Invasion – Episode 2, Crash

We jump straight into where we left off from episode one of Invasion with Aneesha Malik, Golshifteh Farahani (“Extraction”, “Gen: Lock (TV)”), and her two children Sarah, Tara Moayedi, and Luke, Azhy Robertson (“The Plot Against America (TV)”, “The Americans (TV)”) and husband.

Strangely, the damage to the houses on the street seems only to have spared theirs, which leads some of their neighbours to wonder, just wonder.

We leap across the pond to Britain and meet Casper Morrow, Billy Barratt (“Mr Selfridge (TV )”, “Mary Poppins Returns”), a young lad on his way to school as they are about to head on a camping trip.

Inevitably, as we’re dealing with school age children, he has a crush on a girl Jamila, India Brown (“Worzel Gummidge (TV)”, “The Stranger (TV)”), and there’s a bully Montgomery (Monty) Cuttermill, Paddy Holland (“Holmes & Watson”, “Roses For Lily (Short)”).

They never reach their destination however as just as Casper is having, what looks like, an epileptic seizure, it looks like bombs are dropped in front of the minibus and our teacher/driver Mr. Edwards, Tom Cullen (“Knightfall (TV)”, “Souls of Totality (Short)”), can’t keep things on the straight and narrow.

Misuki Yamato, Shioli Kutsuna (“Deadpool 2”, “Oh Lucy!”), meanwhile, is recording messages for her secret astronaut lover who is headed to the ISS when she is called into work urgently because the shuttle has ‘gone dark’.

Of course, Misuki is the only one who can get things working again and, when she does, the whole team observe the devastation of a large hole in the side of the craft, and no crew.

Next, we head out to Afghanistan and meet Trevante Ward, Shamier Anderson (“Wynonna Earp (TV)”, “Son of the South”), a US soldier who, along with the rest of his squadron, head out to find another squadron who have also ‘gone dark’.

Back with Aneesha and family, and stranger things are happening on the street and Luke is now saying he can hear a voice, saying something unintelligible over and over. They decide to leave but her husband Ahmed, Firas Nassar (“Sirens (TV)”, “Foxtrot”), can’t start his Tesla.

He then admits that he was going to leave her this week. I mean, this was right after he was banging on a neighbours car window begging them to take, just him, with them, as they escape the street.

Back in Afghanistan and the squad hear from some frantic locals that there has been an attack on a local school, they head there to find frightened school children, all with bloody noses, and a large whole in a classroom wall.

One of the children keeps drawing a circle in the dust until he starts pointing to the whole in the wall and saying something over and over. The squad head to what they can see on the horizon.

When they reach it, they are suddenly caught up in a strange sandstorm, where the sand, and most everything else, seems to be going up. After a few minutes some of the squad step into what appears to be the ‘eye of the storm’, the quiet.

But what’s in front of them is not a storm, it’s a large, black, alien, think the one from Stranger Things and you won’t be far off. They start firing.

Despite jumping around somewhat and introducing some new people who, perhaps, we won’t see again, it’s still a fast paced episode and things are looking good thus far.

Episode two of invasion is also written by showrunners Simon Kinberg (“X-Men: Dark Phoenix”, “This Means War”) and David Weil (“Solos (TV)”, “Hunters (TV)”) and is once again directed by Jakob Verburggen (“The Alienist (TV)”, “London Spy (TV)”).