Chaos descends on an island paradise in the penultimate part of Alien: Earth. Our spoiler-y review of episode 7: NB: The following contains spoilers for Alien: Earth episode 7. There’s a distinct satirical undercurrent to Alien: Earth that we haven’t previously seen in the franchise, at least so prominently. Take Boy Kavalier, the self-styled tech ... Alien: Earth episode 7 spoiler review | Wish you were here?
Chaos descends on an island paradise in the penultimate part of Alien: Earth. Our spoiler-y review of episode 7:
NB: The following contains spoilers for Alien: Earth episode 7.
There’s a distinct satirical undercurrent to Alien: Earth that we haven’t previously seen in the franchise, at least so prominently. Take Boy Kavalier, the self-styled tech genius who’s an obvious parody of certain industry figures in the present. The mop-haired Prodigy CEO said in a previous episode that he created his Hybrids so that he’d finally have someone smarter than he is to debate.
Well, Alien: Earth episode seven sees Kavalier talking to a sheep. Not just any sheep, obviously: this particular specimen has been possessed by a T Ocellus, an alien critter whose intelligence has been teased earlier in the series in episode five, it appeared to orchestrate what amounted to a prison break. Even so, episode seven sees Kavalier sitting in a room, monologuing away at what amounts to infected livestock.
It’s an image that sums up the arrogance and hubris that has triggered every event in Alien: Earth. As we’ve already seen, the show’s menagerie of creatures has arrived on our planet thanks to corporate rivalry and greed. Kavalier’s short-sighted belief that he can control all these monsters – not to mention his human-machine Hybrids – has led to the powder keg of events that explodes in episode seven.
Not that Kavalier seems to grasp the dire situation he faces, even when staring down at the molten remains of poor Tootles, the Hybrid killed by an extra-terrestrial fly. “There goes that six billion,” he murmurs to his similarly cold science officer, Kirsch. “No more kids in the lab.”
That particular horse, unfortunately for Kirsch, has long since bolted. The Hybrids can no longer be tracked and controlled, and so they begin to look for a way off the Prodigy island. Thanks to Morrow’s manipulation, Slightly has gotten poor Arthur inseminated by a facehugger, and it isn’t long before the labour pangs kick in. It’s a dreadful end for a likeable character, but Arthur can at least take solace that, as he breathes his last on a tropical beach, he’s experienced one of the Alien franchise’s more picturesque deaths.
Mortality is a common theme in this episode, in fact. Wendy (or Marcy) spotting Tootles’ remains has woken her up to the danger she’s in. Those alien flies like to feast on metals and other non-biological materials, making them a legitimate threat to the Hybrids. Later, Wendy and her friends roam the island, they stumble on the graves of their human selves.
“It’s not us,” Wendy says. “We’re still here.”
“I don’t think I am anymore,” says Nibbs, kneeling over the gravestone inscribed with her name. It’s a brief sequence, but Lily Newmark’s performance is terrific here: her expression of disbelief communicating a moment of true existential crisis. If your consciousness is digitised and zapped into a walking computer, what’s truly left of you? Divorced from a fleshy, mortal body, are you still human, or merely a simulation of one?
As a screenwriter, Hawley excels at these more intimate moments, aided as he is by a terrific cast. The scene on the beach where Arthur confronts Slightly and Smee about their unconvincing attempts at lying to him, and the subsequent shot of them all walking hand-in-hand, is a wonderful moment of dramatic irony. It’s a final reminder of what a disarmingly decent, well-meaning character Arthur is – before the inevitable happens.
It’s in the moments of horror that Alien: Earth feels less convincing. Arthur’s death is appropriately bloody, but lacks the gut-wrenching impact of John Hurt’s unforgettable birthing scene from all those years ago. There’s also a more general problem with the series that really comes to the fore in episode seven: none of the characters are particularly frightened of the xenomorph, so why should we be?
When the chestburster emerges from Arthur’s shattered torso and flees into the undergrowth, Slightly’s reaction isn’t visceral terror but panic at having lost an important specimen. And then there’s Wendy’s Doctor Doolittle-like ability to communicate with the xenomorph. By episode seven, she is able to summon the creature with a few dolphin-like clicks of her tongue, prompting it to tear a bunch of Prodigy soldiers limb from limb.
What was once one of the most mysterious, intimidating creatures in film history has now been reduced to an attack dog. Almost as damagingly to its fearsome reputation, it’s repeatedly shown in unflattering broad daylight.
The storyteller’s response to this might be that, true to the rest of the franchise, it’s the humans who are the true monsters. The xenomorph is just an animal, acting on instinct; Kavalier’s plan to have the eye monster leap from a sheep to a human victim is truly evil.
But as the story’s protagonists – and Arthur’s alien son – are all captured by Kirsch and his forces as episode seven nears its end, there’s a growing sense that the xenomorph has been relegated to a supporting role. Alien: Earth is thought-provoking sci-fi and blackly comic satire, but the fear factor appears to be long gone.
Alien: Earth is streaming now on Disney +. Here’s our review of episode six.
