Invasion – Recap – Episode 1-16

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So a couple weeks of old ‘Lost’ episodes and pre-Oscar interviews are over. Now it is back to ‘Invasion’ episodes. Unfortunately it is only back for this week and next week and then it’s gone again till sometime in April or May to make way for a gritty crime drama (cause we certainly don’t have enough of those on TV already).

This week we kick things off with Mona (Russ’ co-worker) finding some broken glass. Inside the station, Christina and Derek are stealing some much needed supplies. Christina ensures Mona doesn’t give them any trouble by hitting Mona in the head with a fire extinguisher.

At the hospital, Tom and Mariel are watching over Kira. Apparently Kira has had a bad heart valve ever since she was little. Thus she was safe from being turned into a hybrid. She lost quite a lot of blood from the attack, but she is expected to be okay.

Russ, meanwhile, is visiting with Healy. He tells Healy all about the ovary they found in Mariel. Russ speculates that maybe the offspring are the real danger but Healy wants to ensure Russ doesn’t forget that the hybrids, even Mariel, aren’t to be trusted as they’ll do anything to survive.

During their conversation, Healy tells Russ that if anything happens to him, Russ will have to deal with Zura. If you ever find yourself as a semi-recurring character on TV show, beware that saying the phrase “if anything happens to me” is equivalent to donning a redshirt back in the original ‘Star Trek’ series. We also learn Healy’s real name is Alonzo.

Mona, after regaining consciousness, radios Russ and lets him know what happened. She recognized Christina from way back when she was arrested originally and she tells Russ who attacked her.

Larkin, in the meantime, is taking the kids to go see Mariel and Kira at the hospital. Apparently Mariel wants to tell them about her change. Dave, within earshot of Dave and Rose, helpfully mentions this by asking Larkin if Mariel is ready to tell the kids that she and Tom are aliens.

Russ meets up with Tom. Derek and Christina are in the swamps so there is some discussion as to who should be leading the search and whether Russ should bring any other people in. Ultimately it is decided that Russ and Tom will go into the woods together to look for Derek and Christina.

Speaking of the crazy couple, they are motoring down a river with the boat they stole. As they head to an old camp Derek knows of we learn that Christina is rather displeased with her pregnancy. Derek, on the other hand, seems confused by it (as she looks to have gotten very pregnant over the last couple weeks) but he seems to like the idea of a baby. Christina has even less reason to be happy about her new condition as a wave of pain and more of that stomach distortion hits her.

Things get even better for the happy couple as the boat runs out of gas. They took some stuff from the ranger station, but apparently they didn’t bring any spare gasoline.

The kids, along with Larkin and Dave, have gotten to the hospital and are talking with Mariel. Mariel tells that she’s still their mother, but that during the hurricane she was changed. Jesse asks if that means she’s an alien and points out what Dave said.

While that is going on, Tom and Russ find Derek and Christina’s abandoned boat. Tom has some sarcasm for Russ’ tracking abilities but they set off in the direction Russ thinks the most likely to lead to Christina and Derek.

As Derek and Christina walk towards the camp, Christina elaborates more on why she does not want to have a baby. Apparently she had and then gave up her first kid at 16, and we already know how things went with her second child. All her life Christina has felt like a prisoner and she doesn’t want to be burdened with the responsibility of a child. The conversation comes to a halt as Derek sees something, though we don’t get to see ourselves.

At the hospital, Dave apologizes to Larkin for his careless alien comment. Larkin is pretty upset and thinks that Mariel is never going to want to talk to her again.

Dave says that they need to find more information about what is going on. Larkin says the only people who know anything are the military and they are just sitting back and letting everything happen.

Russ and Tom are still on Derek and Christina’s trail, having found some evidence they were headed in the right direction. Tom senses someone or something is nearby and then some guy runs out.

The guy speaks Spanish so Russ does most of the talking with him. There are a couple other people with the first guy. They tell Russ that the others forced them out of the camp after the hurricane.

Just in case the strange behavior as the hurricane was insufficient, when Tom and Russ go to the actual camp, all five of the people staying there come out of the water after apparently doing some underwater fishing.

Back at the hospital, Kira has regained consciousness. Mariel tells Kira she will be okay. Kira wants to know if she was changed. Mariel says Kira was not but reassures her that it was a good thing. Kira asks why she wasn’t changed and Mariel says that Tom will explain to her later (so presumably Kira’s heart condition is a fairly serious one).

Larkin, after receiving encouragement from Dave, gets in touch with Vince again (her friend from the air force base). He is quite upset with her because she used him to snoop on the base, and didn’t have the integrity to just ask him for help.

Vince’s boss told him that Larkin was snooping around in an attempt to write a corruption story on the base (overcharging for supplies and that kind of thing). Dave takes advantage of this revelation to suggest they could prove Vince’s boss lied.

Back at the apparent work camp, Russ and Tom are not able to get any information on Derek and Christina from the non-hybrids. They some of the missing supplies in the hybrid area however. When questioned the hybrids say it was a gift.

The non-hybrids tell Russ that it was not a gift, but rather it was stolen from the them (the non-hybrids). They did see Derek and Christina but they were afraid to say anything in case Russ and Tom were like the others.

We also learn that there were originally four people who had not been changed from the storm but one of them was beaten to death because he took a little fish from the hybrids.

Tom decides to call in social services. Russ suggests that they would not be the best people to deal with a problem of this sort but Tom seems strangely confident in their abilities. They wait around a while, and eventually the social services guy shows up to handle things.

Derek and Christina have finally gotten to the camp and make themselves at home. Christina asks if there is a closet but the closest they have is a gun closet. There’s a rifle cleaning rod in there though and she asks Derek for it. She laments that it isn’t very sharp and that she would rather have a coat hanger. Several seconds later, Derek catches on to what she is planning but she is quite insistent.

Before Christina can perform a self-abortion, she doubles over in pain. She screams a lot and says it feels like her insides are being ripped apart.

Larkin takes the kids home from the hospital (apparently they were there for an awfully long time) and as she is going into the house she sees a cars light blink. Upon investigation Larkin finds Vince. Vince believes what Larkin told him now (after the reaction he got when telling his boss that Larkin agreed not to write the corruption piece). He tells her that Paxton was taken to the base the night he disappeared from the hospital and supplies him with a access code for the base computers.

Tom and Russ are having a meaningful discussion on human nature and how it relates to selfness v. selfishness (you can probably guess for yourself who was championing which side of the issue) when they come across the cabin Derek and Christina are staying in.

The go inside and while they do not see Derek anywhere, they do find Christina. It would seem she has developed a healthy glow (her stomach is literally glowing). They ask her where Derek is but she isn’t very forthcoming.

While Tom is trying find out where Derek is, a ranger truck drives up. When Russ opens the door, the person in the truck is found to be rather shot. Derek pops up and grabs Russ.

Using Russ as a hostage, Derek gets Tom to give his gun to Christina. Christina gets in the truck. Derek makes a comment about his protecting his family and goes to get in the truck as well but Christina rewards his efforts by firing a bullet in to his shoulder and driving away on her own.

Later on, Larkin and Russ are looking up information from the Airforce database. There are a lot of pictures, including some of Zura. Russ recognizes Zura as the ‘social services’ guy from earlier in the episode. Unsurprisingly he is rather unhappy with this finding.

For Zura’s part, he’s now meeting up with Tom. He is to take Derek and the work-camp hybrids to the island. Tom warns Zura that he does not want any more escapes.

Russ goes to see Healy again and, shocker of shockers, Healy is lying dead on the floor of his camper.

The camera then cuts away to a rather large butterfly/moth emerging from its cocoon for some reason.

Kind of a disappointing episode this week. There were things that should have lead to entertaining television (Mariel’s revelation for one, and Tom and Russ usually have more enjoyable interactions when they are forced to work together).

The Christina and Derek stuff was okay but we already knew Derek was an idiot and Christina was crazy so it is not like there were any real revelations there.

Tom calling in Zura (under the guise of social services) seemed out of character. Tom is usually pretty careful about controlling situations and he knew Russ knew about Zura (even though he did not know what he looked like) so it seems odd that Tom would let Russ see they were connected. I suppose it is possible it is part of some larger plot on Tom’s part but it does not seem very likely.

Mariel’s conversation with the kids should have been a big moment in the episode but it seemed a very by the numbers affair. It didn’t get a whole lot of time and it played out pretty much exactly as you would expect it to.

There were some good spots in episode though. Larkin’s new military database access, for instance may shed some light on what the military’s involvement in the whole hybrid issue is.