Shioli Katsuna on Mitsuki's 'Invasion' season 3 journey and her cool Apex Alien connection (exclusive)

Apple TV's "Invasion" Season 3 drops its penultimate episode on Friday, Oct. 17, and fans are on the edge of their sofas primed to get a glimpse of what’s inside that ginormous derelict mothership as our group of reluctant heroes crosses over into the Dead Zone.

It's been a sensational third outing for this sci-fi drama conceived by Oscar-winning producer Simon Kinberg ("Deadpool," "The X-Men Films") and his partner David Weil ("Citadel"), and there's been an enormous influx of new viewers hooked on its alien encounters.

Actress Shioli Katsuna's Mitsuki Yamato has been one of the core characters throughout the entire series, and as we discovered last week in the episode titled "Life in the Dead Zone," she's now formed a remarkable bond with one of the spider-legged extraterrestrial apex aliens that we can't wait to see evolve.

"I got to do that episode with the director Alik Sakharov, who I've been with since season two, and I have the most trust with him," Katsuna tells Space.com.

"So I was very excited entering that episode because I knew I was in good hands. I do meet up with other characters in the episode, like the Infinitas, and have interactions with other people, but it was mostly a lot of scenes where it was non-verbal. It's so much content with the alien, and I have an arc with it without any lines. Building that was a very careful and sensitive process because I had to imagine everything."

Katsuna did have the benefit of a performance capture artist on set to act against and to set correct eyelines for a more authentic, emotional delivery that comes across as perfectly organic.

"We had this amazing actor who specializes in playing aliens and other creatures named Keith [Arbuthnot]. Keith is a genius, and the people in props made him this suit to make him tall. He loves do-it-yourself, and he'd bring in all these tools that he made to help me out. Without Keith, that episode would not have been possible. It was a lot of preparation as well to really be able to find what she was going through in that episode."

Besides the role of Mitsuki being one that's more physically and mentally demanding this year, Katsuna considers the unique elements of "Invasion" that make the project so special for fans.

"I think it's a very character-driven show. If anything, we have many more aliens in this season," she adds. "In the first season, it was only like an episode or two with the aliens. It's really focusing on these individual characters from different countries, ethnicities, and ages. With our show, obviously, it's an alien invasion, but we all experienced something similar during COVID and perhaps the strike, and it's truly what humans go through emotionally when there's something you have no control over. It's ultimately about human connections and trying to survive together.

"For me personally, Mitsuki is kind of on a different journey. For her, it's not so much about the human connection yet. It's about connecting with a different entity and having an awakening, and connecting to a realm on a very different frequency. That's something I experienced during these past two years. It's almost like my personal life and Mitsuki were kind of on a parallel journey, so it meant more and brought out a real immersion within me."

"Invasion" Season 3 streams exclusively on Apple TV and airs its penultimate chapter, "Homecoming," on Oct. 17, 2025, with the season finale, "The End of the Line," landing Oct. 24.