When I saw the title for the fifth episode of Alien: Earth, it seemed too good to be true. Could the episode actually live up to the implications of its title? Were we about to get a brand-new, full-fledged Alien movie in the comfort of our home? Thankfully, the answer to both those questions is “Yes.” The fifth episode of Alien: Earth saw creator Noah Hawley deliver his own version of an Alien movie in the confines of his show, and it was familiar, fascinating, and fraught with tension. Let’s discuss.
That aforementioned episode title is “In Space, No One…” a wink at the tagline of the original 1979 Ridley Scott Alien. The full phrase goes, “In space, no one can hear you scream,” and the episode had plenty of screaming as we jumped back in time to explain exactly what happened on the USCSS Maginot that made it crash into Earth.
One of the many things that made this so great is that Hawley, who both wrote and directed this episode, already set up so much in previous episodes. For example, we know everyone except Morrow is dead. We know that he had a chance to save Zaveri (Richa Moorjani), but he let her get killed by a xenomorph. Oh, right, we also know that there was a xenomorph on board that burst out of the chest of a person in cryosleep and that several of the ship’s other creatures also survived the crash. So all of that was just kind of hanging over the episode. Beats we knew we had to hit; it was just a matter of when or how. That delivered almost a new Alien experience, one inspired by the films but more dependent on dramatic irony than pure discovery.
And the episode jumps right into it. Mostly, we follow Morrow, which makes sense as he’s still alive and crucial to the rest of the show. He’s woken up from cryosleep to be told two creatures are out, the captain is dead, and a fire was set that basically made it impossible for the ship to land properly. As the head of security, he immediately tries to figure out what the hell is going on. Was someone behind this, or was it random? He begins recovering deleted files and going through footage. We also get a flashback of him with his young daughter back on Earth and learn that she died in a fire at the age of 19, only a few years into his trip. He’ll have to wait over 50 years to recover her belongings.
With the ship’s captain dead, Zaveri is put in charge. When she reports this home, all Weyland-Yutani cares about is one thing: what’s the status of the cargo? In fact, Zaveri gets almost cyberbullied by the MUTHUR computer as it repeatedly makes sure that she acknowledges “survival of cargo is top priority.” Nothing else. Basically, the humans are secondary to the aliens.
Plus, those aliens are having a field day all over the ship. Even though the person with the facehugger is put into cryosleep, the facehugger doesn’t take, and a xenomorph bursts out and escapes. The creepy slug things escape their containment and drop a bunch of babies into Chibuzo’s (Karen Aldridge) water. Fascinatingly, the eyeball octopus notices this and tries to warn Chibuzo about it, but she doesn’t react. Eventually, that too escapes and takes a ride in the eyeball of one of the ship’s mechanics, Shmuel (played by the great Michael Smiley).
Morrow continues his investigation and discovers two things. One, the ship is being directly sabotaged by someone who is pretending to be asleep. And, most importantly, he learns that this person was hired by Prodigy CEO Boy Kavalier. Morrow finds a video that shows the saboteur Petrovich (Enzo Cilenti) begging Boy to be transferred into a new body. Boy sort of agrees (we know he can’t do this with adults, but Petrovich doesn’t) as long as Petrovich delivers the Maginot on a collision course to one of his cities.
It’s the revelation of all revelations. Boy played dumb as it all went down, but now we know not only was he aware of what was on the Weyland-Yutani ship, but he also orchestrated its crash so that he could steal it all. It’s a piece of information that changes everything. And now we also know Morrow is aware of it.
There are a ton of other details throughout the episode, too, but in the grand scheme of things, they are largely inconsequential. Each little thing—like when those babies finally kill the young mechanic or we get to see the eyeball creature fight and bite a xenomorph—adds to the enjoyment and terror of the episode, but it’s all tangential. Most of the people die, and we already know the creatures live and escape. All that really matters is that we see Maginot was sabotaged and that it was orchestrated by Boy Kavalier.
Eventually, we work our way back to the moment from the pilot episode when Morrow lets Zaveri die, he reports that everyone else on the ship is dead, and he prepares for the crash. Then, finally, back on Earth, and back in the timeline of the show, we see Morrow meet with Yutani (Sandra Yi Sencindiver) and reveal that he wants to not only recover the creatures but also to kill Boy Kavalier. Yutani tells her team to give him whatever he wants.
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