed away from injuries sustained from the impact with the ground. Everyone else, including Trevante and Mitsuki, has actually managed to survive, since there had been no explosion, fire, or even any major damage from the crash. The most obvious reason for this is that the helicopter is seen to have been protected by the vines, as they now cover a significant portion of the aircraft.
The vines had initially appeared to have attacked the helicopter directly after sensing enemy humans inside it, but now it seems to have been more of a defense mechanism, which was triggered as soon as the aircrafts flew over them. Similarly, the helicopter being cushioned by the vines and getting saved from a hard crash also seems to be coincidental, and it is not necessary that the alien beings are actually trying to protect the humans. It might also be that the alien species identifies Trevante and Mitsuki inside the helicopter at the very last moment and makes sure to protect them, although this is less likely. Despite being alive, though, the humans are still in enormous trouble, which makes me believe even more that they survived due to sheer coincidence. The helicopter is destroyed beyond repair, and a pack of hunter-killers soon attacks the passengers in the middle of the forest.
By this time, Jack Hollander orders his aircraft to land as well so that the entire team can reunite and strategize with regard to their journey towards the mothership. The soldiers shoot down the hunter-killers, while Trevante is unable to fire his gun at all, as he keeps receiving flashes of memories from his time on the mothership, especially of Caspar asking for his help and him failing to protect him. Mitsuki still uses her power of being able to communicate with the aliens, though, after realizing that she can connect to the alien hivemind by touching the thick vines and access the feelings of the aliens. Thus, she soon throws herself in between a hunter-killer and Trevante to protect the latter and stops the alien midway by ordering it to do so through the hivemind. When the soldiers then shoot and stab the H-K dead, Mitsuki also feels the pain that it experiences and even begs for them to stop. She also expresses her wonder at being able to communicate with the aliens simply by touching the vines, along with experiencing their feelings, which are quite beautiful to her. But she makes the mistake of sharing this with Trevante in the presence of the soldiers, who are immediately irked at her finding the aliens beautiful or interesting in any way. Trevante has to step in and calm them down, as they feel that the woman might be corrupted by the aliens.
When Hollander is told that the helicopter can no longer be used for the mission, but the equipment, especially the shard bomb required to blow apart the mothership, is still safe, he orders the unit to walk through the forest, at least to the nearest airbase, and refuses to abort the mission. This is a difficult task because of the hunter-killers still lurking and attacking them whenever they can. Amidst all this, Mitsuki falls sick and collapses to the floor, as her body is unable to detach from the alien hivemind successfully at one go, because of which she keeps receiving the alien signals and messages, leading to overexertion and her body giving out. Nikhil Kapur comes to the rescue in this context, as he had already made a special device particularly for Mitsuki, which would stop all the alien communications from reaching her body by simply attaching it to her neck. Although Mitsuki still remains cautious about why Nikhil is trying to help her in this manner, she is indeed saved because of him, and the whole team ultimately make it to the nearest airbase.
Why do Aneesha and Clark try to escape?
On the other side, Aneesha Malik and Clark Evans had managed to escape from the FBI facility with the help of the Infinitas members, or rather, had gotten mixed up in their elaborate escape plan. Now, in episode 5, the couple are taken to a safehouse in Shadow Lake, Washington, where many more Infinitas members welcome the party and provide shelter to them. However, Aneesha and Clark have no interest in staying back at the place or with the group of activists, as their entire focus is on their children, who are still back at their house in Idaho. Although they are openly told that nobody is keeping them hostage there, Aneesha and Clark get the feeling that they will not be allowed to leave so easily, as they are now considered a part of the Infinitas group, despite them never signing up for it. Besides, they also learn that their home is now disconnected from the rest of the country because the aliens have occupied territories around a few of the American states, including Idaho.
The next best bet is for the couple to call up their children and talk to them, ensuring that they are safe. This phone call does provide momentary respite to them, but it also leads to the beginning of a misunderstanding between the two when Luke worriedly asks Aneesha whether the new alien invasion had taken place because of him. Earlier this season, Luke had confessed to his mother about having received flashes of coded messages from the aliens around the time Trevante returned to Earth. But during his conversation with Trevante and Jamila earlier this season, Luke had mentioned none of this to them, despite recognizing the pattern from Caspar’s EEG report. Therefore, the teenager now fears that he could have avoided the new invasion had he shared the information with Trevante earlier.
While Aneesha reassures Luke that he has had no role to play in this new threat to humanity, Clark learns about his experience in the past for the first time through this phone call. Clark is not happy about the fact that Aneesha had kept something so significant a secret from him and had then even tagged along with Trevante in search of Infinitas without letting him know. He stresses on how they as a family should always think and act together and is frustrated with Aneesha’s habit of taking dangerous decisions independently. Although Aneesha stays quiet throughout this conversation, it’s clear that she is suppressing her own anger at the fact that Clark had hidden his long and detailed research on Infinitas from her over the last few months, which she had found out about in the previous episode from the FBI agents. This matter remains unaddressed between the couple for now and might soon lead to them falling out and their relationship going through a difficult phase.
For now, Aneesha and Clark set aside their feelings and plan on escaping the facility to drive back to Idaho, for which she sneaks into a car in the garage as well. But she is ultimately discovered by Marilyn, who seems to have guessed the couple’s next move. Marilyn does not pressure her to stay back and help her cause, and instead offers to help by taking them to the nearest airbase, from where they can fly to Idaho. This leaves Aneesha and Clark with Infinitas for some more time, despite having planned to abandon them, and the airbase that they plan to go to happens to be the same one where the WDC unit reaches to continue their journey towards the alien mothership. Meanwhile, Jamila had overheard a conversation between Marilyn and one of her scouts in the Dead Zone, who had warned her about some new form of alien lurking in the area. It is Jamila who suggests that Infinitas members go and meet the WDC to warn them about this danger, especially after learning that the unit is planning to visit the Dead Zone very soon. Unlike Aneesha and Clark, Jamila genuinely wants to accompany the group to the nearest airbase, as she wants to look out for Trevante.
Is there a traitor among the WDC unit?
The fact that Marilyn and her team know about the exact details of a secretive WDC mission is suspicious to Jamila, and she is told that the Infinitas members have a vast network of dedicated workers, suggesting that they have moles in the government as well. It is unclear who this mole is, but it is also possible that the group got to know about the mission by hacking into the WDC system, similar to how they had uncovered all the information that had been kept hidden from the public domain by the government. However, there is also the potential of two WDC soldiers turning against the government eventually, if they are not already corrupted by the alien hivemind somehow.
Three soldiers are ordered by Hollander to hold a tight line of defense and fight off all the hunter killers attacking the unit. They follow the order by distracting the beasts and then blowing up the crashed helicopter to kill the H-Ks, seemingly sacrificing their own lives to do so. However, two of the soldiers then return to the unit and claim to have survived somehow, despite it being quite an impossible feat. Therefore, it might be that the aliens take control of their bodies and pretend to be humans, in a new modified ability of theirs. Even if this is not what happened, the soldiers might soon betray the WDC out of anger and spite against the government, who had blindly sent them to die.
Is Jack Hollander dead?
But a different surprising betrayal already takes place towards the end of Invasion season 3 episode 5, when the Infinitas members arrive at the airbase to ask for the support of the WDC, promising to help them in return. Marilyn explains how she too had sent out scouts to search the Dead Zone and report any abnormalities, and then warns Hollander against the danger of the new form of alien lurking around the crashed mothership. Although the WDC head of defense does not want to believe the rebel group, Jamila states that she had overheard this conversation with the scout, and in turn, Trevante vouches for her. Thus, Hollander decides to let Marilyn use the WDC antenna at the airbase so that she can directly communicate with her scout from here and allow him to learn more about the Dead Zone.
This is truly the first time that the WDC and an anti-government group like Infinitas start working together, but this happy union lasts only a few odd minutes. As soon as Jack Hollander is left alone with Marilyn inside the control room of the airbase, she sneaks out a knife and slits his throat with it. Thus, the villainous head of defense of the WDC, who had been suspecting Trevante of lying all this while, is now dead. At the same time, some of the Infinitas members, who had been hidden on the rooftops of the buildings nearby, start shooting at everyone else at the base, and the only ones they spare are the close members of the group. Much to Jamila’s shock, she too is not spared, and Joel, whom she had been seeing as an elder brother, had also been a part of this planned betrayal. However, Trevante ultimately uses his bravado and guides everyone safely into a helicopter and escapes from the airbase, although the shard-bomb is destroyed, meaning that the WDC is dealt a tremendously heavy blow by the end of this episode.
Why do Infinitas betray the WDC?
At the very end of Invasion episode 5, when the helicopter carrying Trevante and all the other central characters is about to fly away, Joel, who had been introduced as Marilyn’s nephew (which may or may not be true), pulls the pin out of a grenade and attempts to run into the aircraft to destroy it. This clearly shows the extreme extent to which the Infinitas members were ready to go to kill all the innocent bystanders and clearly shows them to be terrorists fighting for their own selfish reasons. The exact reason behind Infinitas’ betrayal is not made clear just yet, although it is possible that they have been in a sort of race with the WDC to reach the mothership and perhaps mine resources from it.
That would explain why the group had sent scouts to the dangerous Dead Zone, essentially sending people to die for the sake of gathering knowledge. Another possibility is that Marilyn and her group actually intend on worshipping the aliens, or helping them out, and are ready to betray human civilization to do so. Through this unexpected twist, Invasion establishes that not all anti-government rebellion groups have honest intentions, after all, and some can sell out their own kind just to gain the favor of a more superior species, or maybe reap the benefits of defeating the species first.
