Alien: Earth just wrapped up its first season and all I can say is, what a mess. Where to even begin with the dreadful, sloppy, pointless finale? How about a spoiler warning.
The episode starts with some very nice shots of the beach, and Arthur’s crab-bitten body on the beach, a foreboding bit of foreshadowing. There are some lovely overhead shots of the jungle island where this story is set. It’s a nice moment. Grim, macabre and beautiful. Everything goes downhill from here.
The Xenomorph shows up to sniff Arthur’s corpse and while I think the head of the alien looks great, every time I see its legs I just see a guy wearing alien pants. It’s incredibly jarring. They’ve botched the Xenomorph in every possible way this season. It’s not scary at all, for one thing. Making it a pet for Wendy-Sue is another. This is by far the worst Xenomorph in the Alien franchise.
We then cut to Dame Sylvia walking casually down to the graves of the children dressed in pirate/gypsy clothing. The outfit is bizarre but the fact that she’s off to the graves in the midst of all this chaos, with a Xenomorph on the loose, really sets the tone for the rest of the episode.
One word kept rattling in my brain the entire time. Why?
Why include this grave scene at this point in time? Is it meant to further Dame Sylvia’s character development in some way? Mostly, it just makes her look incredibly stupid (which is par for the course, I realize). The Xenomorph shows up but doesn’t kill her. It’s frightened off by a group of four Prodigy soldiers.
Why? Why is it frightened of them? Why doesn’t it kill her and the soldiers then and there? We don’t know. The show doesn’t know. I guess the writers just didn’t want to kill off these characters yet (later, one of them is killed by the plant alien and just stands there staring at the camera instead of leaping out of the way or shooting it! It’s so goofy!)
There’s Not Enough Security In Neverland To Stop A Mary Sue
Back at HQ, we learn that Morrow and Joe have been put in a holding cell. One guard circles them menacingly. Just one, though, which will make their escape a lot easier. This escape will be aided by Wendy’s super powers. More on that in a minute.
Wendy and the other Lost Boys are locked up in a second holding cell, which we’re told “wasn’t designed for synths” . which could be a problem. Again, I have to ask, why? Why aren’t there holding cells designed for synthetic beings? When you go to great lengths and great expense to create these hybrids, why are there not cells that can hold them properly? Prodigy isn’t short on funds. Why send them into danger? Why leave them unattended? Why? These are your floor models!
More to the point, why are there no failsafes baked into the hybrids just in case they malfunction or go rogue? Why can’t Prodigy take control of them when we know they can see through their eyes and listen in on them? “Boy Genius is actually very stupid,” seems to be the running theme (and response from fans when I ask these questions). But we learn this very episode that when Boy Genius was just six years old, he created a synth to kill his abusive drunkard father and then, using the synth as his front, built this entire empire from the ground up. That’s not what a stupid character does. We are constantly told how smart he is, but the show goes to great lengths to make his every action the total opposite. A super genius would surely bake some safeguards into his creation and a decent script would find a way to make the hybrids break free regardless.
This extends to the network. Wendy, because she is a Mary Sue, is not only able to broadcast her Xeno-speech to the alien out in the jungle, she’s able to hack every system in Neverland. We’ve seen her do this before, when she freed the Xenomorph (whereupon it killed a bunch of innocent people) and now she’s able to continue wreaking havoc from her cell. Nobody thinks to try to shut her out of the system. There’s nothing in place to stop her. When we learn that Atom Eins is a synth (surprising noone) it’s almost a very cool moment. He throws Joe to the ground and hurls Wendy across the room and utters one of the show’s best lines about him warning Boy Kavalier against putting children in synth bodies (“An eternity of ‘are we there yet?’”) but then Wendy just lifts her hand and freezes him.
How exciting. How very, very exciting to have a protagonist who can just magic away every problem.
The other great line in this episode was delivered by Kirsh, who warns Boy Kavalier against acting rashly. “A symptom of your ADHD is impulse control problems” he tells his boss. He’s not wrong. Kirsh also gets a quick-draw moment when Morrow attacks, and I’d expect nothing less for a Timothy Olyphant role. But these pair of good lines and handful of decent characters can’t make up for all the drivel that surrounds them. Kirsh and Morrow fight, and both are badly injured in the scuffle. Since these are two of the only characters I actually like on the series, I’m glad neither was killed. But neither was anybody else of note.
Nobody Dies
Despite aliens on the loose and an incoming Weyland-Yutani invasion and the hybrids turning into diabolical killing machines, basically the entire cast comes through unscathed. Even Arthur gets a second chance at something resembling life, as the eyeball alien, T. Ocellus, ignores all the other much fresher bodies (and living humans) in order to go all the way down to the beach so it can take over Arthur’s body. This makes zero narrative sense, but I suppose series creator, Noah Hawley, wanted to give David Rysdahl a role in Season 2.
Wendy and Joe have a heart-to-heart. She’s still mad at him for zapping Nibs, even though it didn’t kill her or do any lasting damage, and despite his apologies she remains pretty angry. Joe is rather neutered during all of this, despite being essentially right about everything. Even “it’s complicated” is too much for Wendy to hear. That’s what powerless people say, she tells him, and she’s not powerless. She doesn’t know what she is, she says. Not a grown-up but not a child. I know what you are, Wendy. It starts with Mary and ends with Sue. Why none of the other hybrids have reached anything like her level of power or intelligence is beyond me. But hey, at least Curly comes around. She takes the name “Jane” after Wendy talks about how Peter Pan kidnaps Wendy’s daughter, Jane, because he’s mad at Wendy for growing up. Hawley just can’t resist endless Peter Pan references in every episode.
When Boy Kavalier comes to the hybrid holding cell to reveal not only his backstory, but their purpose in the world (floor models, he tells them, which is weird since he’s just put them in multiple wildly dangerous scenarios) he brings one whole guard with him. He goes into the cell and acts surprised when they fight back, despite every indication that they’re dangerous and will likely do just that. The one guard is obviously not enough security, but security is a dirty word in this show. I guess all the dozens of other Prodigy guards on the island have been killed by the Xenomorph (that runs away from guards earlier in the episode).
Wendy tells Boy Kavalier to run and then tells the other kids they’re playing “hide and seek” but I’m just really unclear on why they don’t just capture him then and there. Is it just so the Xenomorph can come scare him? It doesn’t kill him, either. In the end, all the adults are locked up in the holding cell and when Wendy is asked what they do next, she says “Rule,” as Pearl Jam starts to play and Boy Kavalier grins like an idiot and the Weyland-Yutani forces descend on the island.
What Is The Point Of All Of This?
Rule? Really? That’s Wendy’s plan? Rule the world? The island? Where is this coming from? Where is any of Wendy’s motivation coming from? Speaking of plans, what was Kirsh’s plan? He was portrayed as this incredibly manipulative synth working against Prodigy, but in the end he capture Morrow and then just . . . keeps working for Prodigy? Doing his science stuff? What was the point of letting all that stuff happen in the first place? There were far easier ways to capture Morrow. “For science!” fans tell me. Why? And who conducts science experiments this recklessly?
The whole thing is so strange and pointless. Wendy was perfectly fine working with Boy Kavalier up until Prodigy wipes Nibs’s memories. Then she goes full psycho, using the Xenomorph to kill dozens of people. She didn’t turn against Boy Kavalier after learning some deep dark secret – perhaps that she was just a floor model to help Prodigy sell hybrid synth bodies to rich people. She turned on her killer mode because the corporation was wiping traumatic memories from Nibs after she went completely insane. Why? Why is this the thing that breaks Wendy’s faith in Prodigy and Boy Kavalier? It’s such a strange turn. We, the audience, have every reason to dislike the Boy Genius, but I find Wendy’s motivations truly perplexing.
She acts as though Boy Kavalier is responsible for the deaths of the children who now occupy the hybrid bodies, but these were all terminally ill kids. They would all be dead or dying without Boy Kavalier. He gave them immortality and they’re responding just as Atom Eins warned, as perpetual children throwing a massive tantrum. That would be easily fixed with some basic safeguards, but there are none. No failsafe, no ability to take over the hybrids manually. This is especially strange since Boy Kavalier is planning on selling these as products to the super-rich. Wouldn’t it be much more diabolical (and profitable) if Prodigy baked in the ability to control their customers?
It all reminds me a great deal of a far, far better show.
Temu Westworld
In HBO’s Westworld, the Western-themed theme park has robot Hosts who are lifelike in every way. They’re treated horribly by the Guests who come to visit and use them as glorified sex dolls, who kill and abuse them with murderous glee. Over the course of that show’s truly remarkable first season, the idea of consciousness is explored as the Host, Dolores, and other characters, search for the center of a mysterious maze. By the end of the season, Dolores has broken free of her shackles and gained human-level consciousness, turning on the park’s human overlords. The setup is similar, but where Westworld plays with timelines and cleverly reveals backstory and secrets, Alien: Earth stumbles from one hackneyed plot point to the next with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
This extends to the characters. In Westworld, the man responsible for the park and its Hosts is Dr. Robert Ford, played by Anthony Hopkins in one of his finest performances. Ford is complex, menacing, philosophical. It’s hard to put a bead on him. His motives are unclear. He’s neither a hero nor a villain. He worked against his old partner, Arthur, in the past when Arthur wanted to shut the park down before it even opened. Arthur believed the Hosts were about to achieve human consciousness, and that it would be deeply amoral to subject them to the horrors of what was to come. Ford disagreed. But many years later, Ford has changed his mind, though it’s far from clear for most of the season. (I’m only referring to the first season of Westworld here, which is a complete and beautifully drawn story; the next three have their moments, but exist as something of a sequel series in my mind, and an inferior product – though each is better than Alien: Earth).
Compare Ford to Boy Kavalier. Or compare Wendy to Dolores. Dolores isn’t human at all, unlike Wendy, but her character is still far more complex and well-written. It takes an entire season for her to come to grips with her circumstances, to awaken to the truth. She doesn’t just flip a switch and become super-powered. Even Maeve, who does gain super powers in the first season of Westworld, faces enormous setbacks and challenges on her path to freedom. And we have noone in Alien: Earth even half as fascinating as William.
In other words, Alien: Earth does not succeed as an Alien show. It is not scary enough. The Jurassic Park-like island is the wrong setting. This isn’t Predator. It does not function as deep sci-fi, either, paling in comparison to a series like Westworld which does all the same things, only far better. It does not succeed as a Blade Runner series, despite its many nods to that franchise, achieving far less in eight episodes than the original Blade Runner did in two hours. It doesn’t work as a Westworld knockoff, because the hybrids aren’t synths so the nature of their consciousness is never really in doubt. These are clearly just kids in robot bodies who still (by and large) act like kids. None of the stuff we’re told about them having fewer emotions appears to be true. It’s just the movie Big with aliens and robots.
And it does not succeed as entertaining television, because it is too riddled with plot conveniences and eye-rolling moments (despite the eyeball alien being one of its best characters). It’s a game of idiot ball. Its protagonist is a Mary Sue who might have been interesting had she not been written as a tropey girlboss with inexplicable super powers that remove all friction and struggle from her character arc. The whole thing is a mess, and the finale only underscores that fact, ending on a deeply unsatisfying cliffhanger.
Weyland-Yutani is about to land a dozen airships on the island (having slipped past Prodigy defenses, I guess – yes, I know, the satellites are jammed, but I’m still unclear how Prodigy fails to defend its wider territories) and we have to wait until season 2 to see how Wendy and her child soldiers will get out of this pickle. I suspect that it will be super easy, barely an inconvenience.
I’m left wondering who the “real monsters” actually are. That’s the title of the episode. Is it Boy Kavalier and his corporate goons? That seems to be the Very Deep Message this show is bonking us over the head with. Or is it Wendy and her hybrid companions? They are awfully monstrous with their disregard for human life and tyrannical ambitions. I don’t think the show is telling us to think that, however. It’s certainly not the aliens. Heaven forbid the aliens in an Alien series are the real monsters. Maybe the real monsters are the writers, saddling us with this slop.
I really wanted to love this show, but I can’t look past its myriad problems. So much wasted potential. So much Peter Pan nonsense, all the way up to the finish line. I can’t wait for Season 2, when Wendy is about to kill Boy Kavalier and he says “To die will be an awfully big adventure.”
Read my past reviews of Alien: Earth below:
Alien: Earth’s Wendy Is A Mary Sue
Alien: Earth Is A Constant, Frustrating Game Of Idiot Ball
The 3 Biggest Problems With Alien: Earth
Alien: Earth Episode 5 Is A Painfully Stupid Imitation of the Original Movie
Alien: Earth Is Dull And Goofy
Alien: Earth Is A Disappointing Mess With Great Visuals And A Bad Script