REVIEW: ‘Invasion’ Season 2 Episode 8 — “Cosmic Ocean”

In the last episode, Invasion Season 2 finally started to pull all of the storylines together, and it delivered one of the strongest episodes of the series so far. Now, in Invasion Season 2 Episode 8, “Cosmic Ocean,” we see where the intersections meet, with Mituski Yamato’s (Shioli Kutsuna) story at the research facility providing an exploration of the aliens that add context to every other connection we’ve seen from Luke Malik (Azhy Robertson) to Caspar Marrow (Billy Barratt).  As Mitsuki makes breakthroughs by observing the researchers who came before her and became non-verbal, she learns that they are very much talking, just not in our way of communication.

This week, the season is pulling back the mysteries as it puts each and every character in direct conversation with the exact same confusion around how deeply humanity is already connected to the aliens. While Trevante Cole (Shamier Anderson) is trying to figure out what the military is hiding in their hole in the ground in the middle of Oklahoma, Jamila Huston (India Brown) and Caspar (and the Invasion Goonies in tow) are meeting other kids like Caspar with connections to the aliens. The only person missing in this story is Aneesha Malik (Golshifteh Farahani), but her presence as a mother is felt as we learn about the children and the military’s experiments.

But one name left out from that very brief synopsis is Mitsuki. Invasion Episode 8 is her episode. It’s one where she separates herself from her grief, processes it, and faces the alien head-on, disbanding the entity held in the research chamber. Only she triggers a staggering reaction in everyone connected to the alien. It’s a big step forward for humanity, but at the same time, it comes at the sacrifice of an extremely narcissistic Nikhil Kapoor (Shane Zaza) and a portal to reach those who humanity has lost through abductions.

Mitsuki, despite the direction of the narrative, has held the heart of the series. She’s been intimately in touch with the alien entity; she’s been molded by facing her own grief and choosing to let the love of her life go. Shioli Kutsuna’s performance is the key to being pulled into the series deeper and deeper, and with Invasion Season 2 Episode 8, it’s clear that she is the epicenter of everything narratively as well. Her choices ripple across the entirety of the stories on display, and it’s expertly captured.

Invasion Season 2 Episode 8 is about connections, looking closer at the themes that have come through every single individual story this season. No matter how muddled it became over the course of the series’ storytelling, connecting to the aliens and how humanity connects to each other remains paramount in understanding a pathway forward. While Caspar, Jamila’s friend’s sister, and Aneeka’s children have all shown the small ways that they have been granted connection, Mitsuki has taken her connection by following her grief, and Trevante has been trying to find answers to solve abductions in Oklahoma.

As a series, Invasion has struggled to find its ground. It’s bounced between narrative styles and genre attempts to expand the stories. While the bulk of the season feels like disparate stories, the way that the events in the research lab cause visible and tangible ripples across the world pulls everything together, even Rose, who has been sorely underused this season despite the emotional weight she can bring given her closeness to the abductions in Oklahoma.

The struggle to keep individual humanity while fighting to save it is revealing itself now that the connections have been broken and the only pathway closed. This leads to uncertainty in the series and a way for it to shine and come into a cohesive narrative that doesn’t forget the growth individually along the way.

Invasion Season 2 is streaming now on AppleTV+.