Two recipients of high-tech, experimental second chances, Smee and Slightly, are bro-ing out over a handful of xenomorph eggs when they encounter Morrow, security officer of the crashed spaceship, half of which is underground (a location Smee describes “a dumbass place to put a spaceship”). On top of being a fun sentence I get to write, it’s a scene that instantly articulated what’s so good about Noah Hawley’s entire series.
Firstly, this scene, and this episode, push Morrow to the front in a more determined way, with Babou Ceesay letting a little bit of the madness bubbling under the cyborg’s surface seep through. He’s a terrifying thing for the Lost Boys to encounter, but also, and this is the most important part of the scene, he’s pretty cool.
Imagine being a preteen in a superhuman body, hanging out on a crashed spaceship with your new best friend, when a dude with a knife in his arm comes at you, then leaves by leaping through a hole blown through the hull. How rad is that?!
The answer for anybody who’s not been a preteen is, that’s extremely rad. The fact that Hawley and crew go out of their way to make sure that fascination stays on screen in Alien: Earth is part of why this story really works. The pure, simple relationship between Smee and Slightly on display here, from calling each other out for cussing, to the “bro, check this out” dynamic while they high kick over the xenomorph eggs, is the beating heart of this show. It’s not the most important thing going on plot-wise, not by a long shot, but little details like this are the difference between an uninteresting story and a textured and intriguing tale.
So yes, the xenomorphs look as cool as the familiar sets. The filterless voices over their radio communications are also cool. There’s even a split diopter shot (where figures in the foreground and background of a shot are both in focus at the same time) that’s very cool, but the best parts of this show can be seen when Morrow meets Smee and Slightly.
This is also why I was relieved to get out of the Maginot. Wendy and her brother Hermit have another close call with the xenomorph in a fight they barely win, but this episode makes it clear that action stuff is not what we’re here for. It’s an utterly fine bit of action, but it’s nowhere near as interesting as the questions being raised by these kids starting to find themselves. Curly puts herself in a competition to be Boy Kavelier’s favorite, Nibs is clearly not handling her new life as a synthetic well and Tootles is overeager and determined to be a helpful scientist. And that’s what this episode, very pointedly titled "Metamorphosis," is about: moving their stories forward while setting their childishness against some truly harrowing moments lest we forget the Lost Boys were, until very recently, terminally ill children.
Meanwhile, the episode introduces a little new lore to the franchise, while explicitly stating more. The tadpole stage of the xenomorph lifecycle makes its first appearance on screen, giving us a look at the gestational step between facehugger and chestburster. It’s a cute little thing that is apparently not too picky about lungs actually being in a person, or just floating in a jar being pumped artificially. That it’s good with either is more evidence of just how sturdy and perfectly evolved for survival these creatures are.
Kirsh, in addition to being extra sassy in this episode, explicitly states that the eggs react to the presence of biological lifeforms. The franchise has gradually explained the perfect timing with which the eggs open around humans, from the blue light and fog of the original, to Alien: Romulus’ contribution, but ultimately, these things stay scarier when they don’t get explained. A space trucker should not understand how these things work, so I honestly kind of dread whenever a proper scientist gets hold of one. Keeping the xenomorph shrouded in at least some mystery is better for all of us, which, speaking for myself, is why I honestly don’t pay that much attention to the exposition.
I’m here for the metal.
Credit Roll Needle Drop Check In
“Metamorphasis” ends with a track that was very important to ten-year-old me; “Wherever I May Roam,” by Metallica. It’s certainly not the first song you think of from their iconic Black album from 1991 (at best it would be the fourth, but there’s no shame in that considering 1-3) but looking at the lyrics, it’s easily the song from their self-titled, multi-platinum album most likely to have been about a xenomorph all along.
There’s a shot during Kirsh’s dissection of the xenomorph egg from the facehugger’s POV, looking through the fluid at the synthetic scientists digging it out which I believe is a first for the franchise. Given that, the presence of a song meant to evoke that perspective makes sense.
Lyrically, “Wherever I May Roam” can easily be about a parasite. Like the tadpole stage of the xenomorph, Metallica’s song is about a lack of agency, of not being in control of one's destination.
And the road becomes my bride
I am stripped of all but pride
So in her I do confide
Gives me all I need
I like to imagine the burgeoning xenomorph having a gravelly, metal snarl like James Hetfield’s for an inner monologue, thinking “well here I go again” the whole time Kirsh is extricating the little guy.
The opening verse goes on to describe that perfect evolutionary specimen the xenomorphs are meant to be. A cold and hardened thing, boiled down to the essential and uncaring elements of “survive and reproduce.” There are no motives, as far as we know, beyond that.
And with dust in throat I crave
Only knowledge do I save
To this game I stay a slave
Rover, wanderer, nomad vagabond
Call me what you will
Weirdly, the most fitting lyrics to the titular alien (and the series as a whole) might have been edited out of the track. The second verse
And the earth becomes my throne
I adapt to the unknown
Under wandering stars I’ve grown
By myself but not alone
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