Invasion (2021): The Message - S03E02 - RECAP

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Event though this is a series I havent seen Season 1 or 2 its interesting although seems like the good stuff already happen but Im still watching, after Episode 2 of Season 3 I'm sitting here trying to figure out what the hell happened to this show, this specific episode titled "The Message" gave me some of the most frustrating TV moments after what felt like a promising start to the season with Travante returning from wherever he was, this episode completely derails everything by focusing on Mitsuki and her hermit life in Japan which sounds interesting but the execution is so poorly done that I found myself wanting to fast forward multiple times. The whole setup has Mitsuki living off grid in some remote mountains after the events from season 2, trying to avoid the World Defense Coalition who still want to use her for her alien communication abilities, she has been hiding for two years and you would think this kind of isolation would make for great character development but instead we get scene after scene of predictable moments, making the episode lack of mystery, yes it had some tension as she kept running from a hole crew through the woods just with a bow taking them all down one by one, this are suppose to be trained agents so wth??!! the episodes throws it all away for cheap plot conveniences and characters making decisions that no rational human being would ever make in real life.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9737326/
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The episode opens with Mitsuki experiencing these painful headaches and strange ringing sounds in her head, which I later learn are connected to Travante return to Earth through that Atlantic Ocean portal, so far so good, thats actually an interesting connection that could lead somewhere meaningful. But then they immediately ruins this setup with one of the most ridiculous hacking sequences I have ever seen on television, Mitsuki suddenly decides she needs to get online and hack into the WDC database to find out more about Travantes return, using her laptop and some satellite equipment that somehow works perfectly in the middle of nowhere. The entire sequence is filled with meaningless shots of her typing on the keyboard while staring at some unrealistic computer interface that looks like it was designed by someone who has never used a computer before, as a fact I thought it was a Chromebook because of hwo the keyboard looks, I had one. She is suppose to be this brilliant scientist who knows how to stay hidden, she somehow forgets to cover her tracks properly and alerts the authorities to her location within minutes of going online. Its the kind of amateur mistake that makes you question whether the writers understand their own characters or if they just needed a convenient way to move the plot forward without caring about logical consistency, the whole thing feels like something a chatbot would write after being fed a dozen similar scenes from other shows, I guess what keeps me watching is the intriague of the damn Aliens but Im starting to loose interest, probably Im so behind on this season.

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Things get even worst when Nikhil Kapoor shows up, its a first time for me since he seem to be mostly one of the key figures on Season 2, the corporate businessman who was supposedly pulled into an alien portal and thought dead but surprise he is alive and working with the WDC now. His introduction back into the story comes with this cringy scene where he is overseeing some alien ship mining operation in Antarctica, when one of the scientists raises legitimate safety concerns about dangerous radiation levels, Nikhil just fires the guy on the spot like some cartoon villain from a bad movie about evil corporations. The dialogue in this scene is a bunch of crap, these are supposed to be smart people dealing with alien technology but they sound like they are reading lines from a high school drama class and it gets worst the way Nikhil talks to the intelligence officer later, acting all tough and badass when he just comes across as a petulant child throwing a tantrum because he didnt get his way. The whole subplot about him being in contact with the WDC and helping them track down Mitsuki feels forced and unnecessary, like the show realized they needed him in the story but couldnt figure out how to bring him back naturally so they just threw him in there with some hand waving about surviving the portal experience.

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The worst part of the episode comes when Kaede Tamura is introduced as this supposedly elite government operative sent to capture Mitsuki, but every single thing she does makes her seem like the most incompetent agent in the history of television. When she tracks Mitsuki to the home of her friend Ume, instead of conducting a proper stakeout or using any kind of stealth, her team just run up to the house in their all black out cars that screams blacks up agency, completely eliminating any element of surprise they might have had. Later when Mitsuki sets a car on fire right in front of her, Tamura just stands there and watches instead of immediately pursuing or calling for backup, apparently deciding that this obvious distraction tactic means she should just give up and look somewhere else instead. The chase sequence through the city is filled with more illogical moments, including Tamura somehow losing track of Mitsuki even though she was literally right behind her and when she finally corners her target in a tunnel, instead of using a taser or any other non lethal weapon, she just shouts for Mitsuki to surrender and then lets her escape when she refuses, its like watching a parody of a competent law enforcement operation except its supposed to be taken seriously.

The ending of the episode tries to set up this big revelation where Mitsuki makes contact with one of the alien hunter killers and receives the message "They arise" which is supposedly going to be important for the rest of the season but by this point I was so frustrated with everything that came before that I started to care less and less, also seen the Alien hunters shoot them down like they hunting Zebras takes all kind of menace presence to the Aliens. The alien encounter happens after Agent Tamura and her entire team get killed off screen by the creatures, which should be a shocking moment but instead feels like lazy writing to remove inconvenient characters who the show doesnt know what to do with, we never see the actual attack or understand how these supposedly well trained agents with special anti alien weapons got wiped out so easily. Mitsuki then travels to the United States to reconnect with Nikhil and ask for his help accessing some secure facility, which brings us full circle to the same corporate conspiracy stuff making things feel repetitive, its like there is nothing new to the series just recycling plot elements from previous episodes without understanding what made them work. The cryptic alien message is clearly meant to be this seasons big mystery hook, did the mothership went down on purpose and its part of the Alien strategy?, this episode feels like a waste of time and not even a filler episode, as I mention above Im going to keep watching but mostly when I got nothing else to watch, from a scale of 10 this series is about a 6 at most a 7 but from what I have read online Season 1 and 2 are very good though so I'm going to keep watching the rest of Season 3.