Up until this point, Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth has spent its run gradually turning into something increasingly, well… alien. While the series literally began with several direct visual parallels to Ridley Scott’s original 1979 film, Alien, introducing viewers to a cast of characters who felt incredibly similar to the crew of the Nostromo from that film, it has spent each subsequent episode digging deeper into its own idiosyncratic, unique eccentricities.
This is by no means to say the series has become less intertwined with the Alien franchise; in actuality, as it has gotten stranger and more distinct, Hawley and co. have also managed to tie it deeper into the very fabric of the franchise’s early history in fascinating ways.
However, with its upcoming episode, “In Space, No One…”, the Alien: Earth is primed to return viewers to what appears to be a much more familiar space for the Alien franchise.
While the first few episodes of the series introduced audiences to the crew of the Maginot and chronicled its crashing on Earth (the event which kick-started the story proper), the series largely skipped over what actually happened on board the vessel. This was especially notable given that the brief glimpse viewers did get of what happened showed Morrow (as played by Babou Ceesay), the sole survivor of the crash, engaging in some highly unusual activity as he sacrificed human crew members in the name of attempting to preserve the specimens.
Now, the new trailer for the fifth episode teases that it will act as a flashback episode, in which viewers return to the set of the Maginot and learn more about what happened there.
Not only does this mean more screentime with the characters and actors who were quickly introduced in the first episode, but it also promises to explore some of the series’ most interesting primary characters in a deeper fashion, through a different lens.
For example, as the season has progressed, Morrow has become a standout character, backed by superlative writing and Ceesay’s incredible performance. His motivations are deeply conflicted, but there is a sense of empathy one feels when watching him, and this episode promises to delve deeper into that.
Furthermore, there’s the role of the Xenomorph itself. When we saw the creature on board the ship previously, it was very much in a monstrous capacity. However, given that the prior episode ended with Wendy (as played by Sydney Chandler) communicating with an infant Xenomorph for the first time, audiences might see these events from a less traditional perspective than anticipated; one that is sympathetic to the plight of Xenomorph as a creature in its own right.
Considering that the series has set up both Morrow and the Xenomorph as uniquely windows into whatever happened onboard the ship and positioned Morrow as an unreliable narrator of sorts in his relationship with Slightly, there are any number of ways this episode could directly tie its past-tense events in with the present-tense momentum of the story.
Episode 5, “In Space, No One…" premieres Tuesday, Sept. 2 on FX and Hulu. Read our review of this week’s episode here.