Alien Earth: Metamorphosis

"When is a machine not a machine?"

This episode managed a bit of a magic trick, and I'm impressed with the storytelling so far.

Wrapping up everything from the first couple of episodes, the first twenty minutes systematically stripped away the horror from the crash situation. This seeming removal of the tension built over the last couple of episodes felt momentarily jarring. The xenomorph was bested by Wendy and then they literally pulled the entire cast out of that ship crash and transitioned to the island base. Then the second half established a new normal, where tension was re-established by the fact the monsters are under lock and key and the children were now in charge.

We got a chance to spend some time with each of our hybrid kids, and get a much better idea what is going on with them. Tootles and Curly are clearly a bit older and have already started adapting to their new lives and bodies. Nibs seems traumatized by her encounter with Mr. Eye, and seems to be realizing that she isn't a real girl. Smee is just a kid, and that became most evident with his encounter with Morrow. The same goes with Slightly, but in his case he was targeted by Morrow for another purpose, manipulation.

We also learned that Boy Kavalier is somewhat obsessed with Peter Pan and all the kids' names are directly lifted from lost boy characters, with Wendy the exception. Curly even has an extended conversation with Boy Kavalier about her role in all of this, and whether Wendy is his favorite. In a lot of ways he feels like one of them, a child in an adult body with all the selfishness, casual cruelty and curiosity that comes with childhood. Which I guess makes Boy Kavalier fancy himself as Peter Pan in this story, so he will likely always choose Wendy first.

While I was pretty sure that Kirsh was synthetic, it is outright confirmed here as we learn that these aliens don't really attack synthetic life. It makes for an interesting dynamic, where Kirsh and the hybrids are interacting with monsters straight out of a nightmare without a care. They just casually move around the xenomorph eggs and interact with Mr. Eye as if they are invisible and that's a completely different level of creepy. It also retroactively explains why Ashe was so brazen around the xenomorph in the original Alien, because Waylan-Yutani were desperate to get their hands on the creature after losing it to Prodigy.

Then there's poor Hermit getting surgery throughout the episode, where they removed his lung and replaced it with a synthetic one. At first I thought they were performing lifesaving medicine on him, but it turns out they were harvesting him, using his lung as an incubator for the xenomorph. I mean it is far better than subjecting a person to that horror, but it is still somewhat shudder-inducing. We also know that the xenomorph takes in some properties of the host they come from, that's why they look humanoid to a degree (besides the practicality of having a person in a suit). In Alien 3 when a dog was the initial host, the xenomorph became far more feral, running on four legs most of the time.

I suppose if you get deep into the lore, the xenomorph is a mutation of the black goo derived from David's experiments. Their adaptability stems from the fact these creatures are bio-engineered and not naturally occurring. Of course there is also the implication that the Engineers created all higher life, including humans. But there is nothing to suggest that this show is incorporating those wider plot details into their cannon. But they are taking xenomorph biology into consideration, first by making the function of the facehuggers even more explicit.

The queen lays eggs, those eggs produce facehuggers which are an aggressive, mobile extension of the need to procreate. They find a host, latch onto them, shove a phallus down the throat of the host and implant a xenomorph embryo which finds a place within the chest and finalizes its gestation period. It's that sense of violation and inevitable death that hits at the heart of what makes the Alien terrifying. How many other monsters have a functional rape as a part of their mythology? In most horror movies the act of sex is the catalyst for the monster to come after you. For the xenomorph that sexual act is a way of killing, and in a strange way transforming their chosen hosts into mothers.

A majority of this episode focuses on the secondary characters, and it's nice to see Arthur, Dame, Kirsh and Boy Kavalier get some screen time. While they have been central, they haven't been the focus until now. I believe Arthur and Dame are decent, I'm not so sure about Boy, and Kirsh is just creepy. Timothy Olyphant is giving an incredibly layered performance with Kirsh as a synthetic that appears and reacts like a human. It makes me wonder what kind of programming he has, because he is clearly running with a non-standard set of protocols.

Morrow is also starting to develop layers. His conversation with Smee and Slightly was incredibly telling. His cybernetic enhancements seem to be deeply invasive and taxing on his body as well. I'm getting the impression that cyborgs are rare because they gain the strengths of a synthetic that remove them from humanity, but retain all the weaknesses of that human body. It would be a brutal and exhausting way to live.

Finally, we get back to Wendy waking up and hearing things. She wanders the hallways of the island base, searching for the sound. It leads her to Kirsh and Tootles who are harvesting the xenomorph embryo to transfer it into a tank with Hermit's lung. Wendy collapses as soon as Kirsh pulls the embryo from the facehugger, her connection to it unexplained and potentially terrifying. It's a continuation of the auditory stuff she was encountering on the ship, is this why Wendy is different from the others? I'm honestly not sure and that makes me very tense again.

Bits:

I'm starting to wonder if Morrow is actually evil. His actions in the final moments of the ship crash made it seem like he was the one that sabotaged the ship, but now I'm not so sure.

The music starting at the end of the episode is Metallica: Wherever I May Roam.

I truly hope they don't put Hermit's lung back inside of him. I'm also curious what his role in the show will be moving forward.

Siberian and Hermit's crew came along to the island. Their presence makes me think we're going to get some heavy action in the back half of this story, as things inevitably fall apart.

Quotes:

Morrow: "You get this feeling when the monsters come and you can't... don't help. Maybe you're feeling it now, when Mother says the crew's life don't matter. Only the bounty matters. When you hear the screams, and all you can do is save yourself."

Slightly: "Are you a robot?"
Morrow: "Wouldn't that be nice. To be all machine, instead of what I am, the worst parts of a man."

Smee: "It's creepy as fuck out there, bro."
Slightly: "You said fuck."
Smee: "You said shit."

Morrow: "You're on my ship."
Kirsh: "This ship, to be clear, is an object, not a location. It's a ball that got hit over the fence into the neighbor's yard. I'm the neighbor. So the ship belongs to me now."
Morrow: "You're Prodigy."
Kirsh: "I work for Prodigy."
Morrow: "I don't talk to errand boys."
Kirsh: "And which country are you king of, again?"

Slightly: "Can you believe we're on a spaceship?"
Smee: "Yeah, underground, which is a dumb ass place to put a spaceship if you ask me."

Nibs: "Why couldn't we keep our names? When they made us."
Curly: "I don't know. I think it's 'cause we're a secret. You know, like they're all code names."
Nibs: "But how come Peter Pan? Why didn't we get to choose?"
Curly: "I don't know, sweetie, I... think 'cause Lost Boys, you know, they don't grow up."

This was a bit of a strange one and not quite as solid as episodes one and two, yet still interesting and engaging with a proper build up of tension.

3 out of 4 Aliens in Trapped in Jars

Samantha M. Quinn spends most of her time in front of a computer typing away at one thing or another; when she has free time, she enjoys pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy-related.

• Alien: Earth season 1
• Alien: Earth home