Invasion – Episode 6, Home Invasion

Aneesha Malik, Golshifteh Farahani (“Extraction”, “Gen: Lock (TV)”), suddenly, whilst in the back of an ambulance headed somewhere else, remembers she has children, and a husband of sorts, and stops the ambulance and runs back to them.

When she arrives, the house is empty, a boiling kettle on the stove, windows and doors barricaded. She calls and calls, no answer, and begins making her way upstairs, tripping over the dead family dog.

Suddenly, noises from downstairs, there’s someone, or something, inside with her. She runs into a walk-in-wardrobe as the whole place shakes like it’s being lifted from its foundations.

Then, a friendly face appears above her, Michael Harney (“Doom Patrol (TV)”, “Space Command (TV)”), the person whose house this is. She climbs into the partially boarded loft and finds her husband Ahmed, Firas Nassar (“Sirens (TV)”, “Foxtrot”), and two children Sarah, Tara Moayedi, and Luke, Azhy Robertson (“The Plot Against America (TV)”, “The Americans (TV)”).

Harney’s wife has a strange turn, muttering about god etc, she says she wants Aneesha and her family out. She agrees, but Harney doesn’t want anyone to leave, thinks it’ll draw attention to the house.

Arguments, shoving, Sarah falls through the un-boarded part of the floor and begins crying, Aneesha jumps down after her and we get our first, admittedly sketchy and darkly filmed, look at the aliens.

Aneesha and Sarah wind up in the space above the basement stairs, Ahmed and Luke follow down. Ahmed decides to try and remove the barricade in front of the door, with the alien in the next room, which doesn’t go well, Luke runs to mummy.

I had thought, at the start of all this, that Luke was some kind of saviour, maybe someone the aliens wouldn’t, or couldn’t, attack. That appears not to be the case though, however, the piece of alien material he found certainly comes in handy.

Whilst there was enough to pack out a single episode on just this event, we’re left with more eye-rolling as Ahmed, somehow, manages to survive the alien attack when not even a whole platoon of soldiers did.

That, coupled with the fact that this whole episode is filmed in conditions that look like someone forgot to pay the electricity bill, i.e. very dark, means I think it was ok, but it was a tad hard to fully appreciate.

Episode six of Invasion is written by Andrew Baldwin (“Bastille Day”, “The Outsider”) and directed by Amanda Marsalis (“Ozark (TV)”, “The Umbrella Academy (TV )”).