Alien: Earth simply pulled off among the best fakeouts in current TV historical past. After kicking off the Alien prequel sequence by introducing a complete crew of Weyland-Yutani workers aboard a ship referred to as the Maginot, showrunner Noah Hawley proceeded to brutally homicide all of them in a matter of minutes, leaving solely the steely cyborg Morrow (Babou Ceesay) alive. Nonetheless, in episode 5 (title: “In House, No One…”) we lastly get a more in-depth have a look at the Maginot’s crew — and what went unsuitable.
Within the course of, this hour-long Alien: Earth entry winds up feeling like one thing between a bottle episode and a self-contained Alien film. Whether or not you are caught up on the present or not, it is price watching episode 5, which additionally occurs to be the most effective stand-alone entry within the franchise since 1986’s Aliens.
Ed. observe: Spoilers forward for Alien: Earth episode 5.
The story begins just about the place it did in episode 1. The crew of the Maginot wakes up from cryosleep. They’re on their means again dwelling from a 65-year mission into deep house with the objective of accumulating varied alien life types for Weyland-Yutani for future experimentation. This implies the ship is chock-full of violent aliens (together with, however not restricted to, the xenomorph species) which might be decided to flee from their cages and kill their human captors. And that is precisely what occurs.
All through this episode, we get to see a bunch of those monsters in motion. That features a facehugger doing its ordinary factor, together with the creepy eye alien (which is far sneakier and scarier than we initially assumed). Nonetheless, the freakiest of the bunch is undeniably a bug-like alien, which manages to sneak out of its cage and lay a bunch of eggs into somebody’s water bottle. This all culminates in a recreation of the medical bay scene from Alien solely as a substitute of making an attempt to take away a facehugger from the sufferer, the ship’s physician is extracting a bunch of large bugs which have latched onto his lungs. Suffice to say, it would not finish effectively. (And, in case you had been questioning: We study that placing a facehugger and its human sufferer into cryosleep would not cease the gestation course of.)
Alien: Earth episode 5 additionally raises the stakes by introducing a thriller aspect to the plotline. Somebody is tampering with the ship, and it is as much as safety officer Morrow to unravel the case. This includes one-on-one interviews with the opposite shipmates, who do not precisely belief their cyborg interrogator. Within the course of, we additionally study much more about Morrow’s backstory, which helps clarify his chilly, inhuman demeanor. Ultimately, it additionally turns into clear that the tech firm Prodigy was straight behind the ship’s crash as a part of an effort to steal these alien samples from their company rival Weyland-Yutani.
Whereas the episode does arrange a number of plot particulars that may play out in a while this season, what’s so nice about “In House, No One…” is that it actually looks like a stand-alone alien film. Greater than that, it is a stripped-down model of the franchise (maybe because of the finances of a single TV episode) that is nearer to the unique Alien than it’s to any of the sequels that adopted. Episode 5 makes repeated use of every set to the purpose the place, by the tip, you may really feel such as you’ve spent greater than only one hour aboard the Maginot.
In the end, whereas I am nonetheless not completely bought on Alien: Earth on the whole (I am much less within the central Hybrids plotline than the present needs me to be), episode 5 makes all the factor worthwhile. It is positively among the best single entries within the Alien saga I’ve ever seen. It would even be higher than Aliens, though I am not courageous sufficient to make that declare for myself.
If all of this proves something, it is that if Hawley will get to make a season 2, he ought to ditch the “Earth” a part of Alien: Earth and get again to setting the franchise the place it belongs: on a retrofuturistic spaceship the place everyone seems to be about to die within the worst means conceivable.
Alien: Earth airs weekly on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. EDT on FX and Hulu.
