REVIEW: ‘Alien: Earth’ Episode 7 – “Emergence”

Penultimate episodes in a short season either land well or they struggle to stick their landing. It’s safe to say that Alien Earth Episode 7, “Emergence,” landed and delivered on moments that’ll make for a grand season finale. Where we last left our characters isn’t remotely where they end up, and some of their outcomes aren’t looking too great in the grand scheme.

We do shuffle points of view in Alien Earth Episode 7, but Wendy (Sydney Chandler) is a huge focus throughout the episode. She’s no longer putting up with anyone’s nonsense, including Joseph (Alex Lawther), who massively disappoints her at the end. 

Alien Earth Episode 7 follows Wendy, Joseph, and Nibs (Lily Newmark)’s escape plan, Smee (Jonathan Ajayi) and Slightly’s (Adarsh Gourav) terribly plotted mission that goes wrong, Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin)’s descent into planning human experimentation, and the xenomorph breaking loose per Wendy’s influence. It’s an episode that’s chock-full of creature feature action, emotionally charged moments, eye-widening turns, and an ending that surely marks the disintegration of Wendy and Joseph’s relationship. 

Watching the characters make horrific decisions in Alien Earth Episode 7 is frustrating on a fundamental level.

We open Alien Earth Episode 7 with Slightly watching as Arthur Sylvia (David Rysdahl), someone who genuinely cared about the hybrids, is choked by the facehugger. Considering Slightly still has the mindset of a child, he’s unaware of what’s actually happening due to being manipulated.

Instead of understanding that he’s condemned a decent man to death, he thinks that the facehugger isn’t going to result in him dying. The dilemmas that the hybrids face are significantly different from those of the adult characters. However, watching them make horrific decisions is still frustrating on a fundamental level. 

Unfortunately, in Alien Earth Episode 7, Slightly gets Smee to tag along because he can’t carry Arthur out of the facility on his own. It does lead to Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) seeing them and pretending to help them, all to stop Morrow (Babou Ceesay) from getting what he wants: the xenomorph. All of this happens later in the episode, and it’s somewhat comedic in that everyone should’ve seen it coming. Morrow was too confident and didn’t consider that he was leaving a highly complex task with a child, who was likely going to fail anyway. 

The Alien universe is full of tragedy as decent people are forced to suffer.

The Alien universe is full of tragedy, as decent people are constantly forced to suffer. Whether it’s due to human beings making decisions that result in death, synthetics causing death in the case of David (Michael Fassbender) in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, etc. It’s like nearly any horror franchise in the sense that people are going to die in horrible ways. And there’s very little that can stop that from happening, especially when you’re dealing with alien creatures who do what they want. 

Aside from Slightly and Smee’s “best friends doing something massively catastrophic together” mission, the other hybrids are also not doing well in Alien: Earth Episode 7. Wendy’s stuck with her own emotional dilemma, all while trying to escape the island with Nibs and Joseph. She’s stuck dealing with her brother’s expectations of her and what she believes to be right in her own heart. One might say it’s part of growing up, even if you are a hybrid being with a synthetic body with your consciousness inside.

Throughout “Emergence,” Wendy makes a few decisions involving the xenomorph that will either shake you or excite you. There’s never been a time when anyone could connect to the xenomorph like this, and it’s pretty exciting.

Wendy and the xenomorph engage in unconventional bonding in Alien Earth Episode 7.

She first unleashes the xenomorph from its glass cage in the lab, and it follows her out into the jungle area. And when she needs assistance to get by, some soldiers are trying to prevent them from leaving, Wendy instructs the xenomorph to kill them. It makes for a visually gory moment as the xenomorph is viciously attacking the soldiers. 

What Alien Earth has managed to do is allow the xenomorphs to have their own personalities. This particular xenomorph is attached to Wendy and has gained her understanding. Instead of making it a killing machine that would harm anything in its path, it, for now, wants to assist Wendy. What this means moving forward for the series is yet to be seen, obviously. Though it helps add to Alien Earth Episode 7, which doesn’t waste any time in getting to the meat of it. 

On the other side of Alien Earth Episode 7, we’re stuck dealing with Boy Kavalier being a typical rich person with too much money and time. Instead of considering that maybe messing around with intelligent alien life is unwise, he wants to utilize the eyeball creature to his advantage. And by that, he’s going to force some human being with low intelligence to be used as a test run for what the eyeball can do in a human body, even though we’ve seen what happens when it affects a human host in Episode 5. 

There is a ton of tension for the siblings in Alien Earth Epiosde 7.

Just like other entries in the Alien franchise, toying with people’s lives for capitalistic purposes or merely human curiosity is always bound to fail. Whether Boy Kavalier is doing so will fail remains to be seen, especially if he manages to survive beyond the season 1 finale. Whether or not we get a season 2 of Alien Earth hasn’t been confirmed, but if we do, and he survives, then it might connect to the events of Alien somehow. 

At the end of Alien Earth Episode 7, when Wendy and co. reach the boat they’re planning to escape on, Joseph’s fellow soldier friends ambush them, only for that to go poorly when Nibs gets upset and rips someone’s jaw off. It turns into a scuffle, one that ends in Nibs being shot by Joseph and potentially dying. It certainly makes for a moment that’s ripe with tension between the siblings. And that was bound to happen, given the way Joseph wants Wendy to be the same sister he remembers so desperately. 

Overall, Alien Earth Episode 7, “Emergence,” steadily leads us into the season finale and presents us with several possible outcomes for the events that unfold. The rogue xenomorph is undoubtedly going to play a part in helping Wendy and will likely kill several people along the way.

There are several possible outcomes for our characters in the Alien Earth season finale next week.

Meanwhile, what will become of Morrow is also up in the air because he is loyal to Weyland-Yutani and wants to retrieve the xenomorph for them at all costs. All in all, it’s another solid episode and will satisfy those who enjoy a shorter runtime and meaty moments for these characters we’ve come to appreciate. 

Alien Earth Episode 7 is streaming now on Hulu and Disney+ internationally, with new episodes releasing every Tuesday.

Previous Episode | Next Episode