True to its name, “Metamorphosis” is a transformational episode that sends Alien: Earth into thrilling new directions. All it had to do was rip out the show’s emotional spine. After two episodes focusing on Wendy’s trip to Neverland, Hawley and co-writer Bob DeLaurentis make room for the rest of the Lost Boys, who are quick enough to recognize that they’re half girls. Something isn’t sitting right with them, and the episode spends its time dissecting the cast and revealing hidden ambitions and motivations. It’s a case study in the contrasts between the wills of corporate overlords and the well-intentioned scientists and synthetics who make their dreams a reality. Even the androids seem at odds with their creators. It’s a classic Alien setup, where a rescue mission transforms, at the whim of an exploitative corporate entity, into an alien-extraction mission. Sadly, none of them (not the Lost Boys, not Boy Kavalier, not even Kirsh) understand how truly screwed they are.
Like its first two installments, “Metamorphosis” is split into two parts. The first half finishes off the show’s time on the Maginot—at least for the time being. Picking up where we left off, Wendy finds her brother being used as bait in a meat locker. The setup gives director Dana Gonzales a good opportunity to reestablish the Xenomorph’s strength and prowess in comparison with Wendy’s. Gonzales doesn’t telegraph the Xenomorph’s movements as loudly this time, allowing its tail to whip into the frame and stab Hermit for a shocking twist on the show’s central dynamic. Grabbing the alien by its little mouth with a shepherd’s crook, Wendy pulls the beast into a nearby room, with Gonzales using the closing of a large metal door for suspense. When Hermit reopens the door, he finds the decapitated Xenomorph and Wendy collapsing in a pool of brain milk.
Giving Wendy and Hermit a chance to breathe and quietly quote Ice Age in the hospital was a smart move for the show. Not only did it deliver an exceptional opening sequence, but it also gave the audience a chance to get to know some of the other Lost Boys. First, we get some time with Nibs (Lily Newmark), who’s traumatized by her encounter with the eyeball squid monster and is having second thoughts about her decision to go to Neverland. Nibs also wants to know why the show is so obsessed with Peter Pan and relies on Curly to fill in the audience on the abundance of on-the-nose references. But it also speaks to Silicon Valley’s obsession with naming products after pop-culture artifacts despite missing the overall point of them.
Nibs is growing disillusioned with the entire process and starting to realize that she’s more property than person now. How else could they explain stripping the kids of their names? But her regrets were planted in the first episode when she was a sick little girl asking Wendy, “When do we get to go home?” Forever might not seem like a long time to a child, and the immortality that they live with is something that resonates with Morrow later in the episode. But it’s not something that bothers Curly (Erana James), whose ambition allows her to shrug off Nibs’ issues and focus on the opportunity the hybrid lifestyle affords her. Nibs is right to ask these questions, though, and if she needs a reason, she should look no further than Morrow.
I found some of the humor in the last episode to be a bit off, but the childlike performances work much better when there’s actual danger. Slightly and Smee’s excitement and FOMO play well against Morrow’s pained and sweaty exhaustion—not to mention the show’s beautiful expansion of Alien technology. As Morrow performs a data transfer with a really cool light-up sci-stethoscope, Alien: Earth‘s production snaps, crackles, and pops in all the right ways that would give an ASMR enthusiast convulsions.
Morrow is quickly becoming Earth‘s most compelling character. Stumbling upon Slightly and Smee (Jonathan Ajayi) playing who can get closest to the egg without touching it, Morrow reveals crucial information about his past and intentions. Hinting at some resentment toward his humanity, Morrow has the worst parts of a man—namely, the memory of his daughter. Morrow has been off-world for approximately 65 years and no longer has any ties to the human race. His life’s work is the extraction and delivery of those alien creatures, and he’s going to use his little contact lens to get inside Slightly’s mind to do it.
After a funereal “Maggot Brain” needle drop, the show returns to Prodigy City, where Kirsh can examine the aliens and Boy Kavalier can get his claws back in the Lost Boys. For all that Alien: Earth plays on the series archetypes, I’m relieved that the corporate dickwad remains a cornerstone. The Lego-playing Boy Kavalier is as insufferable as his name, and his conversations with Arthur and Curly reveal how little he cares about the people he’s endangering. As Arthur and Dame Sylvia note, this guy can’t even focus on the cure for death that he’s just discovered before switching tracks to the unstoppable killing machines he’s examining in his lab. He’s also willing to manipulate his children, like Curly. She’s in the race with Wendy to be his favorite, which, paired with her ambition to supplant him eventually, definitely won’t have positive outcomes.
“Metamorphosis” slows down in the back half as the characters begin to make sense of their circumstances. Morrow makes two phone calls. The first is to Yutani, where we get a clearer picture of his intentions and relationship to the alien. The company may never love him, but that won’t stop him from making the retrieval of the Xenomorph his life’s work. The other is to Slightly, where he begins the slow process of making the child-brained hybrid his friend. The way the show explores the multiple entities within a single body is already paying off dividends. To that end, we also learn that the hybrids contain retinal cameras through which the company can monitor their every move. We assume Prodigy can’t hear Slightly’s conversation with Morrow—but who knows. Morrow could be of value to them, too.
Nibs is also waking up to the control Prodigy has over her, noticing the strange rectangular shape in her eye. Is this the camera? She walks around the unfamiliar campus, unsure what to make of her current circumstances. This feeling bleeds over into Wendy, who finally wakes up for the last scene with a hangover. Cross-cut with Kirsh’s Facehugger dissection and Hermit’s lung removal, Wendy staggers around the halls with a migraine. She’s experiencing these surgeries vicariously and collapses from the pain. When Kirsh pulls out the tadpole inside the Facehugger, she collapses, hinting at a vicarious relationship with the Xenomorph. Was that put there by Prodigy, or did the Xenomorph imprint on her in some way? Either way, the tadpole has a new home in Hermit’s lung. For his sake, let’s hope that’s not going back in him.
Stray observations
- • The decapitated Xenomorph looked so cool. Toy designers are going to have a field day with that one. Who knew that head was filled with neon green goo?
- • Unsurprisingly, Timothy Olyphant is an early MVP on the show. “Look with your eyes.”
- • To that end, the way Slightly and Smee jump behind him for protection from Morrow was hilarious.
- • The heavy-metal soundtrack gives the show an interesting energy. I was skeptical of the use of 20th-century pop culture, but this is starting to work for me.
- • “They’re geniuses because they’re children.” It sounds like Boy Kavalier has been watching Baby Geniuses.
- • There was something very touching about Smee comforting Slightly.
- • In a recent interview, Noah Hawley mentioned his disregard for the Prometheus mythology, namely the idea that the Xenomorph is “a bioweapon created a half hour ago” and not “the product of millions of years of evolution.” The tadpole erases the black ooze that created the aliens in Ridley Scott’s prequel. I love the ooze, but what fascinates me most is that the tadpole is the center of this parasite. It’s like a little driver entering different cars.
