The long-awaited streaming format debut of the Alien franchise has finally arrived, with FX’s new series, Alien: Earth, the first two episodes of which have premiered this week. With the commendable intention of fleshing out the Alien franchise even more, showrunner Noah Hawley has based the plot on a Weyland-Yutani space vessel crash landing on Earth to devastating effect, while a hybrid named Wendy yearns to reunite with her estranged brother on the planet. Alien: Earth episodes 1 and 2 satisfyingly maintain the entertaining and thrilling science fiction feel of the original films and show promise for a fantastic season ahead.
Spoiler Alert
How does the USCSS Maginot crash on Earth?
Set in 2120, two years before the events of the first film in the franchise, Alien: Earth begins aboard the USCSS Maginot, a space vessel owned and operated by the Weyland-Yutani corporation, as it travels at a distance of about 805 million miles away from Earth. The first few minutes of the premiere make the purpose of the Maginot and its crew quite evident, as chambers full of alien beings, seemingly both flora and fauna, are seen. The crew members cryofreeze themselves from time to time in order to live through the 65-year-long mission, the main objective of which is to travel to various planets and collect alien samples for further research. This is clearly in line with the ambitions of Weyland-Yutani, who have always been a little too eager in trying to capture alien species, study them, and then possibly use them as bioweapons. But the crew do not seem fazed or worried about the mission, and they are seen spending time with each other quite casually.
The head of security, Morrow, happens to be a cyborg, meaning that he is a human with cybernetic enhancements, and he is naturally not pleased when some of the human crewmates poke fun at his identity. While Morrow is intense enough to make it seem like he might be scheming to bash in the faces of these crewmates at the earliest, he is actually on a very different personal mission, the exact nature of which is kept a mystery from us. When the rest of the crew members are away resting or minding their own business, Morrow sneaks into the main terminal room of the spacecraft, and he surprisingly has direct access to Mother, the AI system that controls all the systems inside the vessel. Hijacking Mother, Morrow soon locks himself inside the room while letting all the aliens loose by opening the chambers they had been kept in.
As a result, the violent aliens, including a horrific Xenomorph, the most iconic creature in the Alien franchise, wreak havoc inside the spacecraft, killing each and every crew member in the most brutal manner, except for Morrow, obviously, who takes shelter in the impact room. Also, as a result of Morrow’s tinkering with the main terminal, the USCSS Maginot is now hurtling towards planet Earth, and its systems clearly state that a collision with Earth is now unavoidable. Morrow soon enters a pod and prepares for this crash landing, with the intention of staying alive and possibly setting out on some mission on the planet. He does survive, and is seen throughout episode 2 as he then tries to disrupt the search and rescue mission being conducted, and also tries to capture the rogue Xenomorph by himself.
For the most part, Morrow’s actions seem to have something to do with a secret mission that Weyland-Yutani has assigned to him, as the corporation’s dirty and desperate methods are too well documented throughout the Alien franchise. The power-hungry corporation always intentionally risks the lives of its human (and part-human) crew members only in order to get hold of alien specimens, particularly that of the Xenomorph. While Alien: Earth does take place before the events of most of the films, the nature of the Weyland-Yutani corporation can obviously be expected to stay the same. In this case, the intentional sabotage could be a part of a well-planned attack on Earth, and specifically the corporation’s rival company, in order to disrupt the latter’s operations.
The universe of Alien: Earth is revealed to have multiple powerful and rich corporations that have colonized various different planets and stars, with most of Earth belonging to a relatively new company named Prodigy. The owner of Prodigy is a young trillionaire called Boy Kavalier, and his obstinate and difficult-to-deal-with attitude is evident from the very get-go. Therefore, the CEO of Weyland-Yutani, a human introduced only as Wutani so far, could have planned this sabotage mission to intentionally ram the Maginot into Earth, and specifically into a Prodigy base. Perhaps Weyland-Yutani does not want to give Prodigy any chance to make technological advancements and feels threatened by the new company’s operations, especially because of the enormous wealth that Kavalier has accrued.
Much after the crash, Wutani contacts Kavalier and asks for his permission to send her troops in to retrieve the dead bodies, as well as the cargo of the spaceship. Kavalier refuses to let her in just yet, while ordering a thorough search of the ship so that he can get his hands on the cargo first. This naturally sets off a race between the two corporations, which will become even more pertinent in the episodes to come. But for now, the biggest challenge to the theory that Morrow acts on the orders of his corporate bosses is the fact that when chaos erupts aboard the Maginot, the top priority according to Mother is to secure the alien specimen.
However, Morrow jumps to protect himself from the aliens and also from the impact of the crash before setting out to capture and secure the specimen. Yet, later on in episode 2, when the crash has already occurred, Morrow does seek out the Xenomorph and tries to capture it, which probably suggests that he is working on someone else’s orders. Morrow is probably just stealing the alien specimen out of the hands of Weyland-Yutani with the intention of handing them over to some other party, either a corporation or some other faction. The fact that there are multiple Xenomorph eggs on the ship as well, which is revealed after the crash, also makes things more suspicious. We will have to wait and watch what Morrow does in the next episodes, but his cold and brutal nature is already quite enjoyable to watch.
What is the Neverland project?
The Alien: Earth premiere also significantly focuses on the events on Earth, making it evident that Prodigy and its eccentric CEO, Boy Kavalier, are going to play very crucial roles in the series. Prodigy is revealed to have been running a special project titled ‘Neverland,’ which involves the creation of the first hybrid human. As stated at the very beginning of the episode, human civilization now has three different kinds of part-human (if we may call them so) beings—cyborgs, who are biological humans but with technological modifications; synths, who are artificially intelligent robots that are capable of thinking and operating like humans; and a new third kind, called hybrids, who are basically synths with human consciousness stored, or ‘downloaded,’ into them. Prodigy has been researching creating hybrids for the first time, and they have a very specific plan with this invention.
Instead of downloading just any human consciousness onto synths, Prodigy has come up with the plan of helping children with terminal illnesses or severe physical disabilities to technically recover and live normal lives. Thus, an 11-year-old girl named Marcy Hermit is chosen to be the first experiment subject, as the girl suffers from terminal cancer and is about to pass away soon. The scientists at Project Neverland, led by Dame Sylvia and Kirsh (who is a synth himself), transfer the consciousness of Marcy onto the body of a synth woman, artificially modifying human characteristics such as hormones and emotions to basically turn the girl into an adult woman, as much as it is possible.
Before the transfer, Marcy chose her own adult name, Wendy, based on the character of Wendy Darling from her favorite Peter Pan cartoons, and after the experiment was deemed to be a grand success, Prodigy continued turning more ailing children into hybrids. Wendy chose each of their new names and obviously gave them identities based on characters from Peter Pan, and thus Project Nevermore (the name of the fictional land where Peter Pan takes place) is a huge success. The only shortcoming, so far, is the glaring fact that although the hybrids are all adults, they still act like kids, or teenagers at best, as their consciousnesses stopped growing naturally when they technically died as kids.
In the first two episodes, Boy Kavalier does state a reason behind him creating the hybrids, although his claim seems quite ingenuine. He says that his intrigue with regard to artificial intelligence made him develop an interest in synths, but conversing with synths was a terribly artificial experience that he did not enjoy at all. Therefore, Kavalier apparently wanted to have more natural and interesting, more human-like, conversations with those around him, and this was how he had come to the decision of creating hybrids. However, his true intentions will become clear only as the series progresses, as it is very likely that he will go on to weaponize the hybrids as well, just like any other corporation does to their inventions.
Why does Wendy want to participate in the rescue mission?
Despite being in a new body and having a new identity, Wendy, or rather Marcy, remains emotionally connected to her brother, Joe Hermit. When the experiments had begun on her, only Marcy’s father had known about them and had approved of them, while her elder brother, Joe, with whom she had always been extremely close throughout her childhood, had no clue of it. It was always Joe who kept young Marcy company as they watched cartoons, specifically Peter Pan and Ice Age, together. As Marcy was taken away, she was told to keep the whole matter a secret from her brother, for his own benefit, and the siblings became estranged.
Therefore, Marcy, or Wendy, still remains invested in knowing what her brother is up to and in keeping track of his life. It is revealed that the Prodigy authorities had made a special privilege for Wendy by allowing her to watch Joe from time to time through security cameras and surveillance devices. While the rest of the hybrids are not allowed to access anything or anyone from their past, this special privilege for Wendy is not appreciated by everyone in authority, as they feel that she is too engrossed in her brother’s life. In fact, on one occasion, Wendy remotely hacks into a robot terminal to somewhat communicate with Joe, which is seen as a sign of the possible danger in the situation by the critics. However, Kavalier clearly sees this as a fantastic discovery of the many possibilities of the hybrids, and so he continues to observe Wendy following her brother’s life.
Meanwhile, Joe had been told that his beloved sister had passed away, and the man kept navigating through his monotonous life grappling with severe grief and emotional pain. He has been working as a medic for Prodigy’s Security Force throughout his career, but now he has been looking for a much-needed change. Just a day before the Maginot crash, Joe tries to hand in his resignation in order to pursue further education on Mars, which his father has always wanted him to do. As Joe had secured a scholarship for this program, he wanted to leave his job and have a fresh start, but his application was denied. Just a day later, Joe is assigned to accompany the Prodigy team that enters the crash site to check for survivors and rescue them, all while trying to find out more about the Weyland-Yutani spaceship.
It is now, after learning that Joe has had to enter the crash site, that Wendy expresses an intense desire to join the search and rescue mission, as she just wants to reunite with her brother. Wendy convinces Kavalier that she and the other Neverland hybrids can execute the mission far better than any humans because of their synth abilities. Kavalier does not mind either, for this would be a great chance to test the abilities of the hybrids in a real-world scenario, and thus he approves the mission. Kirsh leads the team to the crash site, while Wendy remains focused on finding her brother.
Did Wendy reunite with Joe?
Before the arrival of Wendy, Joe has a number of run-ins with the Xenomorph, which satisfyingly sticks to shadows and sneaks up on its targets just like in the Alien films. When Wendy finds out that Joe is presently stuck in a dangerous situation, she takes Slightly, one of her hybrid friends, to find and help her brother. By the end of episode 2, Wendy is able to reunite with Joe, and she even reveals her real identity to him, much to his surprise and shock. Joe goes on to ask a number of personal questions from their childhood, just to make sure that Wendy indeed has the consciousness of his beloved younger sister. Once he is satisfied, the two embrace in a scene that is genuinely and unexpectedly heartwarming, considering that the series is a science fiction horror. But the happy times do not last very long, as the Xenomorph attacks once again after Joe, Wendy, and Slightly unintentionally disturb the membrane around its eggs on the crashed spaceship.
In Alien: Earth episode 2’s ending, the alien creature is seen lunging at Joe and disappearing with him through a hole it creates on the side of the ship, with Joe’s fate remaining unclear. Wendy immediately leaves to help her brother, leaving Slightly alone at the crash site. It is most likely that Joe will go missing now, which will drive Wendy into investigating the matter thoroughly and getting to the bottom of the mystery with regard to the crashed Maginot, the aliens aboard it, and the true intentions of Morrow.
