Invasion Review: Full of Stars (Season 1 Episode 9)
On the plus side, Invasion Season 1 Episode 9, “Full of Stars,” contains the most action of any episode in the series to date. Stuff actually happens for once. The show genuinely makes some bold choices. People even die! But it all just feels like too little too late.
(And, since the hour ends with what appears to be the aliens getting nuked, who even knows where the season finale is headed next week.)
For the first time in its run, Invasion actually makes some surprising narrative decisions, but the emotional beats the show clearly expects to land don’t because none of us care about these characters in any way. From the plot twists that defy both logic and basic physics to totally unearned moments of redemption, it’s just all so much noise.
The episode opens with a surprisingly sweet flashback to what appears to Hinata and Mitsuki’s first date — or at least the first time they’re admitting they’re into each other — before jumping to a scene so ridiculous it takes you literally out of everything the previous sequence was building toward.
(I mean, we all saw the Sandra Bullock Gravity — had Hinata actually been blown out of a spaceship she would basically still be falling through space thanks to the propulsion of the explosion and certainly not able to “swim” back toward the damaged Hoshi with literally nothing to push/create friction against. Space is a vacuum!!)
Anyway, I guess that’s all okay because it turns out it most likely not really Hinata anyway, as despite her sudden ability to communicate with her girlfriend — and Mitsuki’s steadfast belief that she is talking to the real deal — her speech patterns indicate she isn’t breathing when she talks.
Whether she’s been body-snatched or an alien is simply impersonating Hinata or something else has happened is unclear. Mabye she’s being controlled, puppet-like, I don’t know — but it also may not matter since the U.S. commander decides the needs of the many outweigh
Elsewhere, Casper and Trevante have bullied a doctor in a London hospital to induce a grand mal seizure in the boy in the hopes that his poorly defined psychic connection to the aliens will provide some important info. (Hippocratic oath what’s up! I feel like Trevante’s insistence that other doctors in other places do terrible things to kids is like, not a great argument!!)
Which, of course, it does, because Invasion has never bothered to explain his random connection to the aliens or how it works, so why not have him be able to see through their eyes while seizing? Sounds legit!
Of course, what Casper sees makes no sense and provides no explanation for what the aliens are, where they’ve come from or what they want. So…that feels pretty standard for this show. Great job, y’all!
The aliens, justifiably annoyed at having a preteen poking around in their collective brain, which I guess this confirms they share, head to the hospital to brutally murder Casper and his friends.
To be fair, most of the hospital scenes are actually really well done, with a horror movie’s tension and some sense of real dread for a change. Where has this been all season, show?
But, Casper’s sudden ability to Jedi mind trick the aliens into submission feels wildly convenient, especially when the show decides to kill him off mere moments later as evidence that the nuclear attack took out the alien ship. (They died, Casper died, it’s all connected, right? I’d believe in the finality of all this more if there weren’t another entire episode to go.)
This episode is, however, the most likable and interesting Trevante’s been in the entire series, and it’s not an accident that it’s also the installment that gives us even the vaguest hint at what he’s actually been through rather than vague throwaway lines.
After a plot that involves a child connecting telepathically to an alien race and a dead girlfriend who is somehow alive again — at least enough for said aliens to pretend to be here, you’d think those had to be the most nonsensical stories of the week, right? LOL, don’t underestimate the Malik family.
Ahmed, Aneesha, and the kids are whisked off to the Pentagon after scientists confirm that the strange black rock Luke’s been lugging around can in fact harm the aliens. (We knew this, but okay.) Yet, for some reason, their transport is attacked by a group of dissidents or domestic terrorists or something, and run off the road.
This group — who is heavily armed and apparently capable of taking out a squad of soldiers who have ostensibly had some form of training — does not reveal what it is they want, although I suspect we’re all assuming they want the alien-killing material. Maybe? Does it really matter?
Thinking on her feet, Aneesha manages to help the whole family escape into the woods, but when they’re tracked down by an apparently rogue soldier, Ahmed sacrifices himself so that his wife and children can get away.
It’s clear that Invasion thinks this is a very emotional moment and some form of redemption for Ahmed’s terrible behavior earlier in the series. Your mileage may vary, of course, but since I explicitly recall him attempting to abandon said wife and kids by hitching a ride with the first available neighbor in the series’ pilot — and the fact that he’s never once apologized for his affair or even seemed sorry about it — all I can say is good riddance.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- I wish this show deserved the extended use of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in any way at all. (Thank you to the commenter who caught that my rage had me incorrectly call the song “Starman”!)
- While they’re all arguing about whether to nuke the alien spacecraft, someone says something about how the aliens are turning the Earth’s atmosphere into poison. Did we…know that? Because I feel like that’s the first time anyone has mentioned it and that feels…kind of important?
- These aliens are so lame, just from a visual perspective. Did anyone else play with Wacky Wall Walkers as a child? Like I can’t look at these and see anything else.
- Also, if Not Exactly Hinata is being controlled by aliens….why are they asking a planet they have literally just attacked for help?
- Sam Neil watch: LOL, you thought!!!
What did you think of this episode of Invasion? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Lacy Baugher
Lacy is a pop culture enthusiast and television critic who loves period dramas, epic fantasy, space adventures, and the female characters everyone says you're supposed to hate. Ninth Doctor enthusiast, Aziraphale girlie, and cat lady, she's a member of the Television Critics Association and Rotten Tomatoes-approved. Find her at LacyMB on all platforms.
3 comments
Regarding Hinata, in the first episode, she is blown into space while wearing her blue flight suit. “Full of Stars” shows her in a spacesuit — notably, a spacesuit with no apparatus, no oxygen tank. Then we see her maneuver her way back to the Hoshi in the frictionless vacuum of space, a physical impossibility. This series may have its lapses, but I can’t see the writers failing to recognize how a human body floating in space would function.
Once Hinata starts uttering “Wajo,” the episode immediately cuts back to Mitsuki, who is resting against Hinata’s father with her eyes closed. She is smiling, like she is dreaming or having a fantasy. Then she wakes up/snaps out of it as “Wajo” plays over the speakers. I think all indications are that what we see of Hinata is in Mitsuki’s mind.
awful show. complete waste of time.
This show is complete garbage and a total scam, Apple got swindled hard and it’s hilarious
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