TITLE: Alien: Earth
EPISODES: “In Space, No One…”
DIRECTOR: Noah Hawley
NETWORK: FX & Hulu ($9.99 (USD) per month)
RELEASE DATE: September 2, 2025

The following review contains SPOILERS for episode 5. If you wish to see our spoiler review of episode 4, click here. If you haven’t watched Alien: Earth yet, we encourage you to bookmark this review and return after viewing.

Episode Synopsis:

If you wish to skip the detailed recap of “In Space, No One…” continue reading at the section marked “Analysis”.

The episode begins seventeen days before the USCSS Maginot’s arrival on earth. Morrow is brought out of Cryo and informed that some of the specimens escaped. Morrow is briefed while two bodies lie in the medical bay. Both bodies have Facehuggers attached. The captain is dead after Dr. Rashid tried to cut away the Facehugger. The crew elect to put the alive body back into a Cryo pod. Engineer Shmuel says that the two bodies should be shot out into space, and notes that a fire fried their navigation panel and that the engines have been damaged.

Morrow is solely mission-focused and calls out the acting captain Zaveri for being distracted with intimate relationships. Morrow threatens to take control, telling Zaveri to call a state of emergency. Morrow then watches security footage for evidence of sabotage in the containment room. Footage shows the fire breaking out and the two responders getting face-hugged. Rewinding a bit, Morrow sees someone messing with the panel that caught fire and opening the Facehugger egg containers, but Morrow doesn’t recognize them.

Morrow meets with Shmuel and the young engineer Malachite. Morrow informs them that someone is getting around the ship without using hallways. Morrow then chats with the young security officer, Clem, while preparing some weaponry. Acting captain Zaveri goes and talks to Mother to confirm a change of command and log the situation.

Morrow reads letters from his daughter and recalls his time with her on earth. We learn she died in a house fire when she was nineteen, and Morrow was still fifty-three years from home—only eight years into his mission. Morrow nods off and falls asleep. Suddenly there’s a sudden explosion that jolts him awake. Teng, Zaveri, Shmuel and Morrow meet on the bridge. Zaveri says they need to wake up the crew and an alarm sounds that there was a quarantine Cryo-Pod breach. Morrow showcases his electric stun pistol reminding Zaveri, “capture, don’t kill”.

We watch Dr. Chibuzo conducting a test. The Space Ticks eat and engorge on a dead rat. The Eyeball Octopus (T. Ocellus) taps on its container, distracting Chibuzo and one of the Ticks sneaks out. Chibuzo resumes eating and spills her water bottle. The escaped Tick sprays tadpole-like babies in the water bottle and crawls into Chibuzo’s sandwich. We see that the T. Ocellus wasn’t secured properly as Chibuzo has to rush off. The crew has a team meeting in the mess hall. Zaveri puts the ship on high alert, but chooses not to wake up more of the crew. While talking and eating Malachite starts choking and gulps down some of Chibuzo’s water. Everyone breaks off into pairs, and Morrow asks for activity logs.

Morrow interviews Rahim in a tense exchange, making sure the doctor is still sober. Shmuel continues working on the busted navigation controls. Malachite vomits blood and collapses in the middle of assisting Shmuel with repairs. Chibuzo and Zaveri go to the lab and see that the T. Ocellus is loose. They get called back to the med bay and lock the room behind them. Morrow now interviews Teng. Teng reveals that someone else is awake and is faking their cryo-pod status. Morrow checks cameras and the files that were lost in the fire. One of the files is Petrovich on a video call with Boy Kavalier. Boy Kavalier admits his plan to have the ship sabotaged and crash-landed in Prodigy territory. Morrow locks and loads.

Morrow makes his way to the Cryo bay looking for Petrovich and finds his pod empty. Something looks on from behind a window. Rahim and Chibuzo are instructed by Zaveri to do surgery to open Malachite up to stop his blood loss. The Xenonomorph reveals itself in the vent above Teng. Teng is killed quickly. Rahim removes a Space Tick from Malachite’s gastro-intestinal tract. The Tick excretes a gas that starts suffocating everyone in the room. Chibuzo, Malachite, and Rahim all die instantly and the baby Ticks start moving out looking for more prey.

Morrow takes Clem to find Petrovich. They find just outside of the research lab, and Clem gets shot in the arm. Morrow and Clem take cover in the lab, but Clem takes a shot to the head. The T. Ocellus escapes to elsewhere in the ship during the chaos. Morrow sneaks around behind Petrovich and impales him.

The Xenomorph drops in behind Zaveri outside of the medical bay, and she goes for her gun. She sprints away, it chases. Zaveri manages to gets far away and welds the door to the bridge shut. Shmuel is there but the T. Ocellus had found him previously. The possessed Shmuel attacks Zaveri. Morrow arrives on scene after hiding and confronts Shmuel. The T. Ocellus makes Shmuel create a sound that calls to the Xenomorph. Morrow zaps Shmuel and makes his way to the Mother room.

The Xenomoprh and possessed Shmuel clash. Shmuel attempts to bite into the alien, and it stabs him with its tail multiple times. The T. Ocellus flees its host when Shmuel gets killed and tries unsuccessfully to become part of the Xenomorph. As we’ve previously seen, Morrow doesn’t let Zaveri in and welds himself into Mother’s room. The opening of the first episode plays out again, but we get brief glimpses of Morrow’s flashbacks and state of mind as he braces for impact. On Earth, Yutani meets with Morrow back in the present. We learn that the former Yutani that Morrow knew took him in. Yutani is meeting with Kavalier to try and arbitrate. Yutani says, “Whatever he wants, he gets,” to a staff member, implying she’s going to help arm morrow.

Analysis:

Back to Basics

This episode is a obviously a return to form for the Alien series. The most exciting aspect of this episode was watching Morrow’s role in the events leading up to the USCSS Maginot’s crash landing. What surprised me the most was Morrow’s complex relationships with the other crew members. It’s clear that Noah Hawley and the writing staff thought through all of the crews interwoven relationships. Top that off with the classic franchise premise of being trapped in space in a rapidly worsening situation and you’ve got a successful episode.

This episode took the idea of being trapped on a craft with dangerous aliens and managed to crank the dial up to eleven. Being able to see more of what the other non-Xenomorph specimens were capable of was the perfect spice to sprinkle in on top of the mystery unfolding before us. The mystery of the ship’s malfunctions was a solid starting point. From there we were lucky enough to see the Space Ticks and T. Ocellus ramping up the stakes. The reveal of the Space Ticks reproduction capabilities and their defense mechanisms while feeding are as astounding as they are horrifying. Meanwhile the T. Ocellus seems to be much more clever and nefarious than we’ve seen so far. The way that it distracted Dr. Chibuzo so the Space Tick could escape left me curious of how much more it may be plotting.

This episode essentially jump starts with two crew members already being attached to Facehuggers. The show takes well traveled ground and expands on it, having the crew follow specific company protocol instead of disposing of potential threats, all in the name of scraping by one the bare minimum pay. Morrow tries to navigate the very fine line of protecting the crew while following company rules. To add to that, Morrow has his own more personal directive to keep the cargo alive no matter the cost. His depth was increased so wonderfully this episode. He continuously tries to make decisions to help save lives. Zaveri in particular keeps choosing to follow protocol, which gets in the way of Morrow’s role as Security Officer. Finally with no other options, Morrow seals himself in Mother’s impact room alone.

Ew, That was Inside Me?

The common thread with the three creature’s we’ve seen this far is that they need a host. Xenomorph’s gestate inside of the body until they rip free. Space Ticks function similarly, but the quantity and speed at which they can reproduce far outpaces the Xenomorph. The T. Ocellus is quick and clever, but seemingly needs a host for protection and possibly for higher thought.

There is a lot to compare and unpack about the similarities of the Xenomorph and the human reproduction cycle. The other creatures we’ve seen have less obvious comparisons. However, I think the show will potentially reveal some of that insight as we go forward. Perhaps the Space Ticks function to reflect humanity as a whole; rapidly spreading out, colonizing and ripping resources away from something greater than themselves. The defense mechanism they have could be a display of the wars waged over those resources. The T. Ocellus might be a nod to the human desire to fit in to societal groups; becoming a part of something greater than yourself. Or perhaps the abandonment of the natural self to put on the facade of something else to fit in. Or maybe they’re just cool space monsters, who can say?

Final Score

This episode was able to showcase the events we thought we already knew and flip some of that on its head. Not only were we shown that the crash was a plot engineered by Boy Kavalier, we were also granted incredible insight into Morrow’s character. The expansion of the alien specimens capabilities was a wonderful little showcase. As a result of that showcase, we now have a little bit more to worry about with them in Neverland.

Once again, there are wonderful practical effects in play. I absolutely adore all of the simple white buttons that people interact with. Morrow using the little keypad to watch the security cameras really stood out to me. I also quite enjoyed the perspective of the younger crew members. Their hope and enthusiasm was awesome to watch, especially against the very broken and defeated veterans like Shmuel. I’m looking forward to what’s next as the series plays with morality and mortality at the same time.

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Featured Image: FX Networks