After an exemplary flashback episode last week that saw us caught up in the details that brought an alien infested Maginot crashing back to Earth, it’s time to go back to the lab to pick up all those temporarily discarded threads. However, we soon find that the world of scientific enlightenment that Boy Kavalier is so single mindedly trying to create is beginning to crumble on multiple fronts. Not only do we find that keeping multiple alien species on his faraway island is about to become the disastrous idea we all knew it would be; but his wave of Hybrids that see the minds of terminally ill children placed within synthetic bodies is starting to go askew too. As Kavalier confidently goes toe to toe with Weyland-Yutani in the boardroom, unbeknownst to him, his empire is starting to wobble dangerously as it’s threatened by human arrogance, inhuman patience, and a surprising amount of carelessness as the Hybrids start falling foul of various outside factors. Everything is about to go tits up – and it all starts here…
Boy Kavalier swaggers into a boardroom meeting adjudicated by the five ruling corporations of Earth to discuss the matter of the Wayland-Yutani ship that crashed into territory owned by Prodigy, but while he successfully ties an indignant Yutani up in legal red tape thanks to him quoting quarantine protocol, the rot is starting to set in back on his research island. For a start, after Nibs’ unsettling psychotic break that led to her becoming convinced that her synthetic body was pregnant, Dame Sylvia has agreed with the callous order from Atom Eins to wipe the trauma caused from the past week. While Dame’s husband, Arthur, passionately protests, he’s fired for his troubles and is given a day to pack up his belongings and leave.
However, while Wendy is having a rare old time communicating with the rapidly aging Xenomorph, her brother Hermit is still whispering in her ear as he tries to figure out ways to get her off the island. But after Boy’s favoured Hybrid discovers about Nibs having her mind wiped of her traumatic attack from the Eyeball alien, Wendy starts to think that the scientific candyland she’s been sold on has sinister foundations.
But what of those unsettlingly patient aliens? While the teenage Xenomorph seems to be enjoying its chats with Wendy, the T. Ocellus sits contently in the eye socket of its host sheep waiting for shit to go south and thanks to a terrible mistake by Toodles, metal eating flies have escaped and killed the Hybrid with its acidic spit. Further adding to a sense of impending doom is that Mr. Morrow has successfully manipulated Slightly into trying to smuggle a Xenomorph embryo off the island. But while Hermit was the terrified Hybrid’s initially choice to tango with a Facehugger, it’s ultimately Arthur who is betrayed as his comatose form is hidden in a nearby air vent. Trouble brewing indeed.
It was always going to be a chore to follow up episode 5, which is rightfully now being hailed as bring better than most movies in the Alien franchise, but thankfully show creator Noah Hawley doesn’t try to compete and keeps his eyes firmly on the story. The result is the very real sense that dropping a flashback episode full of alien carnage and dysfunctional humans right in the middle of the season wasn’t just an excuse for Hawley to get his Ridley Scott on, but it proves to be a worrying prelude to what is about to happen at Prodigy HQ. Much like the crew of the Maginot, our cast of characters are now almost all within a state of emotional flux due to recent events as they are now questioning the very values that Kavalier has insisted on from the start.
The tipping point, unsurprisingly, comes from Wendy, who starts the episode with pipe dreams of domesticating a Xenomorph (yeah, good luck with that) and ends it realising that no matter what she does or where her consciousness comes from, she and her fellow Hybrids are still a product and the choice to erase Nibs’ issues rather than tackle them with lengthy therapy finally opens her eyes to her predicament. It’s also the fact that the rather callous agreement to wipe Nibs came from the formally empathetic Dame means that quite a sizable betrayal has taken place that Wendy cannot ignore. Still, thanks to the efforts of her brother, Hermit, if she changes her mind, she’ll at least have a way out as he’s now running around looking for ways to escape. Intriguingly enough, his surviving comrades from his military team urge him not to leave as they now have a good thing going on which suggests that the average joe in this hellish future will settle for anything as long as a healthy paycheck is involved.
However, before we focus on the true stars of the show, its also interesting as we get to watch some other predators do their thing in their natural habitat. Boy Kavalier may be the most punchable character on TV this year by a sizable margin, but watching him bulldoze over Yutani after putting on an impressively dispectful display of rocking up to the meeting in bare feet and sitting on the board table, you have to admit that the little shit has the moves. But while he walks away the technical victor, there’s a far more tantalising rivalry building thanks to some elevator-based trash talk between synthetic Kirsh, and Cyborg Mr. Morrow. However, what makes this especially interesting is that while the latter finally goads Slightly into doing his horrible bidding, the former is fully aware of what is transpiring, but is choosing not to intervene for reasons best known only to himself.
While the above all adds tremendously to a sense of mounting dread and catastrophe, it’s down to those plucky aliens species to really fuck shit up and while everything that transpires does so under the baleful stare of T. Ocellus, it’s time for a new species to make itself known. After accidently locking himself in with an alien breed of fly, Tootles realises with a mounting sense of panic that he’s sharing a sealed cell with a breed of creature that feeds on non-organic materials – much like the ones that the luckless Hybrid is made out of. Before you know it, Tootles has taken a face-full of acid and the misshapen insects chow down on one of the main supporting cast. Killing off one of the Hybrids was getting pretty inevitable and the act gives Slightly the opening he needs to set Arthur up to play kissy-face with an extraterrestrial face humper, but the abruptness of things finally lurching over the tipping point proves to be legitimately shocking.
In a single episode, we’re now heading down the same road to death and destruction that the crew of the Maginot found themselves on, and the sense that we’re building to an orgy of destruction proves to be incredibly exciting. I was worrying that the awesome horrors of episode 5 might have signified that Alien: Earth had already peaked, but with the sheer amount of tense intrigue and drama that’s built up; to add eyeball aliens, android eating flies, monstrous leeches and a couple of Xenomorphs to the mix means that things can only get worse – and by worse, I mean exponentially better.
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