Review: Alien: Earth, "The Fly" | Season 1, Episode 6

“Do you know how lucky we are they didn’t escape in the crash?”

We knew it was going to happen.

There was no way that the alien species brought back to Neverland were just going to remain experiments locked in their cages. Even before Morrow started threatening to kill Slightly’s family if he didn’t set a Xenomorph loose, Alien: Earth has been on an inevitable march to chaos. The whole thesis of this franchise is that there’s no way to control these creatures, and there’s no reason to believe this wouldn’t apply to the new species being introduced. It is foolish to think otherwise, and last week’s flashback to the Maginot was double confirmation of this reality.

And to be honest, once we started spending more time at Neverland, it also became clear that Morrow’s influence wasn’t going to be necessary for it to happen. As I noted last week, I think we’re meant to believe that even if the Maginot hadn’t been sabotaged, there was no way that containment was truly possible. The same is true at Neverland, where Isaac’s fate with The Flies—who had not yet been spotlighted—has nothing to do with Weyland-Yutani’s attempt to return their property, or even Hermit’s attempt to rescue Wendy from this fate. It was just a hybrid trying to prove his independence, a malfunction compromising their safety, and The Eye butting in at just the wrong time. It’s a dumb thing for Isaac to do, but the show knows it can get away with this because Isaac is a child. Of course he doesn’t think “I should ask Kirsh what to do” in that situation. He’s been given a task and he’s going to figure out how to do it, even if that means putting himself at risk, getting swarmed by the flies, and then ending up presumably very dead.

Isaac’s death is partially his own fault, sure, but it’s really about the failure of the people in charge. Kirsh was the most directly responsible here, and the way he continues to hide the truth about what’s happening with the hybrids is fascinating. It’s also frustrating, too, insofar as he hasn’t been forced to answer for it. He obviously sees them as an experiment, hence his willingness to allow Slightly’s conversations with Morrow to continue, and his choice to lie to Boy Kavalier that everything is fine even though he’s witnessed everything that happened in the lab following Isaac’s death (more on that in a moment). I was also wondering how it was that there weren’t staff members constantly monitoring the hybrids’ vitals to recognize any potential threat—are there so few employees at Prodigy that Arthur only finds out about it by happenstance while he’s trying to give Hermit the tools to help Wendy escape after being fired? Kirsh’s dispassionate supervision feels purposeful, but Prodigy’s lack of oversight seems nonsensical given the amount of financial investment involved, and given how clear it is that Atom Eins’ only priority is the pending launch of the hybrid program.