Alien: Earth Reveals Its First Major Character Deaths In Episode 6

Alien: Earth Episode 6 took viewers back into the present, after Episode 5’s pivotal flashback story arc about the USCSS Maginot’s doomed final moments and crash landing. Episode 6, “The Fly”, could fairly be labeled as a “chess piece” episode, with all the players getting arranged on the board for what will be the back half of the series, and its climax. And just to prove that the stakes are getting raised, some bodies had to drop.

WARNING: Alien Earth Episode 6 SPOILERS Follow!

Beware The Fly!

Episode 6 is called “The Fly” because it is the moment that the titular fly, the last species of the five monster specimens, finally makes its appearance – and it’s a lethal debut. While Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) is accompanying Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) to a meeting with Yutani (Sandra Yi Sencindiver), he tasks young hybrid Smee (Jonathan Ajaji) to feed and care for the specimens in his stead. Smee takes on the job all by himself in an effort to prove he’s maturing, only to learn too late that he’s not prepared for the monsters lurking in the universe.

We get our first big foreshadowing of impending doom hidden in plain sight: the “food” Smee is taking into the holding cell with the flies, and their nest is filled with metallic objects like spare parts, chunks of metal, and other materials. The Eye-octopus monster clocks that dietary preference as well; when Smee leaves the cage door ajar, the Eye uses the sheep’s body it’s piloting to ram the cage wall and cause the door to shut and lock with Smee still inside. The poor “Lost Boy” only gets a moment to process before one of the monstrous alien bugs flies out, lands on his arm, and proceeds to spit a metal-corroding substance out onto his face. Smee dies horribly in pain and confusion as his data core (read: brain) is liquified along with his face. We even get the added “bonus” of seeing the flies land on the corpse and begin to drink up the goo that used to be Smee.

Beware The Lost Boy

The second victim to go down in Episode 6 is Arthur Sylvia (David Rysdahl), one of Prodigy’s head scientists on the hybrid project and the husband of Dame Sylvia (Essie Davis). Arthur gets fired from Prodigy after questioning an order to mind-wipe Curly, in an effort to cure her psychotic break. On his way out, Arthur provides Hermit (Alex Lawther) with codes to escape from the Neverland facility with his sister Wendy (Sydney Chandler), while also disabling the trackers on all the “Lost Boys” hybrids. However, the tracker alert lets Arthur know that Smee is no longer functioning, and he goes to the quarantine lab to check on the hybrid boy’s last known location.

Unfortunately for Arthur, another Lost Boy, Slightly (Adarsh Gourav), has been coerced into being a double-agent by Weyland-Yutani’s cyborg officer, Morrow (Babou Ceesay). Slightly has been tasked with smuggling out a xenomorph inside a human host, and Arthur’s entering the lab provides the perfect opportunity. Slightly has reconciled with that man-sized decision as a panicked Arthur begs him to open the lab door before the facehugger gets him, and has to watch as the creature eventually seals the fate of the hybrids’ “father.”

Are These Two Characters Really Dead?

It would feel like something of a cop-out if one or both of these characters don’t stay as dead as they most certainly seem to be. That said, there are clear ways to steer both characters towards a miraculous save:

• Since Smee is a hybrid, it’s currently unclear whether or not his “consciousness” has backups. We’ve seen Prodigy scientists adjust everything from hybrids’ hearing functions to being able to wipe entire sections of their memories like cleaning a hard drive. While Boy Kavalier may be mad about the cost of replacing the body, Smee’s mind could arguably get re-uploaded to a new one, basically “resurrecting” him.
• Arthur is down and out with a xenomorph embryo in his guts; however, we’ve seen human characters with surgery tech resources escape a xenomorph birth before (Elizabeth Shaw in Prometheus). Dame Sylvia and Prodigy could arguably beat the clock and get the embryo out of Arthur – granted that Slightly doesn’t avoid detection for too long. We could also see something as radical as Wendy using her new xenomorph speaking abilities to coach the embryo out of Arthur’s body without killing. That would be absolutely wild to see onscreen. Body-horror to the max.

Alien: Earth is streaming on FX-Hulu.

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