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.
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.
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.
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