The penultimate episode of Alien: Earth season one is now out in the world, and after a few episodes of setup, things took off like a rocket ship. There was payoff after payoff, showdown after showdown, and, yes, lots and lots of creepy, gory Alien action. It may have been the best episode of the season so far, and that’s saying something, so let’s dive into what happened, what it means, and why we loved it.
The seventh episode of Alien: Earth is called “Emergence,” which is the perfect title for an episode where so much happens. Truly, it could refer to almost anything and everything—the emergence of another xeno, the hybrids rebelling, the genius of the eyeball, or even Kirsh’s plan. But ultimately, maybe the most important thing to emerge was the rift between Wendy and Joe, which hit a boiling point by episode’s end.
Before that though, a lot happened, so let’s run through it story by story. We’ll start with Slightly, who, last week, was finally successful in getting a Facehugger to do its thing on a human. Arthur, the newly fired scientist, was the unfortunate victim. Slightly’s best friend, Smee, senses something is wrong and bursts into Slightly’s room to see what he’s hiding. He’s shocked and scared at Arthur’s lifeless body but, being the good friend he is, agrees to help Slightly complete his mission. Under one condition: Slightly has to promise that Arthur will be fine once the Facehugger comes off. Reader, he will not be fine.
As they sneak out, they run into Kirsh, who they, and we, think is going to bust them. In a pretty surprising moment, though, Kirsh does the opposite, helping the two hybrids sneak Arthur out of the facility. Why does he do this? Does he secretly work for Weyland-Yutani? We don’t know. What we do know is that once outside, Arthur wakes up. The Facehugger dies, and he is very confused about how he got outside and why he’s there. Smee and Slightly make up a story about gas and an evacuation, so, in his stupor, Arthur goes along with it.
These guys are getting into all kinds of trouble this week—FX.Soon after, though, Arthur’s memories start to come back, and he stops the boys. He goes into full Dad mode, telling them he knows they’re lying and that whatever it is, they can figure it out together. Reluctantly, they submit, and that’s when it happens. Pop. Pop. Scream. Scream. Arthur falls, and a little baby xenomorph pops out of his chest. Smee is furious that Arthur is clearly not okay, and Slightly is furious that they lost the creature he believes to be the only thing that can save his family.
They bring Arthur’s body to the rendezvous point where Morrow and a team of soldiers await. Morrow is angry but knows time is of the essence and deploys his team across the island. They head to a nearby bunker where Kirsh and an army of Prodigy soldiers are waiting. Kirsh and his team have captured the baby xeno that escaped and proceed to lock up Morrow and his men. Basically, like four episodes of story all get wrapped up pretty quickly, though we are still unaware of why Kirsh helped the boys and then scolded them after. Or if Slightly’s family is okay. We’re guessing they are, though.
Before he does all that though, Kirsh has to update Boy on everything that has happened over the last few hours… mainly the $6 billion hybrid that was somehow killed by an alien fly. Apparently, they don’t actually know if they can fix him because they never thought there would be a need to. But Boy is less worried about that when he sees that it was the eyeball, still inside the sheep, that orchestrated the entire scene. He’s endlessly fascinated by the creature and orders that it be moved to another location.
Wendy arrives in the lab to see what’s happened and is shocked to see that Isaac has been killed. She didn’t think that was even possible, and her fears about her safety (and the safety of all her fellow Lost Boys) are turned up to 11. As she tries to leave, a few guards stop her, so Wendy sends a few clicks to her friend, the xenomorph. The creature bashes up against the glass to let them know Wendy can leave, and she does. Boy and Kirsh are stunned at her actions and realize they need to keep an eye on her and the rest of the hybrids. Which is when they realize all the trackers have been turned off. Uh oh.
These guys are about to find out who really has the power—FX.Of course, we know it was Arthur who turned those off to help Joe escape the island with Wendy. When he finally gets to her, she has already seen Isaac’s body and knows that she has to escape. But she wants to bring as many of her Lost Boys as possible. That brings her to Nibs’ room, where she’s being comforted by Curly after the trauma of having her memory wiped. Nibs agrees to come, but Curly doesn’t want to. Wendy makes her promise not to tell on them, which we don’t think she does, even though later she does cry to Dame Sylvia about something. Before they leave, Wendy does one last thing. She unlocks the now fully grown xenomorph in the lab, and it proceeds to feast on everyone in there. “What did you do?” Joe asks, not able to see what took place.
Wendy, Joe, and Nibs head outside, and among the first things they see are graves. Graves of their old selves. This throws all three of them for a loop, with Joe getting sad, Nibs being confused, and Wendy adamant that those bodies aren’t them anymore. It seems like a pretty transformative, crucial moment, but they press on.
A little down the road, a group of soldiers stops them with orders to bring them back. It looks like they’re caught when Wendy starts to make some noises. Out comes the released xenomorph for its second destructive bloodbath of the episode. After it’s killed all the soldiers to protect Wendy, Joe, and Nibs, the creature slowly approaches them. Wendy gently touches it, wiping some blood off, before saying something, and it runs away. Nibs is fascinated, Joe is terrified, and he asks what she said to it. “Hide and follow, I think,” she says.
These two are about to get into it—FX.And follow them it does. They make it to the boat only to, again, be ambushed by soldiers. These, however, are led by Joe’s friends from back in New Siam. The soldiers have orders to bring everyone back, but one in particular starts being mean to Nibs. So she grabs him and rips his freaking jaw off. It sets off a battle where Nibs and Wendy start defending themselves against the soldiers. She’s about to call the xeno when Joe stops her. Nibs soon gets shot, and Joe electrocutes her. Wendy is furious. She can’t believe her brother would hurt one of her friends like that. “What did you do?” she screams, echoing what he asked of her earlier on.
Multiple times in the episode, we saw that Joe was increasingly uncomfortable with Wendy’s relationship to the xenomorph. So, him defending his friends against Nibs makes sense. He doesn’t seem to be on the same page with his sister on a lot of things, which has finally driven a wedge between them. A wedge that is being carefully watched by the xenomorph hiding in the nearby bushes. Wendy unleashed the xenomorph, and Joe does what he believes he must to protect his fellow humans.
Again, so much happened in this episode that it almost felt like a finale itself. Where do things go from here? Well, there are now two xenomorphs on the island, Weyland-Yutani soldiers are there, hybrids can be killed, and don’t forget all the other creatures too! It should be an explosive finale.
Boy, things are going poorly. – FXAssorted musings
- No, I didn’t forget about arguably the episode’s best scene. That being Boy communicating with the sheep, using the digits of Pi to prove its intelligence. It’s a genius scene, and Boy’s excitement at finding something that, like he said in an early episode, can really impress and challenge him, was palpable. But, it’s still in a sheep. A sheep that shits on command. He wants to get the eye into a human who can talk. And he mentions a possible mold guy…
- Could that be a reference to the early episodes where we repeatedly saw a guy cleaning the wall? Is he the mold guy? Is he going to get the eyeball? That would be a great payoff if that’s what happens.
- Before Wendy, Joe, and Nibs were surrounded by soldiers the first time, they stood next to a large, yellow structure that had been grown over. If you’re an Alien fan, that probably brought two things to mind. One, the chair of the Engineer, which the Nostromo finds in the first film, as well as the power loader that Ripley uses in the second film. The yellow, triangular structure feels almost like a blend of the two. And while clearly it isn’t anything like that, and probably won’t have any significance, it’s one of the best examples yet of this show just getting what Alien is. That thing just felt and looked like “Alien.” Which was probably the point.
- Slightly and Smee bring Arthur’s body to Morrow to prove they really tried their hardest to execute his plan. But, when he’s ready to leave, Morrow’s soldiers push Arthur’s body into the water. The camera lingers on him for just a second or two too long. Maybe as a goodbye, or maybe because something else is coming from this character.
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