Alien: Earth Season 1, Episode 7
"Emergence"
Writers: Noah Hawley and Maria Melnik
Director: Dana Gonzales
Cast: Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin, Essie Davis, Adarsh Gourav, Kit Young, David Rysdahl, Babou Ceesay, Jonathan Ajayi, Erana James, Lily Newmark, Diêm Camille, Adrian Edmondson
Hoo boy. Morrow's plan to sow chaos in Neverland bears fruit, but that morass extends to the narrative in this penultimate episode. Is this a case of the show paying unintentional tribute to even the wonkier films in the franchise? The stark light of day doesn't do this one any favors.
Pi in Your Eye
You'll recall things went poorly in the restricted lab last week. Tootles/Isaac is out of commission. Human security guards subdue the flies, sweeping one husk into a dust pan. Kirsh theorizes that the beasties, indigenous to a harsh, barren world, developed systems to digest their mineral-rich food externally. That explains the hybrid's ruined face. Understandably horrified, Wendy rushes off to alert the others. Kavalier wants to contain this, but they discover that all the hybrids' trackers have been taken offline, with access to those settings denied them, at least for now.
Kirsh shows Kavalier footage of Tootles/Isaac's final moments, the sheep's direct involvement wholly evident. This isn't just an intelligent creature acting in its own immediate interest. This is cunning, part of a mult-step plan. Kavalier directs him to separate the specimens, and the sheep is moved to another room. There, he attempts to communicate with the Eye Midge, correctly surmising that it's familiar with math.
Like Clever Hans, a real life horse who made a stir in the early 1900s, the sheep stomps its foot to communicate numbers. Hans couldn't tap out pi to four decimal places though. Worth looking up Hans, by the way. He figures prominently in questions surrounding psychology and artificial intelligence.
The Eye Midge drops a steaming pile to show its contempt for Kavalier. The boy genius is delighted and demands Atom find a human host so he can take this conversation further. This harkens to his earlier conversations with Dame Sylvia and Curly. He's desperate to engage with someone who can keep up with his own perceived brilliance. Even if it means sacrificing yet another life.
When You Saw Only Two Sets of Footprints in the Sand, It Was Then That the Monster Burst Out of Your Chest and We Fashioned a Raft to Drag You the Rest of the Way.
Oh, Slightly. This has gone off the rails. While we never cross fully into Weekend at Bernie's territory, the hybrid's attempts to hide the facehugger and its Arthur-sized host are played for comedy in the early going. He's managed to relocate him to his bedroom for now. He tries slipping a drinking straw in there, but the alien only tightens its grip around his neck.
Smee turns up like a sitcom neighbor and this is essentially a 9-year-old with night terrors we're dealing with, so Slightly is forced to bring him into his conspiracy. Smee obviously wants to tell some grown-ups, but Slightly impressed on him how dire it all is with his mother and brothers at Morrow's mercy. Crucially, he promises that no harm will come to Arthur in the end. I think even he knows that's a lie, but it's enough for Smee to help drag the body past the guards without incurring Metal Gear Solid alert sounds.
Curiously, Kirsh helps the boys in their desperate op, looking the other way when they flounder at the elevators. He even reminds them of the proper floor to make their exit. Is the android a double agent for Yutani? Or does he have other motives?
Out in the jungle, the facehugger dislodges from Arthur's face. He's got quite the brain fog at first, clinging to the boys for assistance. Slightly seizes on this, claiming there was a gas leak and they need to regroup with Dame Sylvia. By the time they reach the beach, Arthur starts to recollect what happened in the lab. He notes the fear in the boys' voices and attempts to reason with them, adopting a fatherly tone. He knows he's in trouble, but he also recognizes that these are children acting on fear. Smee and Slightly accept his assurances and turn around. It's too late.
Arthur doubles over. The xenomorph bursts from his chest.
He lives long enough to look on the creature in revulsion and horror. It disappears into the green. Slightly immediately gives chase while Smee — our softest boy — shakes Arthur for any sign of life. Gourav and Ajayi are fantastic in this episode. We never forget these are children in very adult situations.
That said, there's no way these knuckleheads constructed that raft in the space between scenes. They haul Arthur's body through the shallows, the newborn xenomorph hopelessly lost to them. This begs the question; aren't these two pretty strong? Shouldn't they be able to carry Arthur unaided? Perhaps we can attribute this to psychology. Maybe they aren't cognizant of their own strength in the moment because they're not used to it yet? More than a few blank spaces need filling-in this week.
Morrow and his newly arrived wetworks team emerge from the water, training their weapons on Slightly and Smee. They ignore Slightly's frantic questions about his family's wellbeing. They tip Arthur's body from the raft and march the hybrids toward the facility.
Kirsh is there to meet them with an armed squad. He's also got the newborn xenomorph in a little pet carrier. Precious cargo. Morrow lowers his weapon.
"This isn't over," says Morrow.
"It never is," says Kirsh.
He takes Morrow and his crew into custody and informs Slightly and Smee that they're grounded. Fair.
Can We Keep Him?
So far so good, right? But it's Wendy and Joe's plot that stumbles most this week. The siblings agree it's high time they make their escape, but Wendy will only go if they can liberate the Lost Boys, too. Joe concedes that they should at least try. Teachers' pet Curly refuses, saying Neverland is the best place she's ever been. Poor broken Nibs opts to join the siblings as part of her defiance era. Wendy makes Curly promise not to tell on them before using her technomancer powers to remotely disengage the locks on the adult xenomorph's cell, unleashing it on the scientists cleaning up the restricted lab. The filmmakers wisely showcase the carnage via grainy surveillance footage for the most part. Looks awesome. It's when the alien escapes outdoors where we run into trouble.
We get a curious scene with Nibs and the Hermits discovering a small graveyard on the outskirts of Neverland. These are the former bodies of the hybrids, each marked with a headstone. Wendy and Nibs had no idea it was here. I can only guess that the Sylvias requested it out of some sense of guilt? Kavalier would've just had them incinerated, no? In any case, standing over their own graves probably doesn't do Nibs and her rapidly fraying psyche any favors.
Cornered by a detachment of Prodigy guards, Wendy summons her xenomorph friend to take them out. The lush jungle setting and the heavy weaponry recall the original Predator, but the alien suit looks pretty rough in such unforgiving daylight. Attempts to obscure those shortcomings with strategically placed flora and some awkward framing are jarring to say the least. I'm about as uncomfortable as Joe looks when Wendy moves to calm the creature like Chris Pratt wrangling his raptors. In a vacuum this is a fun idea, but the execution just isn't there. There's the shark. There's the ramp. Are we doing this?
Wendy instructs the alien to "hide and follow", at least she thinks. They make their way to a boat, but Joe's team are waiting in ambush. Ah geez. Nibs doesn't take well to all the guns pointed at them. We're in full moony TV girl territory here, clutching an emu plushie and hissing at the soldiers. She pulls a guy's jaw off and things escalate quickly.
Soldiers take fire. Joe's friend Siberian gets up close and personal, forcing Joe to hit Nibs with that stun stream. She twitches and sputters on the deck. Unsure if Nibs is dead or alive, Wendy reels on her brother. A Queens of the Stone Age needle drop underscores the rage.
"What did you do?"
I maybe would've gone for a second take, but ah well.
Meanwhile, the xenomorph watches from the brush, just waiting on the green light from Wendy.
One episode remains.
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