“In Space, No One…” Returns ‘Alien: Earth’ To The Cinema

After a couple of episodes that looked and felt like typical TV episodes in the way they advanced multiple character and plot arcs in finite chunks, the fifth episode of Alien: Earth brings a cinematic feel back to the series.

“In Space, No One…” expands on the glimpses of the Maginot‘s ill-fated journey seen in the first episode to essentially contribute a one-hour entry into the Alien cinematic franchise in the guise of a TV episode. The end result is compelling, crafting a decent number of memorable (mostly) one-off characters while offering more context and nuance to series regular Morrow (Babou Ceesay), while also looking gorgeous, with the expected visual flourishes from Noah Hawley, back in the director’s chair. At the same time, the episode raises some questions — why tell this story (the broad strokes of which are already established) and why tell it now (as the fifth episode of this eight episode season)? The (potential) answers to those questions offer up some intriguing possibilities for the series.

Picking up shortly after the establishing scenes aboard the Maginot from “Neverland” (before the brief flashforwards showing everything going to hell), Morrow is awoken from cryo-sleep after the death of the ship’s captain and the xenomorph facehugging of its science officer. “In Space, No One” unfolds more or less as a whodunit, as Morrow and acting captain Zaverni (Richa Moorjani) race to identify the saboteur who attacked the crew and turned the ship into a missile.

The backdrop to all of this is, of course, more alien-fueled, body-horror suspense, as we watch the alien beings we’ve come to know from the previous episodes set themselves up for maximum havoc. In a twist, much of the suspense comes not from NOT knowing what is going to happen, but what will. We know putting the face-hugger in cryo-sleep won’t help, because we’ve seen a full-grown xenomorph in action. We know the eyeball alien aka Mister Octo is going to escape, because we’ve seen it detach from a cat to attack Nibs (Lily Newmark). So the tension shifts from “what is going to happen” to “when and how is it going to happen,” putting a twist on the familiar setup.

But as entertaining as “In Earth, No One…” is in storytelling terms, it begs the question of why Hawley and company decided to tell this story at this point in the season. The answer likely lies in a couple key happenings. For one, this episode does a lot to humanize Morrow. We learn more about his relationship with his daughter (including the fact that she didn’t just die of old age while he was on his 65 year mission, but that she died tragically young early in his mission) and more about why he is so loyal to Yutani the person, if not the corporate entity, when everyone else is just in it for the shares (he was taken in by the elder Yutani as a boy, who presumably gave him his cybernetic arm in place of his palsied one). This is important context for the character, especially after the previous episode did a lot to paint him as a villainous character via his grooming of Slightly (Ardash Gourev). Even if Morrow remains a villain in the story, he’s vastly more interesting as a nuanced and sympathetic one.

The other key development in this flashback is the reveal that Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenken) didn’t just benefit from the Maginot crash by accident, but by design, working directly with Petrovich (Enzo Cilenti) to facilitate its crash into Prodigy territory. This completely recontextualizes a lot of Boy’s actions thus far, turning his prioritization of the alien research into less of a “boy geniuses sure are flighty in their focus” eccentricity into a calculated action. Even his desire to send the hybrids into the Maginot reads less like a “oh, what the hell?” sop to Wendy’s desire to save her brother and more a case of Boy making the informed decision to risk one important resource in the acquisition of another, the culmination of an actual strategy.

One final piece from this episode that, potentially, could be the most fascinating development is its framing of Mister Octo. When Chibuzo (Karen Aldridge), aka the worst scientist in the galaxy, is eating her lunch on a table full of deadly aliens and the blood slug skitters out to deposit a school of it’s young into her water bottle, Mister Octo reacts to get her attention. We already know from the previous episode that its incredibly smart; was it trying to distract Chibuzo, in the interest of fostering general mayhem that will trickle down to its benefit, or was it trying to warn her? Given the way it later takes a human host and then uses that host to leap onto the back of the xenomorph and try to rip out its throat with his teeth, I’m leaning the latter. Is Mister Octo the secret hero of this series — or at least some kind of opposing force more interested in shutting down xenomorphs than general predation? I’m fascinated by the potential in that question.

Whether the threads “In Space, No One…” either furthers or teases ultimately pay off will say a lot about how effective this episode is in the long run of the series, whether circling back to spend 1/8th of the season presenting additional context to a story already told in brief is a good use of its time. Until then, it simply stands as a deliciously fun bit of visual storytelling with some intriguing teases of narrative possibilities. It’s another example of the show and its creators’ fidelity to the look, feel and themes of the larger franchise and their ability to tell compelling “space horror” stories. For now, that’s enough to call it a success.

Stray Thoughts

• There’s also an argument to be made that this episode comes when it does/exists at all simply as a way to inject some action into the season with aliens more or less subdued on Earth for a couple episodes now.
• We’re just never gonna find out what Teng (Andy Yu)’s deal is, aside from “creepy sex criminal synth”, are we?
• In less obvious “make the setting seem like its the future of the 1970s” material, Petrovich is styled an awful lot like Donald Sutherland in 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
• While Noah Hawley has said he doesn’t feel terribly indebted to the backstory of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Chibuzo’s eating habits call to mind Prometheus‘ similarly idiotic scientists and the franchise’s apparent belief in the difference between “book smarts” and “street smarts.”
• Morrow’s backstory also invites some interesting parallels between him and the Lost Boys, both having had a physical ailment overcome for them by corporate CEO via the cutting edge technology of the time.
• It’s more unclear than ever why Morrow didn’t know about Prodigy back in episode 3 now that we’ve seen him watch a call with the CEO of Prodigy.
• Whether or not you first read of Mister Octo’s actions in the lab towards Chibuzo were a distraction or a warning seems like a personality test similar to whether you think BB-8 is flicking off Finn in The Force Awakens or giving him a thumbs up.