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Alien: Earth<\/a><\/p>\n Emergence<\/p>\n \n Season 1<\/p>\n Episode 7\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 4 stars<\/p>\n ****\n <\/p>\n \n Chaos reigns over Neverland as Wendy tries to leave the island, but it doesn\u2019t bother Kirsh and Boy Kavalier all that much. Noah Hawley set some big challenges for himself when he signed on to run Alien: Earth. To begin with, it takes nerve, bordering on arrogance, even to try putting any personal stamp on a franchise as well known as Alien. Then Hawley\u2019s decision to introduce \u201chybrids\u201d with synthetic bodies and human minds \u2014 and to make the human component of those androids children \u2014 amped up the difficulty level. It\u2019s hard to write dialogue for kids, even when they\u2019re part robot.<\/p>\n \u201cEmergence,\u201d the penultimate episode of Alien: Earth\u2019s first season, is hybrid-heavy, mostly for the better, though occasionally for the worse. It\u2019s a short episode, primarily concerned with setting the stage for next week\u2019s finale. Much of its entertainment value comes from how well the characters set up the rest of this season\u2019s story. Hawley and his credited co-writer, Maria Melnik, mainly spread that task among four of the hybrids, following the darkly comic misadventures of Slightly and Smee and the slick superhero thrills of Wendy and Nibs.<\/p>\n As I mentioned in last week\u2019s recap<\/a>, Slightly and Smee are the hybrids whose childlike nature can, at times, feel forced and even a little grating. I don\u2019t blame this on Adarsh Gourav (as Slightly) or Jonathan Ajayi (as Smee). They both bring a lot of commitment to the scenes where they have to titter at using swears or geek out over monsters, like refugees from some Goonies-esque \u201980s kids movie. They have a few such moments in this week\u2019s episode, ones that would be tough for any actor to sell. Like when Slightly has to explain what happened in the lab and he stumbles over his pronunciation, muttering that there was some kind of \u201ccont-animation.\u201d<\/p>\n On the other hand, there\u2019s a real sweetness and sadness to the way Gourav plays Slightly\u2019s mounting understanding that the grown-ups don\u2019t really respect him. At the start of the episode, Slightly\u2019s doing his best to keep Arthur Sylvia alive \u2014 including comically trying to slip some sustenance into his mouth by sliding a straw under a face-hugging Xenomorph \u2014 because he still believes what Morrow told him: The alien\u2019s host will have a pretty bad day before the monster suddenly goes away. But when Smee shows up in Slightly\u2019s room and immediately spots the comatose Arthur sloppily hidden under Slightly\u2019s bed, suddenly, everything \u201cthe man in my head\u201d has been saying seems ridiculous.<\/p>\n The situation turns worse after the face-hugger abruptly detaches. Though Arthur seems relatively normal at first, he does question what the Lost Boys are doing, recognizing immediately that they\u2019re not telling him the full truth about what just happened. (\u201cChildren have to learn how to lie,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd you two are still learning.\u201d) Just when Arthur\u2019s reassuring Slightly and Smee that nothing they\u2019ve done so far is irreversible and that he can help them get out of whatever fix they\u2019re in, he doubles over in pain. Inevitably, a baby Xenomorph bursts out of his chest. Smee\u2019s traumatized both by Arthur\u2019s sudden death and Slightly\u2019s dishonesty.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the two trek on to the beach, corpse in tow. Morrow then arrives, leading a platoon of soldiers in an amphibious landing on Neverland Island. A distraught Slightly cries, \u201cYou didn\u2019t tell me there was gonna be another monster!\u201d Morrow\u2019s troops then unceremoniously dump Arthur\u2019s body into the water and march on to look for at least one of the island\u2019s Xenomorphs. The deal Slightly made with Morrow, to save his family? I don\u2019t think Morrow ever intended to honor any part of it.<\/p>\n While all this is going on, back at the central Prodigy facility, Kirsh and Boy Kavalier are still cleaning up the mess left behind by the alien specimens that attacked Isaac and implanted in Arthur. I\u2019ve noted before how unnerving it\u2019s been to see Kirsh\u2019s muted reaction to all the alien mayhem. (It\u2019s as though he\u2019s quietly calculating whether or not it\u2019s worth trying to lend the humans any aid.) But Kavalier\u2019s response to the chaos is telling as well. He\u2019s initially glib about Isaac\u2019s role in the lab disaster \u2014 joking, \u201cI\u2019ll send him to bed without any supper\u201d \u2014 until he hears that his $6 billion dollar is so damaged that he can\u2019t even \u201creboot and restore\u201d him. Kavalier sees Isaac\u2019s loss as a debit on a balance sheet. (It\u2019s also telling that he refuses to call this Lost Boy anything but \u201cTootles.\u201d)<\/p>\n Wendy is so appalled by this that she uses her Xenomorph language skills to make one of the creatures her attack dog. After balking at the news about Isaac \u2014 \u201cBut we\u2019re premium!\u201d Wendy insists, parroting Prodigy\u2019s own promises \u2014 she escapes the facility with her brother, Joe Hermit, and Nibs, who is the only hybrid she can get to come with her.<\/p>\n The Wendy-Nibs-Hermit scenes are some of the episode\u2019s most exciting and emotionally affecting. There\u2019s an especially unsettling moment where the escaping party finds the graves for all of the sick children whose minds went into the hybrids. When Wendy defiantly argues, \u201cWe\u2019re still here,\u201d Nibs absently replies, \u201cI don\u2019t think I am anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n As they make their way to a boat that could get them off the island, shadowed by the Xenomorph, the trio has to fight their way past multiple waves of soldiers (Weyland-Yutani\u2019s and Prodigy\u2019s), who are all insufficiently respectful of the hybrids\u2019 autonomy. Nibs, in particular, does not take this well, and goes into \u201cstone-cold killer\u201d mode, prompted in part by some dumb grunt tossing away her stuffed ostrich, \u201cMr. Strawberry.\u201d<\/p>\n Wendy, aided by her ferocious alien pal, follows suit, as Hermit watches with mounting horror. As is the case throughout \u201cEmergence,\u201d the violent action is both thrilling to watch and amusingly grotesque, with a level of gore that could be described as \u201cexcessive\u201d if this weren\u2019t the goo-friendly<\/a> Alien franchise. The final fracas leads the episode to a cliffhanger, as Hermit shoots a stun gun at Nibs, leaving Wendy surrounded by armed troops, screaming at her brother, \u201cWhat did you do?!\u201d<\/p>\n But let\u2019s end this week with the pointedly named Boy Kavalier. In our own (real) world, it was Hawley\u2019s idea to make half of his cast be children in synthetic adult bodies. In the Alien world, this was all Kavalier\u2019s idea \u2014 and it\u2019s worth unpacking why he made this choice. Was it really just because young minds are more malleable? Or is there some element of smug vanity here, as our self-styled \u201cboy genius\u201d mocks his older tech-lord peers by building an army of preadolescent Lost Boys?<\/p>\n One thing we know for sure: the hyperintelligent Kavalier is fascinated by the very idea of intelligence, be it artificial or organic. In this episode, after Kirsch points out that the eyeball\/sheep-thing intentionally startled and trapped Isaac \u2014 and not for its own benefit, but to assist another alien \u2014 Kavalier decides to have a conversation with the beast, starting by asking it to recite the digits of pi. The eyeball makes its sheep host stamp out two of pi\u2019s digits. Then it shits.<\/p>\n This excites Kavalier, who wonders what would happen if they coerced the eyeball into inhabiting someone who talks \u2026 and who, um, uses the toilet. \u201cSomeone with a low IQ, so we can see the difference,\u201d he suggests. He claims to know just who to use.<\/p>\n
\n Photo: Patrick Brown\/FX\n <\/p>\n