Abhiroop Das
Co-created by Simon Kinberg and David Weil, Apple TV+’s ‘Invasion’ takes a grounded perspective on the titular extraterrestrial invasion by focusing its lens away from the action and onto the characters. The second season of the show ends with a portal to the alien mothership, allowing Trevante Cole to enter with the sole goal of destroying it from the inside out. He is joined by Caspar Morrow, an old friend, a psychic, but he might not be as friendly as he appears to be. However, none of this would have been possible without the daring actions of Mitsuki Yamato, a communications expert who became a link between humans and the unknown. Two years later, a new wave of aliens threatens to rise to the surface, and while many secrets from the past turn up their head, Mitsuki’s fate remains in the dark. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Mitsuki Lives, But is Forced to Flee For Her Life
Mitsuki Yamato’s inexplicable connection to the alien lifeforms becomes central to the plot of ‘Invasion’ over the course of two seasons. Using her abilities, humanity manages to bridge the extraterrestrial with human beings, but that comes at a cost. As Mitsuki taps into the psychic networks, her own mind begins eroding rapidly, with alien-induced visions and sounds taking over. In the season 2 finale, she sustains a portal to the mothership long enough to have Trevante Cole enter, following which she collapses, motionless and seemingly on her last legs. While her death appears to be almost imminent, the second episode of season 3, titled ‘Signal,’ confirms that Mitsuki survived the ordeal. However, in the two years since the incident, her life has changed drastically, and along with that, so has her consciousness.
The episode reveals that while Mitsuki did survive the literal alien invasion of her mind, she was far from safe. Following his ascension to power, Jack Hollander transformed her into a lab rat, and her body was subsequently experimented on in order to learn more about aliens. It was a while before Mitsuki freed herself and escaped out of their reach, but not without her scars, both mental and physical. In the present, she hides in a village nested in Central Japan, and has only opened up to a small child who resides nearby with her grandfather. Mitsuki’s life now is a far cry from her time as a space communications specialist, and she spends her days in solitude, noting down its details so as to track any abnormalities. With aliens largely gone from the public eye, Mitsuki leads a life of relative peace.
Mitsuki’s Connection to Aliens Has Layers Upon Layers
Things continue smoothly for a while, but Trevante’s return spikes Mitsuki’s consciousness once again, and she realizes that she has established vague communication with a newer, more potent strain of aliens. Realizing the urgency of the matter, she begins researching, and that leads her to hack into the World Defense Coalition’s database to confirm the exact timing of Trevante’s reappearance. When that syncs up to her headaches by the minute, she realizes that he holds the key to this mystery. However, her actions alert the WDC, and not long after, agents are sent to hunt her. Incidentally, it’s Nikhil Kapur, her former boss, who is tasked with breaking the ice. They are connected in the sense that they’ve both seen the other side with their own eyes, but the aftermath has been one of polar opposites. Nikhil understands the injustices that have been done to her and, in turn, becomes her silent ally.
While we are never given the exact reason as to why and how she survived contacting the aliens, the most likely answer is that she is a part of the larger supernatural machinery that has silently been seeping through the earth throughout the years. The visual cues of aliens finding their way into forests and adjacent ecosystems can serve as a foreshadowing of their grand plan for humanity. To that end, Mitsuki, a person who specializes in communication, might be patient zero, with the aliens testing their limits on a human vessel. While this does explain the government’s caution towards her, it still does not excuse the torture that she has undergone. Mitsuki is a survivor of abuse from both ends of the spectrum, and the question of her agency is a particularly pertinent one.
Another possible explanation for Mitsuki’s survival can be found towards the end of ‘Signal,’ with the hunter-killer alien caressing her face. The fact that it made light work of the assassins surrounding her means that its innate hostile nature has not changed. Furthermore, its limited functionality and thinking capacity mean that it is likely not affected by larger schemes in the mothership. As such, it is likely that how it acts around Mitsuki is based directly on how it reveres the very mothership itself. The season 2 finale introduces a detail of her brainwaves matching the alien frequency, suggesting that the line between alien and human might be blurrier than initially thought. This idea is further strengthened by the aliens’ cryptic signal, stating “They arise.” The “they” in question might be a third, more dangerous entity, in which case aliens and humans might join hands, with Mitsuki at the center of that coalition.
