With its seventh and penultimate episode, "Emergence," Alien: Earth chronicles the compounding consequences of its various conflicts and takes a beat to concretely establish and heighten the stakes moving into its finale.
It’s a great episode of television that furthers the arcs of the respective characters and the themes so thoroughly baked into the material itself, as well as delivering some phenomenally compelling setpieces that are deeply motivated by the inner workings of the story itself. On top of all of that, it features some great performances, some standout creature work, and is funny. Like, obscenely funny.
Noah Hawley’s Alien series’s greatest strength all throughout its run has been its willingness to take big swings on unconventional ideas. For instance, it doesn’t take a great deal of imaginative work at all to see how a concept like Wendy and the Lost Boys (androids who have had the consciousness of sick children put into their bodies… maybe, more on that in a minute) could have gone horribly awry in the wrong hands.
Yet, Hawley and his team have so openly embraced the story potential inherent in such a concept and utilized it in ways that are comedic, harrowing, and thought-provoking. One thing I have found consistently about the show is that, in steering into the skid and really fostering an environment in which the child characters are allowed to function as children, it makes the horror that much more effective. Similarly, it also takes what could be fairly conventional moments and turns them on their head in surprising ways.
For example, following the finale of last week’s stellar episode, in which Arthur (as played by David Rysdahl) became the victim of a facehugger thanks to the actions of Slightly (as played by Adarsh Gourav), the immediate question audiences were left with was what would Slightly do next?
What happens on Alien: Earth this week
“Emergence” provides us with an answer that is both incredibly funny and deeply sad, simultaneously. He attempts to hide Arthur’s comatose body under his bed and find a way to feed him nutrients, even with the facehugger still attached to him.
The events themselves are comical in an almost Coen Brothers-y fashion (fitting for a TV show from the mind behind a Fargo adaptation), but Gourav portrays Slightly’s plight with such empathy and pathos that it becomes this tragic turn of events; a child grasping at straws, attempting to undo something he knows will have dire repercussions.
It is at the nexus point of these two things that Alien: Earth has found a great deal of what has made it so special, overtly exploring the complicated intricacies that define a person as human, and exploring the grey areas within them. The script for “Emergence,” penned by Hawley and Maria Melnik, continues to explore these depths with aplomb.
As Slightly and Smee (as played by Jonathan Ajayi) attempt to get Arthur’s body to the rendezvous point and meet up with Morrow (as played by Babou Ceesay), Joe (as played by Alex Lawther) tries to get Wendy (as played by Sydney Chandler) and Nibs (as played by Lily Newmark) to a docked boat on the edge of the island to escpae.
Meanwhile, Kavalier (as played by Samuel Blenkin) and Kirsh (as played by Timothy Olyphant) grow increasingly fascinated by The Eye and more closely observe its unique abilities.
The way that the script interweaves each of these elements pairs exceedingly well with Dana Gonzales’ direction and Robin August’s use of the now trademark sustained dissolves. The slow burn, pressure-cooker approach that the series has employed ever since moving the action to the primary setting of Prodigy’s Neverland compound has reached a boiling point, and each of the characters’ true natures are revealed in frequently surprising ways.
For example, the idea that the multi-episode-long story of Slightly being coerced by Morrow to assist his and Yutani’s team in acquiring a new Xenomorph culminates not in some big showdown between Prodigy’s security and Yutani’s Marines, but rather with Kirsh effortlessly and hysterically diffusing the situation, is fantastic.
Similarly, the ways in which Wendy’s arc has evolved over the course of its curvature have been nothing but profoundly compelling. I cannot heap enough praise onto Chandler’s multi-faceted performance, which has only grown more layered and emotionally volatile as the season has gone on.
The idea to utilize the compound’s analysis of the creatures in tandem with the way they observe her and the hybrids themselves to drive Wendy away from humanity altogether is inspired, and one that Chandler, Hawley, and all of the directors have done a stellar job of setting up and selling with panache.
The scene early on in “Emergence,” where Joe implores Wendy to come with him alone, and she equates the rest of the Lost Boys to being just as much family to her as Joe is, telling him she won’t leave without them, is a great and quietly heartbreaking beat. It illustrates how much Wendy has changed across the course of the season, and Lawther’s performance is able to sell such understated sorrow at the quiet realization that Wendy might not be the sister he remembers anymore.
The ways in which this idea is further compounded and built upon as the two of them and Nibs head for the boat, stumbling across the gravesite of the actual sick children, is fantastic. It pulls at the very themes that the show is built around: what defines a human, and even if all of your quantifiable traits, beliefs, and memories are digitally uploaded into a synthetic body, is the result actually still you?
These are concepts and existential questions that the show has grappled with for the whole of its run, but they come home to roost here in the final stretch, with the finale of the episode providing an answer of sorts in a dynamically affecting fashion.
Additionally, as Wendy’s relationship with the creatures themselves only strengthens, audiences are treated to some of the series’s gnarliest Xenomorph-centric action yet. Immense praise must be paid not only to the practical and digital effects teams here, whose blending of work is so good that I genuinely struggle to see where one ends and the other begins much of the time, but also to Gonzales and cinematographers, Bella Gonzales and David Franco.
“Emergence” makes great use of the on-location Thailand shooting, resulting in a change of scenery for much of the episode that vividly fleshes out the island and the world of the story itself. But this means that for the first time in the Alien franchise’s history, we are seeing a Xenomorph spring into action in bright, glaring, direct sunlight amidst fauna and trees. And it looks stupendous.
I especially adore the choice to shoot so much of the Xenomorph’s breakneck fast actions from behind Wendy’s back, visually illustrating how the Xenomorph’s actions are a direct result of her own.
Grade: B+
Overall, “Emergence” is an incredibly strong episode that moves all of the key pieces of Alien: Earth into position for what promises to be a thought-provoking and wiz-bang finale. There still feels like a great deal of story to wrap up from here, so I am immensely curious to see exactly how and where Hawley and co. will be leaving audiences by the time the final credits roll.
The Alien: Earth finale releases on FX and Hulu next Tuesday, Sept. 23.
More Alien: Earth reviews:
- Episodes 1-2: “Neverland” and “Mr. October”
- Episode 3: “Metamorphosis”
- Episode 4: “Observation”
- Episode 5: “In Space, No One…”
- Episode 6: “The Fly”