Thanks to Fox putting putting baseball ahead of their entire line-up and Daily Show being in re-runs tonight’s episode of Invasion is only the second first run show I’ve watched since the last airing of Invasion. And seeing as the other first run show was this week’s atrocious episode of RAW, I was very much looking forward to some fresh content. Thankfully this one didn’t disappoint.
Tonight’s episode starts off with a helpful graphic letting us know that seven days have passed since the hurricane. We can see the outside of a building with covered windows. Inside of the building there is apparently some sort of struggle going on. We can hear some animal snarling and some flashing lights as well as someone screaming. The camera zooms in on the mesh which, in a tragic turn of events, is slashed by some sort of claws.
The next morning the town is still coping with the hurricane aftermath. The sheriff lets us know that the hurricane is not just a challenge but an opportunity for the town (or as Homer would say, a crisitunity).
Nearby, Larkin is doing another of her coping with the aftermath of the hurricane stories, discussing the status of the relief shelters when a woman attacks her yelling “You’re one of them!”. The crazy lady is hauled to the hospital and is asked what she meant by ‘one of them’. She seems about to answer but then hesitates after seeing Marilee. She then claims that she meant one of the people from TV. Another doctor comes into the room and identifies the woman as her patient. Apparently she is schizophrenic and the truck that would have brought in her medicine was turned away at a roadblock.
At the town hall a meeting is going on where the recovery of the town is discussed. It looks like it could be weeks before power and water are restored to the town. The townspeople, understandably, are not too happy about this. There are also complaints about the Sheriff’s safety circle as it is preventing the flow of supplies and interfering with travel, even within the town. Russ comes in and confronts Tom about the blocked medicines which lead to the attack on Larkin. Tom wants to keep the roadblock in place but the mayor pressures him to drop the roadblocks. Left with no other option, the sheriff grudgingly agrees.
After the meeting, Russ meets up with Dave and they discuss what happened on the way to a research station Russ lost contact with. When they get there we find out that it was the same building from the start of the episode and that the poor mesh didn’t survive its earlier clawing. They also find the body of the man who was looking after the station and some open cages.
An examination of the man leads them to suspect that a disease may have killed him and that the escaped baboons could be carriers. They immediately order some tests on the man to determine what killed him and set off in search of the baboons.
Later that day Tom visits Larkin. He asks her if she found out any more information about the box. He seems willing to help her found out more information but says that when she writes her story, he doesn’t want anyone to know he helped her. She admits that she already told Russ, thinking he only wanted it kept a secret from the media, not from her family. Underlay is shocked that she said anything and says that if she wants to be a good wife she can tell Russ but if she wants to be a good reporter she has to keep things to herself.
Russ is out searching for the baboons when he returns into Sheriff Underlay. He is rather displeased that Russ never told him about the baboons and says that if they had kept the safety circle, none of this would have happened. The Sheriff and his deputy insist on helping to track the missing baboons through the Glades.
Back at the Varon household, Dave wakes Larkin to ask where the kids are. Turns out that Jesse and Kira, who had earlier convinced Larkin to let them go to a bonfire, did not come back by curfew and Larkin sets out to find them. The only really noteworthy moment of her search is when Russ contacts her. After a moment’s hesitation she elects to lie and tell Russ the kids are fine rather than worry him.
At the bonfire, we see a large number of teens drinking and engaging in… *gasp* underage drinking. Kira seems pretty at home but Jesse just kind of stands off to the side, being all awkward-like. Kira, despite being seemingly annoyed by his toolishness earlier in the episode, begins to flirt with Derek; Jesse doesn’t seem too pleased by this and soon suggests that they should leave. Derek thinks that he and Kira should go off by themselves in the woods and Kira, after asking Jesse to wait for her, seems quite content to do so.
Kira and Derek fool around a bit by the lake while Jesse sits by himself at the bonfire and gets even more mopey. On the final shot of Derek and Kira kissing another of those fun underwater lights is seen in the background.
Elsewhere in the Glades, Tom, Russ and random deputy continue hunting for the baboons. The first time they find them the baboons simply scream and run past them. It does not take long to locate one of them again though. Tom thinks they should shoot this one but Russ wants to wait for the dominate male as apparently once he tranqs that one the others won’t try to escape. While they wait Russ pries into why Underlay took Larkin to see the military operation. Tom says that he did so because Larkin kept badgering him but Russ seems to think there is another reason. The alpha male wanders into the clearing and Russ tranquilizes it.
Back to Derek and Kira who are sleeping on the comfy, comfy ground. Derek wakes up and notices the light in the water. He walks over to get a closer look. And then, proving he’s not only a tool but also an idiot, he wades into the water and attempts to reach out and touch the mysterious moving light. Unsurprisingly, he gets pulled under the water; Kira somehow manages to sleep through all this.
We cut to a few hours later as Kira wakes up. She notices Derek is gone and sees a sandal at the edge of the water. Before she can examine it, Larkin shows up and is none too pleased that she spend the whole night looking for the kids. Larkin and Kira go back to the now burned out bonfire where Jesse is still sitting with a mopey look on his face. When Larkin gets angry at him for breaking his promise to be back by curfew he says that he couldn’t leave Kira by herself. Kira then says that it was entirely her fault that they didn’t get back when they were supposed to. The conversation is cut short when Derek wanders back into the clearing sans clothing. The remaining party goers cheer Derek, presuming he and Kira shared a special moment. Kira looks vaguely embarrassed about this and Jesse gets slightly teary-eyed, no doubt planning on some more moping in his near future.
Back at the hospital we learn that there are now three people who are infected by the disease, which tests reveal is a strain of Asian flu which has not been active since the 1950s. The baboons have all been tested and it turns out that none of them were carriers. A quarantine is ordered for the town, sealing it off within a ten mile radius instead of the previous five mile one.
In her office, Marilee discusses the issue with Russ and Tom. She realizes that all 3 of the new infections occurred at relief centers though she is not sure if that is because of something at the centers or just because so many people are at the centers right now. They decide that they should talk to Gale as he has been heading up relief efforts and he had been to the research station where the hapless caretaker had been discovered.
Russ and Tom arrive at Gale’s trailer to find a clearly upset man. He warns them to stay back and admits he is a carrier. Apparently he had been working with some samples a few days earlier when he accidentally dropped one of the them. It got all over his hands (you would think gloves would be handy when dealing with virulent diseases) and he thought he had infected himself with the Asian Flu. He quickly ordered a vaccine but when he did not get sick he assumed that the sample must have been mis-labeled. But then the caretaker, whom he had shook hands with, died and he suspected something may have happened. And when other people got sick he knew he had to be carrying the disease, he just was not sure why he had not gotten sick himself.
Underlay calls in a hazmat team and congratulates Russ on helping to determine the source of the outbreak. And because they now know the source of the outbreak and the vaccine is on its way there’s no need for the quarantine, a mere safety circle should suffice. Russ asks Tom why Gale did not get sick but Tom has no answer for him.
After Russ leaves, Tom goes back to Gale’s trailer. Tom tells Gale that he believes something happened to Gale during the hurricane that Gale never even realized. He starts to go into Gale’s trailer to tell him more about this mysterious event; Gale tries to stop Underlay by saying that he is contagious and the sheriff replies, “Not to me.”
Another excellent episode for Sheriff Underlay this week. His character is by far the most interesting in the show. The majority of the characters on the show remain flat or uninteresting but not Underlay. The way he plays off all the other characters is great to watch.
The only negative about Underlay being so strong is that it makes the protagonists look weaker than they already are. Russ comes off as likable guy and Larkin is starting to get interesting but pretty much everyone else on the show needs work.
They did attempt to develop Jesse and Kira’s characters this week but the results were mixed. Kira came off fairly well other than her randomly running off with a guy she had earlier disdained. It seemed the only reason for her to do this was to make us feel sorry for Jesse but his moping around for half the episode didn’t do him any favors.
Fortunately we are still only a few episodes in so there is plenty of time left to further develop characters. And the plot is unfolding quite nicely as we see Sheriff Underlay seemingly play the town to get them to be happy with the safety circle they had previously rallied against. The monkey swerve was well played too.
Ultimately this week’s episode left me anxious to see the next one. And that’s good enough for me.
