Invasion – Episode 8, Contact

Trevante Ward, Shamier Anderson (“Wynonna Earp (TV)”, “Son of the South”), is now in Britain and is told no planes, no-one is going to the US.

Unbelievably, he drives into London, finds a phone box on top of a hill, dials a US cell-phone number, listens to the longest message ever before recording the longest message ever, all without any money, or any other phones working or phone boxes in the UK not working at the best of times, let alone when there’s an invasion on.

In short, what was probably a nice, poignant moment, is ruined by the complete rubbish of the situation.

Anyway, back with Aneesha Malik, Golshifteh Farahani (“Extraction”, “Gen: Lock (TV)”), she hooks up with the other doctor David Barton, Noah Bean (“9-1-1 (TV)”, “The Enemy Within (TV )”), before finding her son Luke, Azhy Robertson (“The Plot Against America (TV)”, “The Americans (TV)”), in the basement.

He’s with another boy and family and pointing his alien fragment at the dead bodies down there, that are covered in the black alien goo, and everything’s moving and coming alive, ish.

Misuki Yamato, Shioli Kutsuna (“Deadpool 2”, “Oh Lucy!”), finds herself handcuffed to a table until her boss arrives with an American soldier. They have locked coordinates with Hoshi-12 but need her to do the rest. She refuses, unless she’s the one making contact.

Misuki spends ages attempting to decipher the messages they are receiving, as are the rest of the crew, but no-one can do it. The pattern changes and is too large. Eventually, she changes tack and uploads thousands of photos and videos of her lover, trying to teach the aliens their language.

Casper Morrow, Billy Barratt (“Mr Selfridge (TV )”, “Mary Poppins Returns”), arrives at his home with Jamila, India Brown (“Worzel Gummidge (TV)”, “The Stranger (TV)”), to find his mum covered in black alien goo.

He is convinced he could have stopped the whole thing, maybe still can. He shows Jamila the drawings he’d done before this all started and convinces her they should go to the hospital, where her mum works, to induce an episode of his epilepsy.

On the way they dive into a pub to avoid some aliens and find Trevante Ward, Shamier Anderson (“Wynonna Earp (TV)”, “Son of the South”), trying to kill himself with drink (rather than the gun he has).

They ask him to help, seeing a drawing Casper had done of his men being attacked convinces him.

This isn’t the best episode of the series, it’s fairly dull with everyone saying how much they love each other, those they shouldn’t, those they can’t. Only Misuki and the Japanese story keeps things pacey and alive

Episode seven of Invasion is written by Simon Kinberg (“X-Men: Dark Phoenix”, “This Means War”) & Andrew Baldwin (“Bastille Day”, “The Outsider”) and directed by Amanda Marsalis (“Ozark (TV)”, “The Umbrella Academy (TV )”).