I’ll Say It – Alien: Earth’s New Episode Is Better Than Most Alien Movies

Alien: Earth has sparked a major debate within the Alien fandom, as showrunner Noah Hawley takes increasingly big swings with the franchise lore. Episode 5 is quickly becoming the most divisive of the series (so far), as fans either love or hate Hawley’s self-contained ode to Ridley Scott’s original Alien (1979) film, by finally revealing the backstory of the USCSS Maginot‘s doomed final stretch back to Earth, and what all happened make the ship crash, allowing some of the most dangerous alien species in the galaxy to amok.

I think that what Noah Hawley has done with Alien: Earth is an admirable example of taking longstanding franchise lore and finding new corners to expand upon. And, when it comes to incorporating those expanded elements into the framework of an Alien film, Episode 5 of Alien: Earth proves this franchise still has a lot of potential for horrific novelty.

Alien: Earth Episode 5 Explained (Spoilers)

(SPOILERS) The story of “In Space, No One…” picks up after the brief introductory scenes we got on the Maginot during Alien: Earth‘s premiere episode. The crew has largely gone back into cryosleep for the final leg of their journey back to Earth; security officer Morrow (Babou Ceesay) is woken up to investigate a tragic incident: Captain Dinsdale (Tanapol Chuksrida) and science officer Bronski (Max Rinehart) were attacked by facehuggers, responding to what is revealed to be an act of sabotage by one of the crew. The captain is killed when trying to remove the facehugger; the ship’s navigation is sabotaged, leaving it a “missile” hurtling toward Earth. Worse yet, the facehuggers were set loose on purpose, and Morrow and the science/medical team all know there’s a ticking clock until xenomorph drones start hatching.

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Things soon go from bad to worse. Other creatures exploit the chaos and disruption to their advantage: One of the blood-sucking bugs known as “ticks” manages to infect the water bottle of science officer Chibuzo (Karen Aldridge) with a school of larvae, which end up in the belly of young ship’s engineer Malachite (Jamie Bisping). An attempt to extract the bugs leaves Malachite, Chibuzo, and medical officer Rahim (Amir Boutrous) all dead, after being exposed to a tick’s poisonous spray.

Morrow discovers (too late) that the crew member Petrovich (Enzo Cilenti) is the saboteur. In the ensuing chaos, the xenomorph drone gets fully grown and starts slaughtering the crew. At the same time, the Eyeball monster kills and implants itself in senior officer Shmuel (Michael Smiley), and tries to finish the job. Morrow callously leaves his crewmates to die and seals himself in the ship’s “impact room,” bringing the story around to the beginning of the series, and Maginot‘s crash landing in the Prodigy city of New Siam.

Why Alien: Earth Episode 5 Is As Good As One of the Movies

Right off the bat, the title of Alien: Earth Episode 5, “In Space, No One…” is a direct quote of the tagline for Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), which is “In space, no one can hear you scream.” That sets the stage for an ode to Alien that adds the remixed story elements Hawley has introduced during Alien: Earth. There are more dangerous creatures that steal the spotlight from the xenomorphs, such as the “ticks” or the cunning eyeball monster, and the “protagonist” of our story, Morrow, a cyborg who blurs the line between humanity and machine.

And yet, Hawley demonstrates a deep understanding of the core mechanics required of an Alien movie: the body horror, the creature horror, corporate greed and espionage, the question of “humanity” in the context of inhuman monsters, machine beings, and human-on-human cruelty, and claustrophobic atmospheric horror that pervades everything. Some fans have complained about the xenomorph creature design and effects for “In Space, No One…”; that’s a somewhat disingenuous argument, as Hawley arguably taps into what could be viewed as the same reverent nostalgia director Fede Álvarez did with Alien: Romulus. Does an actor in a xenomorph suit look a bit silly? Sure. But it also looks like classic Alien. And I’m good with that, because on the whole Alien: Earth Episode 5 was so enjoyable precisely because it’s the nostalgia fan-service for those who love the original film than we’ve seen anywhere else in the franchise. And any hour (plus) of horror-TV this good is something to celebrate, in hopes that more like it will come.

Alien: Earth is streaming on FX-Hulu.