I listened to the
Oxventure Academy's Alien Evolved RPG one shot recently, and after the game, one of the podcast hosts mentioned how hard it was, in 2025, for players to act like they didn't know a full xenomorph life cycle and what getting a facehugger attached to your face means.
In contrast, poor Slightly and Smee on the beach have no idea what's coming when poor Arthur collapses. They may have even genuinely believed that he was going to survive having the "monster" removed from his body by Morrow. The show did a good job of making the last stages of being attacked by a facehugger suspenseful and frightening again, even if the audience knew that Arthur's body "vanished" because he woke up and wandered away.
Arthur having sympathy for the boys trying to lie to him and telling them they should go back to the lab and it would all work out really underlined the tragedy of the whole situation. He and Dame might not be entirely blameless in this affair, but they have the cleanest hands of anyone we've met who works for Prodigy. I assume it that he and his wife were responsible, in some fashion, for the children's graves that we saw.
Wendy and Nibs, of course, have very different reactions to coming to grips with being post-human personalities. Nibs was already pretty cavalier (ha!) about human life. Once she wakes up from being tased, she's going to be as dangerous as anything else on the island.
Kirsh, in contrast, is up to his elbows in metaphorical blood and clearly is up to something. But, as people have noted above, it's hard to tell what it is at this point. He could be working for another megacorp -- there are three others we haven't heard from yet in this series -- but I still feel he's being driven by his clear contempt for humans. I suspect he and Morrow will kill each other off in the season finale, but I'd love it if one or both of of them survived, along with Eyeleen, to terrorize Earth another day.
Eyeleen, of course, is clearly the big villain for the next season, which is great news. I'm guessing Boy Kavalier is going to have her jump into whoever's the big star they want to introduce for season two of the series, although hopefully they'll kill BK and Atom (answering the question of whether he's another synth or just really servile) before this season wraps up.
I shouldn't have been surprised that Morrow came in force and with more than one objective on the island, although his lack of knowledge about the xenomorph timelines means Arthur dies for nothing and helps reinforce why WY is still trying to learn more about the xenomorphs for several movies to come, even though they start this series with a bunch of eggs. At some point, it might be nice to know how they stumbled on them, and the rest of their menagerie, but maybe not -- that way lies Star Wars and detailing every centimeter and every second in time with continuity filler.
Speaking of the xenomorph, I have been leery of Wendy being able to talk to them, especially to control them. So I'm heartened a bit by Wendy saying she "thinks" she knows what they're saying, but isn't sure. I am hoping this relationship turns out to be like the ones where people have "pet" chimpanzees, tigers or lions that eventually maul or kill family members. A juvenile xenomorph in the lab should be a very different one out in the wild, surrounded by prey. I still think Wendy is likely to walk away from this season more or less intact, but I expect -- and hope -- that her illusions about the xenomorph don't survive the season finale.
(Related: "Hermit" is a last name?
It exists in the real world, but it's pretty uncommon. This kind of thing distracts me.)
So, predictions for next week: Rocks fall, everybody dies, except for Eyeleen and Wendy, and then we end on a killer '90s rock tune.
