WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for the first four episodes of Invasion, now streaming on Apple TV+.
As Apple TV+’s Invasion unfolds, humanity’s struggling to understand why society’s breaking down. Techs scrambled in certain parts of the globe, satellites are falling from the sky and a Japanese space station has been destroyed, leaving governments scrambling to discover what’s causing everything and how to cover it up. However, while this alien mayhem is occurring, it becomes clear the show’s most despicable villain isn’t the extraterrestrials — it’s an evil version of Rick Grimes.
Now, after the success of the AMC series, it’s safe to say The Walking Dead’s Rick is a pop culture icon. Andrew Lincoln put the character on the map, sticking to the core of the comics as Rick searched far and wide for his family, working to keep them together and protect his tribe. He’s one of the industry’s most selfless heroes and a true inspiration who believes in honesty and loyalty above all else.
In Invasion, however, while it seems like this is the role Ahmed Malik (Firas Nassar) will fill, he turns out to be the worst father possible. He’s the antithesis to Rick, with his wife, Aneesha, tracking his phone and finding him cheating with a teacher, Amanda. And that means when their town’s struck by the equivalent of an EMP, he’s not the guy they want to defend them.
In fact, amid growing xenophobia it’s a terrorist attack, Ahmed can’t even protect himself, cutting the polar opposite to Sheriff Rick. But what’s most vile about him is that he tries to abandon his family, begging a neighbor to take him with them. This breaks Aneesha, as she isn’t uplifted and backed like Lori Grimes was, having to instead assume the mantle of protector. And to make matters worse, Ahmed keeps distracting her by trying to phone Amanda, making it clear he doesn’t care and was actually going to leave them before D-Day occurred. It’s reprehensible, but Aneesha needs to keep him on a leash so their kids, Luke and Sarah, aren’t freaked out. She constantly has to check on him, treat him like a child and monitor his actions, making him even more of a kid than the children.
This is Invasion’s way of playing up the idea of how selfish humans become monsters, but it’s a nice spin because Ahmed was already one before the incident. And instead of transforming into a better man to safeguard his family, Ahmed doubles down as a failure. It’s why Aneesha says she doesn’t know “what” he’s become instead of “who,” as he’s not even a person anymore. And sadly, things only get worse for the matriarch when she discovers Amanda was carrying Ahmed’s unborn child, which is why he wants to leave.
All these problems eventually cause Luke to run off in the woods, and while a couple takes him in and invites the family to stay, things start looking pretty suspicious. But again, Ahmed isn’t like Rick, who would suss out clues, be proactive and wonder why Luke ditched them. Instead, Ahmed’s only obsessed with the affair and getting away from his problems, and his family is in immediate danger because of it.
To see Ahmed fail as a leader, Invasion’s first four episodes are now streaming on Apple TV+. New episodes become available every Friday.
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