(This article contains spoilers)
In Space, No One… Survives. Or very few people and some creatures.
If there’s one thing we learned with the Alien franchise is that humans are weak, vulnerable, but also take unnecessary risks and stupid decisions. And this episode is indeed fully part of the franchise. So much is happening in this hour-long opus.
We go a little back in time, 17 days before the crash. On the Maginot, the crew is still alive, just like we saw them at the beginning of the show. We already know how it all ends for each of them, but we don’t know how it went down, and what it really means for the people on Earth.
Morrow (Babou Ceesay), asleep in his cryopod, is awakened by Clem (Tom Moya), a young crew member, outside the planned schedule changeover: a fire broke on the ship. As the chief security officer, Morrow needs to assess the situation. Except the fire is far from being the only problem they’re facing. Two Facehuggers escaped from their containers and are now attached to Dinsdale’s (Tanapoi Chuksrida), the captain, and Bronski’s (Max Rinehart), the science officer, faces. While the captain is incapacitated, Zoya Zaveri (Richa Moorjani), the executive officer, is assuming his duties. Unfortunately, Dinsdale is already dead when Morrow arrives, killed by the acid blood of the creature when medical officer Rahim (Amir Boutrous) tried to cut the Facehugger’s tail tightening around the captain’s neck. This also highlights the seriousness of the situation: they have no idea what they’re dealing with.
Bronski, still breathing under the Facehugger, is put in a cryopod. Looking for an explanation, Morrow reviews the footage from the cameras in the container room. Someone broke into the room, started the fire, and opened the containers. Their options are limited to the crew, and part of them is still asleep. Or is it?
The other bad news is that the ship has lost most of its fuel and is now headed towards Earth with no means to stop it. Meanwhile, the Chestburster escapes from Bronski’s body and pod, meaning a grown Xenomorph will very soon terrorize the crew.
While the engineers are trying to find a solution, Chibuzo (Karen Aldridge), the science officer, is still studying the creatures, feeding the “ticks” in a scene we already saw in the first episode without knowing what happened just after that. After closing the ticks’ container, one escapes. On the other side of the table, the Ocellus in her (yes, it’s a she) own container is trying to warn Chibuzo, who doesn’t understand and thinks the eye creature is just agitated. This really supports what has been said by Kirsh in Prodigy’s laboratory while they were studying the creature. The Ocellus is indeed highly intelligent. The tick now out manages to reach Chibuzo’s water tumbler and releases its tadpoles in it before being caught and put back in the container. Well, looks like the tick is also smarter than everyone thought. The baby ticks are now able to contaminate anyone drinking this water. Oh, and the Ocellus escapes too.
Things are really going south on the Maginot. In a small twist, Malachite (Jamie Bisping), the young engineer apprentice, is the one drinking the tick water, which means death will catch him very soon too.
Morrow is still looking for the saboteur until Teng (Andy Yu), the creep of the crew, gives him a hint: someone is leaving their pod unnoticed. Morrow reviews various footage, including the communications with Earth, looking for any valuable evidence. In another twist, Petrovich (Enzo Cilenti), the chief engineer supposed to be asleep, reveals himself as an agent working for Kavalier. Which makes you wonder how it all started. They couldn’t be in contact before leaving Earth, Kavalier wasn’t even born, so how did they come to this agreement?
As expected, Malachite ends up having his blood sucked from the inside. As Rahim tries to remove the parasites, they release a toxic gas that kills him, Chibuzo (who was assisting), and of course Malachite doesn’t survive. It’s a massacre. The free-roaming creatures now outnumber the humans on the ship, and there’s only one outcome.
The next creature in line is the Xenomorph, now in its full glory. While trying to escape the monster, Zaveri discovers that the Ocellus took over Schmuel’s (Michael Smiley) body, the engineer, nesting in his left eye socket. This entire sequence has to be the most interesting of the episode. The Ocellus attacks Zaveri but doesn’t kill her, she just knocks the new captain out. Why? A moment later, Morrow finds her and Ocellus Schmuel. The Ocellus then seems to call the Xenomorph, or maybe raises an alarm. Morrow is fast to react and manages to escape. This could end here, but it doesn’t. The Ocellus, still controlling Schmuel’s body, attacks the Xenomorph. She doesn’t flee, she doesn’t leave the body, she straight up attacks the deadly creature, throwing the human body on the monster’s back and biting it. And when the human body is overpowered and killed, the Ocellus eventually leaves it only to attack the Xenomorph again. What a scene! The implications of this fight are huge.
In the middle of all this mess, Zaveri manages to escape too, only to be betrayed by Morrow in a scene that connects this episode to the first one. Morrow seals himself in Mother’s room, lets Zaveri be killed by the Xenomorph, and takes refuge in the impact room.
What a ride. What an episode. They brilliantly managed to create a short Alien movie while keeping the story of the show relevant even without the hybrids, who we thought were the focus of the show. Now, with episode 5 and everything that happened before, Morrow could very well be the actual main character. He definitely had a very central role before, but after this episode, it’s clear he’s the one driving the story.
With only three episodes left, Alien: Earth is now on a race to kill the most dangerous monster of all: the Xenomorph, the Ocellus, or Boy Kavalier?
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