House of R - ‘Alien: Earth’ Episode 3 Deep Dive

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Mal is once again joined by Rob Mahoney to dive deep(ish) into the third episode of ‘Alien: Earth.’ They talk about Wendy and Hermit’s relationship, Boy Kavalier’s motivations, the lost boys starting to turn on each other, and more! (00:00) Intro(09:31) Opening Snapshot(11:55) Wendy and Hermit(38:13) Creatures(48:32) The Lost Boys(01:26:58) The Prodigy Braintrust(01:48:50) Morrow Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Rob MahoneyProducers: Carlos Chiriboga and John RichterSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Rip are back in a new series. Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Colehouser returned, and this time they're taking on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch, willing to protect its secrets at all costs. Legacy is a beautiful thing, but only if it survives. Dutton Ranch starring Colehous, Kelly Riley, Annette Benning and Ed Harris, now streaming on Paramount Plus. Greetings and welcome. House of our. A Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin and joining me today

to let me know that his dad always threw the first pancake in the trash. It's Rob Mahoney. Hey Rob. Hey, Matt. For the record, absolutely do throw the first pancake in the truck. Who does not do this? Sociopaths. It may be the biggest red flag of them all. If you're eating or The first pancake? Oh, come on. Come on. We deserve better. Everyone deserves better.

Throw the first pancake out. Same with tortillas. Anything that's coming out of that oily pan first and foremost. You're a pancake guy. You're a French toast guy. You're a waffle guy. I mean, why not all? Why not all of the above?

But if you had to pick. I am of the like, let's not be too Catholic about it perspective. Like all welcome here. If I were to choose, a crispy waffle is really straight to my heart. Whoa, a crispy waffle with toppings? I put an unconscionable amount of maple syrup on my waffles. I got to say, I'm like, let's fill every crevice, you know?

Like, I want all squares accounted for. Listen, it's bold of you to use the word to other than the word crevice with Joanna out today. It was a provocation. Joanna abhors a crevice, as you know, and I feel compelled to say it on her behalf. We are once again missing our beloved Joe. we are thinking of our beloved Joe. Let's see. Rob, what is the thing that you are missing most this week about podcasting with Joe?

Again, it's really a let me count the way of situation every week that we go. I will say for those missing listening to Joe, we have some pre-taped content coming on on the prestige TV feed this week, a new mini series that we call Hooked that may entice you. That may give you a little dose of past tense Joe until we get present tense Joe back on the mic. There were some hooks in this episode of Valiant Earth. A meat hook through the little inner mouth punch punch tool.

The precision required to nail the hook through the mouth punch. I mean, I don't have that in me. I'll put it that way. Incredible hand-eye coordination. I can't wait to watch hooked. I cannot wait. This is just such an incredible

idea for a series. It's going to be so fun to hear you and Joe dip in into all of these different iconic shows, beloved shows, and have various friends of the pod, friends of the ringer, et cetera. Present company may be included, hypothetically. We'll see.

Will I be invited to participate? Now, you're absolutely invited. Come on. Come on. I can't wait. Seriously, I'm so excited for this. It's a great idea. I'm hyped.

Everybody should check it out. It's going to be the best. I'm also like you missing everything about Joe, of course. I was thinking this morning, you know what is just like, completely absent from my life when I'm not potting with Joe. I really feel it keenly. I mean, a lot of things, but like, nobody,

nobody is dropping knowledge on me about musicals. Nobody. It's just a complete absence, a hole in my podcasting experience and really just the experience of living life. I can always count on Joe to tell me something about a musical production. the thematic text of a musical experience, the soul-starring nature of a musical composition, and I long for it, I crave it,

I didn't realize how much I needed it, and now I do. I think what you need, and Joe posted about this, is her musicals playlist she has assembled in her absence, which, as I noted to her, is 84 hours long. And I assume the follow-up text was,

and that seems short. You could really double. I look. Seem short. My only requirement was that newsies be included and she was basically angry that I had even suggested that it wouldn't be. I apologize to Joe. I meant no offense by it. I'm just trying to cross all the T's and dot all the eyes.

But you're absolutely right. Like the musical knowledge always on point. Joe is clearly incredibly well read and well study and basically everything we cover here, including as an ascendant basketball podcaster here is the ringer here and there. It's true. It's true. But like I always, you know, on hooked, not to get too deep into that stuff, we're covering some of the greatest shows in television history. Yes. Having that experience with Joe, even the smidge that we have pre-recorded so far, I love the connections that she is drawing across stories, across characters, across time.

She sees it all, man. She sees it all. She sees it all. She sees it all because she gets people. And I think if you get people, you understand what moves them, you locate what a story means to them and what it shares with everything else and like the common DNA of the human experience. the best. She's the best. Truly.

Hooked is going to be the best. I can't fucking wait. What else is coming besides hooked? Is there anything you'd like to tease on the basketball front? Hopefully many weeks to come of rest before proper preseason mode engages. You're in Hawaii mode right now. I'm still in Hawaii mode. I will say preseason basketball content is probably the closest that we get to full house of our format.

like our, you know, we start with a preseason power ranking from the bottom up, the worst teams in the league up. That first pod of like, we're going to spend two and a half hours talking about the worst teams in basketball is, look, that's us trying to cover, I don't know, Echo, you know, like that's what we're trying to do out there. Wow, what a stray for Echo. That was tough. We're not reaching here.

And we're not reaching here on House Far. We got Alien Earth episode three today. We can't wait. At the end of this week, I will at last. long last, we diving into the Peacemaker season two premiere. Can't wait to talk about peacemaker being back in our lives. I have some fun little interviews coming at the end of that episode as well. So everybody makes sure you check out that pod at the end of the week here on the House of Our. If you have not yet checked out the Stockwatch episode that we did last week,

that was a, that was a deranged, debauched blast. I had a great time. Rob, you were missed. You were vacationing. And so you were not able to participate in the inaugural House of Our Stockwatch. But Your presence and your takes were felt, as always, even though you did not formally issue one. You're always welcome to let us know what you're buying, selling, or holding at any point, whether or not that was the prompt of the day. I did enjoy getting to appreciate as a consumer, as a listener of How Sofar, the font of positivity. Everyone was giant. Talking stuff, I know.

So much buying. Maybe an occasional talk themselves into a hold here or there, but everything's coming up roses right now. Even the holds were very like, yeah. Could have been a buy. Even the cells were like, could have been a hold. It's a shocking, frankly astonishing moment of positivity that won't last, but we were able to capture it in a mere two hours and 45 minutes and what a joy that was. Follow along, as always. Follow House of R.

Follow the Prestige TV podcast. Please. Follow group chat and the ringer NBA show on Spotify. Wherever you get your podcast, you can watch full video episodes of House of Our, prestige, group chat, etc. on Spotify, Incredible. Also, of course, follow the YouTube channel, Ringiverse YouTube channel, where you can watch our episodes as well

and follow along on the social media platform of your choosing, and I am not going to tell you what that should be. It's up to you. It's up to you to make that decision about your life right now. The Ringervverse is everywhere. Find us.

Spoiler warning for today, Rob. Obviously, anything that happened in Metamorphosis, episode three of Alien Earth, we will be going through. Anything that has happened through three episodes of Alien Earth. Of course.

Could come up today. We have not watched ahead. So nothing from beyond episode three will come up today because we've not seen anything from beyond episode three. Anything that's ever happened in an alien movie could in theory come up today, though. So that is the entire alien canon that is aired to date. Fair game on the spoiler front. What about like the Batman versus aliens comic?

Is that on the table? I hope so. Will you be bringing it up? Now you've set the expectation that you'll be mentioning it. I wish I had a proper tie-in. I will say I'm more connottable. harmonically familiar. That came a little later in life for me when I was a kid. I did pick up a Tarzan versus Predator comic. Oh, wow. Just the crossover event we needed and still need on screen. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for,

I'm waiting for Scars Guard versus the predator. I mean, who has better abs? The Northman has your answer, I got to say. Great stuff. Okay, Rob, I think it's time. I don't want you to worry because we have a high quarantine lab in the sub-levels. So it should be fine. It's all good. It should be fine. Nothing to worry about. We'll get to this as we go today, but the number of Chekhov's X in this episode was

just loved it. Let's pod. Let's get to our opening snapshot on episode three, metamorphosis. Rob, overall thoughts on this episode, the various sources of the titular metamorphosis that were featured, how episode three. compared to the euphoric entrance into this world of the two part episode one and two premiere? Where are you on episode three and where we are on Alien Earth three out of eight episodes in? There is still a ton to chew on that's just being thrown at us perpetually with this show.

I think some of which in this episode I'm viving with, some of which I am deeply confused by. So I would say a bit more mixed than episodes one and two overall for sure. But I'm never going to be mad about a show that has a show. a lot out of its mind. I'm in a very similar spot. I thought this episode was much more of a mixed bag than episodes one and two. I thought certain aspects of it were sensational and incredibly rich and compelling. I'm really loving our time with various lost boys right now.

There were certain aspects of the episode where I was like, do I need more coffee and or more sleep? Like, am I just missing? something here? Or is this actually confusing? Is it supposed to be confusing? Are we like intentionally in a state of suspension while we wait for clarity or is this something about the sequencing that didn't work quite as well? Overall, I remain as invested as I did after the two-part premiere and seeing where we're going. Definitely. But inside of the episode, I don't think we hit quite the highs of the first two on a consistent start-to-finish hour-long episode. I think it's an interesting title for an episode, and I like when a title applies in a number of different ways.

Obviously, we have the like literal biological, physical idea of metamorphosis at play on a number of different fronts, but also, of course, thematically in terms of the metamorphosis and evolution of various states of understanding, of various missions, et cetera. so there's a lot there that'll be interesting to parse. As we get into our medium slash deep-ish, but not fully deep, deep, deep, deep dive, we are going to go once again today by character clusters rather than going chronologically through the episode. And I did want to start,

perhaps controversially, with like, I think what was one of the least successful parts of the episode, at least to me, I'm curious to see if you agree with this or not, and then we'll get to some of the stuff that was working a little bit better. But let's start the deep dive here with Wendy and Hermit, who it pains me to say are like that relationship, which I think, I mean, we have a lot of compelling emotional notes through the story so far.

It's not like this is the only thing that the core of the story is built around, but I do think this has kind of been positioned as like the emotion. core of the story, and I'm not feeling it as much as I am a number of the other dynamics and relationships and compounding that, I

thought that this set piece of Wendy and Hermit versus the xenomorph was like kind of bad. Set piece is generous for what we were presented, I think. Yeah. Yes. Where are you on this duo overall

in the let's go into a cargo hold meat locker and then sever the most perfect organism in the known universe and half off screen where no one can see it. Don't even worry about it. I'm sure it's not a big deal. Sure, we didn't need to see it. I think my problem with that, like let's take it bit by bit. As far as the relationship goes, I'm getting more emotion from the time we're spending

with other characters than I am with Wendy and Hermit. And you're right that it feels like maybe that's our assumption of the way they're being positioned in the show, but they're anchoring. to the center of the story, the whole idea that she's going after her brother. Like, we've been fed and told and shown a lot of information to say, like, this is an important emotional relationship that right now I'm not like feeling. I'm seeing it. I'm hearing what they're giving me.

I understand like the plot related reasons. All this stuff is happening. I'm just like not totally buying it yet in a way that we weren't out of one and two. And that like, I think there's going to have to be a little bit of catch up over the rest of the season to really sell that part of their relationship. And some of that is the inevitable trick of central. a character who is a child robot. And it's like, now you want us to feel this like fully articulated, deeply emotional

relationship between these two characters. And I am incredibly susceptible to a sibling-based story. Same. I mean, I am on the hook on premise. Yes, on the meat hook. On the meat hook, as it were, I've, look, many questions about what's being dry-aged in that meat locker, many questions about the street food that's being sold in New Siam. I'm going to need like a breakout episode to understand the food of this world.

but right now I'm just like I really want a little bit more from those two emotionally and that's even before we get into everything that we see and don't see in the battle with the xenomorph there. I feel the same way and I think that like the question of what can we glean

from a sibling relationship or just young friendship when we have these child minds and child hearts inside of these hybrid superbodies and supercharged with the supercomputer brains all of which is active text elsewhere in the episode. You know, we'll get to these other characters later, but like, I don't know, you look at something like the scenes between me and slightly, riveting. Like, I thought those scenes were great.

And I think that the way that those conversations, both just with each other, or when we're looking at them through Kirsh's eyes or Adam's eyes or Marrow's eyes, the question of what it means to be a young person transported into this body and asked to do these things and what you know about your own circumstances or how other people. people are weaponizing you and using you was like really, compellingly explored and teased out in this episode. With Wendy and Hermit, now again, we kind of plow right into the action. It's not like we got a lot of time in this episode for the more tender, introspective exchanges, but you know, you have something like he's calling her Marcy instead of Wendy because she's still to him, his sister, and this is all just brand new information, and you can't really take a beat to process it

because you're, you know, who hasn't been here, pinned to the wall of a meat locker by a xenomorph who is attempting to lure Wendy into a trap by using you as bait. It happens. Apparently. It happens. But the like, you know, get behind me.

You're a kid. I'm a soldier. Yes. I think that in a moment like that, we're supposed to be completely swept up in the inversion of that. dynamic, how we're thinking about that, what it would mean to each of them. And it's like, we didn't, maybe it's just because we didn't even really have time to, like, sink inside

of that and think about it for a minute. We just blitzed right to the, uh, the actions such that it was. But yeah, it's like, I think from, we talked about this a little bit last week, but from the moment of the like, okay, I accept that you are who you say you are and I hug you now through this episode. I'm like, this is falling a touch short to me. And I hope that it, I hope that it surges back to the top of the pack because it feels like that's where it should be. We'll see. The action. Okay.

So there's this, hermit's warning, this is a, it's a trap. The old Akbar, it's a trap. Yep. I thought that the like glimpse

of the xenomorph through the, I would like to apologize. I don't have my cargo locker, meat locker, vernacular, like on, uh,

unlock here. Well, this was a true hybrid situation. Like this is all hybrids in so many shapes and so many forms. Um, those plastic slats. Oh, yeah. You know?

Whatever those are called. The glimpse of the xenomorph through the plastic slats, I was like, let's fucking go. That's the good stuff. This is great. That's like creepy specter. It was very like shadow of the raptors in the kitchen of Jurassic Park to me. Like, you know, we're getting the silhouette of something.

If we're going to have one xenomorph at a time, this is the sort of suspense you want to build and the kind of like visual palette you want to play in. And then they just kind of threw it away. Yeah. And we're not doing that right now. Like we're just going to put everything behind a door

or over a ceiling and you're not going to see any of it. And at the same time, it's like, I'm not feeling any tension from this scene at all. And I'm also not getting the cool action visual set piece elements. So it's like, if we're not doing either of those things, what are we doing? Yeah. And I think the questions of like, okay,

the xenomorphist setting is using hermit to set a trap for Wendy, let's really like think about what that means and what that implies and why it's happening. No character talks about that, which I found like very strange. Now, we know because of course Wendy and Hermit are like out of commission. It's not like they're going to talk about it. No. But it's actively discussed elsewhere in the episode with other characters that everyone is watching. Like boy tells Kirsch, assume I know everything. I've seen it all. Adam just tells me and slightly, we do watch everything that happens

through your retinal cameras. It's like everyone else is seeing through Wendy's eyes this fight. Presumably. Right? So like... Are we going to get the tape playback in episode four?

Do you think I really get to see what happened? Why was nobody crunching this tape or her retinal cameras offline? Like a lot of questions about that that was confusing. And then the way the xenomorph behaves. Like, okay, I'm going to look at you, creepy, cool specter through the slats.

then I jump up onto the roof of the meat locker, allowing you to stab me. Also, everybody, like, is very smart and brave in the show. But, well, respectfully. Smart, debatable. Brave, yes. Hermit? I don't know. I have thankfully never been in a situation where any part of a facehugger or Xenomorph has been in any way pierced or severed in front of me. and so I can't really say how I would respond.

However, I don't know. Like the instant acid. I guess if you see a substance like leaks and burn through metal and then start burning the floor, you maybe deduce quickly that that's acid. But it just like felt a little quick. There were like a lot of moments like that in this episode. Like Boy, Cavalier, canonically established boy, genius. And yet even when he right away, he just goes to bio-weapons immediately.

Like immediately, that feels to me like. he's seen aliens. Yeah, exactly. The product of like the people watching this at home will know this. And so it's okay for the characters to say it. But it isn't that was like all just kind of distracting. It's like it makes you stop to think about whether people should talk that way. And then that takes you out of the experience of watching the show a little bit.

So that's not ideal. And then the fact that the main fight, I mean, listen, it's tough stuff for our guy, Herman. He gets pierced through the torso. We'll get to his lung and what happens to it later. Put it in that and stay tuned. But he gets pierced and badly injured, musterce the strength to rush forward on Wendy's urging and activate the garage door.

We get to see him work some wires, thinking on his feet. The fact that the Wendy versus the xenomorph fight takes place behind a closed door was not cool. No, genuinely not. What did you think that was about? Is it as simple as probably really expensive to do all this and make it look cool? Let's just not show that because then we don't have to put it on screen.

Was it an effort, maybe a miscalculated effort to heighten the tension and suspense of what was happening? behind that door? Like, why did this happen this way? And then we opened the door and we just see that the xenomorph has been cut in half, but we didn't get to see that. I know. Of all the things, I would like to see a xenomorph decapitated by a paper cutter. Like, that's the number one thing I want to see in these first three episodes now that you

presented the possibility. Was the stuffed animal deployed at any point in the fight? Like, the fact that we don't have answers to that question, upsetting. I would think it was used as a crucial parrying device at some point. Again, like the little alien mouth came out. the walrists or whatever was used as a deflection and then the paper cutter comes in as the weapon. I'll have to take your word for it.

I think it's what happened. I saw the whole thing, believe you me. It was, regardless of the intention, I would guess the intention is, yes, some slight misguided effort to ratchet up, like withhold a little bit more for a little bit longer before we get into full-on alien mayhem and hijinks. But it felt like the harshest reminder so far

that this is a TV show. And not a movie. And I, like, again, I am okay. I'm good with holding back the monster. I thought in episode two, showing us the dinner party post-Zenomorph was really, really effective. Doing it again here, like the best versions of that version of that technique makes the world feel bigger and more dangerous. This just made everything feel smaller. It immediately kind of brought down the like aspect ratio of my screen.

Yeah, that's a great way to put it. I really agree. And the other thing is that like, you know, and obviously there's a lot of tense debriefing. back at Neverland about what it meant to send all of this high-priced tech and innovation out into the field. But, like, Wendy asked to do this thing and then went and did it, and we didn't see a key part of it. And so then I'm also forced to wonder,

this gets into some of the theory corner stuff that we can maybe do with, like, what is going on with Wendy at the end of the episode. We'll kind of maybe, we'll sort of do the Wendy bookends of this episode here and then hit some of the other character sets. But, like, okay, on the one hand, So we open the garage. We see Wendy turns.

I don't know why I'm laughing. It's very sad. It's a little funny. And like this slow dribble. The dribble of milk. Of milk. Like a cereal bowl dumped on your head. You know, a hyperbody, the white synth blood dribbling out.

And then, man, Hermit hustled over, violently vomited a lot of blood. Then they both pass out. Everyone's passed out. Not the most intense projectile dispersion of blood in this episode. We'll get back to the blood slug later in what we saw, harrowing. It's up to no good. The blood slug needs to be stopped. We will talk about the creatures later, but I will just say now,

in the context of this conversation about blood, the shot of the blood slug basically like having explosive diarrhea out of its blood sack. And then like just kind of swim in the blood and like relaxing arms back. Like in the stewing in the hot tub of blood absolutely foul, very effective. That was like good gross where you're just like, who thought of this? This is deranged. I love it. Maui, do not kink shame on this podcast.

Never. Whatever the blood slug is into, we're going to support it. If you're with a fellow consenting adult blood slug, do what you like. Do what you like. So what do you think is happening with Wendy at the end? Because the reason I started to say that this gets us a little bit potentially into perhaps reckless and misguided and unnecessary theory corner talk is, okay. Wendy, after being worked on, we'll get to Arthur and Dame Sylvia and everything later when we talk about the Prodigy Brain Trust. But Wendy has been repaired.

Well, she's been turned off and turned back on again at minimum. But yeah, but repair it is generous. Wendy's brain pillow goes from red to blue, Wendy's eyes open and Wendy wakes up and moves. And Wendy is kind of like magnetically pulled to the lab where Kirsch and Curley and Tootles are running their experiments, an incision through the egg, pulling out the face hugger, really cool shot of the face hugger looking at Kirsch through the membrane. That was great. Wendy basically hears this like trilling and chittering, high-pitched, increasingly violent, increasingly debilitating for Wendy. The bulging neck veins, the grasping of the head and pain makes her way to the lap, collapses these cuts from Wendy to the dissection being performed on the face hugger. we'll get to the little xenotadpole. The cuts from Wendy to the egg,

there's like a little bit of a almost like Wendy in communication with the xenomorph or the egg like the proto xenomorph. Wendy in communication, like almost like a hive mind. So I flash back to, on the one hand, the fact that in episode one we hear as they're running test that Wendy can hear at a frequency beyond human. Yes.

It also appears that Wendy is hearing things that none of the other sense or hybrids are hearing. So there is something distinct here about Wendy's experience, at least based on what we've seen so far. And so it is like clearly established in the show, to be clear. I would like to be clear. I understand and know that it is clearly established in the show that Wendy was already, like when Wendy got to the crash site, Wendy was like, do you hear this?

Wendy was hearing something before the fight with the xenomorph. I know that. However, they don't show us the fight. And then Wendy comes out and I'm like, did the xenomorph plan something in Wendy's brain? Like, I don't necessarily think that. I don't think we're supposed to think that, but I kind of can't help but wonder if there's actually going to be some sort of reveal about something that took place behind there that will like prove germane later and this is about withholding information or maybe just like milk dribble from the head. Like Wendy has a broken brain. Maybe that's leading to something here.

What did you think was going on with what we saw from Wendy at the end, which of course leads to Wendy being like sprawled out again? out of commission on the floor of the lab. By the way, nobody gives a shit or even notices, which that was another thing. I'm like, are we being duped in some way by like the angles and who is where and who was seeing what? Yeah. Or is it even some kind of like out of body sort of like Wendy is dreaming this

stumbling down the hall or like has a broader consciousness? Yeah, exactly. Like did Wendy make her way into that room in a way that wasn't actually physical? Because how else they just walk past her and leave her there? seems like impossible. So that was an example of where I was like, is there more to be revealed and we are just not meant to understand exactly? Like, are we supposed to be like, huh, what's going on here?

Or was this actually just confusing? I think we are supposed to have a, huh, reaction to this. So nobody checking on her. Yeah. There's just no way that you could actually know the nuts and bolts of what is happening in this present moment. But I think that sort of like projection, maybe she has tapped into the cameras and it's kind of like inferring herself into what is happening there.

The way she accessed like the HR bot to talk to Joe. Yes. So it's like clearly she is like tapped into the network in a cybernetic way that would make such a thing like feel possible to her in that moment, even if it is not physically possible. I also think there's maybe something to play with here as far as putting these very young, receptive minds and consciousnesses into these bodies that as you said are receiving superhuman frequencies that have superhuman capabilities.

Like, the lost boys are accessing frequencies and sound and experiences that humans can't and can't process. Right. And so maybe there's something because of them and their open minds that is, like, more susceptible to, like, the connectedness of all things a little bit. Like this sort of biological hive mind element that's sort of counterplaying what we get with Morrow and Mother, for example. Like the voice in the back of your head being an alien one is an interesting idea to kick around. Yeah. And I'm with you and I'm very intrigued to see where that goes because, first of all, especially in an episode like this where Nibbs is like, well, why do Wendy get to be Wendy? And then Curley just actively goes to the boss and is like, I'm better at my job.

Fuck Wendy. Well, look, she got the teacher's pet treatment, which is here's some more homework for you to do. I know. Here's another assignment. Anytime you're on the receiving end of a Connor Roy, I'll be giving you some reading is like, let me just tell you about my readings. I don't know that it's where you want to be. This was honestly a succession-heavy episode.

There was like big we hear-for-you-vibes with the AI, like, eye cameras. You know, there's a lot going on. Let's get Tom and Greg on the press conference spin immediately. They always handle it well. They always handle it well. But yeah, this idea of like what makes Wendy distinct from her peers, let alone from humanity. and then what that might unlock for an examination of the parallels and the contrast, the entwinment and the division between tech and the natural world.

And the idea at the end of the day that both everything that is xenomorph-centric, all of the alien life that has been brought back, and the continued push forward in artificial intelligence, the synths, the hybrids, all of this is beyond the frontier of the traditional human experience. And so those things on the one hand, of course, can and certainly will be opposed and position as opposing forces in this show.

But the idea that there could be a link. Yeah. And a link that humanity is, on the outside of, I am really interested in. So to be clear, like, why did nobody notice Wendy was on the floor? I was like, wait, thinking face emoji, what's going on with this? Wendy, whatever is happening with Wendy's mind and Wendy's pull and the prospect of Wendy being in some sort of communication with the xenomorphs is really interesting to me.

That part I really like and I'm eager to learn more about. Hope Wendy is okay. Yeah. rooting for Wendy, rooting for hermit. I also hope as far as that part goes, that it is more, like, I hope the reason that she's experiencing and hearing these things is because she's a little further along in time and process than the other lost boys. Like, I'm a little resistant to Wendy as the chosen one.

Just genuinely like your special. Yeah. Like, I just like, I mean, we can get there. And clearly, like, there's some set up for that kind of construction here with the jealousies you described from the other lost boys. The fact that she has like, the favorite. It's like there's, they're kind of teeing that up. And I hope that it's more misdirect than it is like, she is the only one that can hear the aliens. Right. And even like

if the, some of it is like the product of time, like you're saying, being further along, but also what do you do in that time? Yeah. Like the fact that Wendy was like, we talked about this last pod, but that scene where boy and all of the prodigy brain trusts were like, wait, what just happened? Did we give her that ability? Like, they don't even know what they have unleashed into the world and the fact that Wendy is like doing all of these things on her own of her own accord what aptitude has she honed and unlocked what new plane has she been able to access just by trying to reach her brother and then that's interesting too of course if that's where this goes that the drive the core drive of the most basic human core human thing i miss this person and i want

to see if they're okay could unlock a new level of tech technological and alien prowess, that that could be simultaneously the thing that moves everybody beyond human life. If its origin was the human experience of like, this relationship used to be really important to me, I'd like it back. That's a very lush sandbox to play in. There's some juicy stuff happening in basically every corner of these various robotic existences. When you say juicy, you mean the lung that has been extracted from permit and plugged in. I do indeed.

I mean, look, this was a juice-heavy episode. It's always a mucous-heavy episode. It's really secretion season now that Aalian is in full bloom. So much drool. As always, so much drool. These productions are really keeping

all of the lube companies in business. It's like, boy. But what is the xenomorph doing to Hermit other than, yes, you get the lung impaling. But there is something that's bugging me a little bit as far as whenever Wendy and Hermit show up, the plot armor is so thick

that the xenomorph turns into a big old dummy as soon as they're around. And it's like it's instant killing any other living form. And yet Hermit, it's like playing with its food for some reason. I don't really understand it. I was thinking about that moment with the xenomorph and Morrow at the elevator again.

Because like when we were watching, initially, it seemed mostly like Morrow got really lucky. There's like a sound, a cry, it pulls the xenomorph away into another murder spree. Maybe. But maybe there's some different response to in relationship to the presence of technology in this other form. And like...

He doesn't smell like a human. He smells like a canned human, you know? It's just like not quite as fresh. This guy has a nail bed that opens to reveal a circuit-laden contact lens that. is not for the eyeball, but rather the neck flesh of a synthetic child. I did not like it. I did not like the removable fingernail chip. No, absolutely not.

The way I like sunk in to Slightly's neck, I just saw it very upsetting. But that's what we want. Speaking of sinking in and taking root, this hermit lung plugged in, put in the little tank, and the Kirsch dissection of the facehugger gets to the core of what is inside. This little, like a tadpole.

Should we call it a xenopole? Zeno seed. I like it, and I'm going to say it, it's kind of cute. I thought it was precious. Kind of a cute little guy. Darling. Can't wait for the merch.

Like a gooey little seahorse, precious. It did then immediately when dropped into the tank, burrow into hermit's lung where of course it is intended to go because Kirsch has again, you know, he's at least downloading a lot of data on information from a terminal, but very quickly pieced everything together

one of the body in the cryotube, you know, something exploded from the inside. Guess they're gestating inside of flesh. Let's give it a go. I'm sure it will be fine. I'm sure it will be fine. So they're trying to replicate and then control this gestation. I have no doubt everything will be fine and no one will be heard as a result of this.

Historically, it goes off without a hitch. This always, always works. You should definitely do it. But as far as the, you know, we talked last time, Mal, about the Xenos being fixated on Hermit, just really absolutely locked in. I think this is only further proof. Like that little Zeno Tadpul, she cannot wait to get it. inside him, you know? What a sentence.

Just the truth. I'm just out here telling the truth about their relationship. You should be on a watch list after uttering that sentence out loud. My God. Do you want to, we were going to hit the Lost Boys next, but do you want to just stay on like creature corner for a second here? Should we just talk about the rest of the kind of creature lore that we get in this episode and then we can hit some of our other character sets?

Kirsch says early in the episode, as he's mainlining all of the data, all of the Intel from the terminal. Five previously undiscovered species collected. We've spent a lot of time with our old friend the blood slug, jellio jiggles, the flora of fauna. Which one is jellio jiggles? The eye, the eye guy.

I mean, he's already a legend. He's left an impression on nips. That's for sure. Listen, I've told you this before. I've told the bad babies before everyone knows that I need glasses. It's just a fact, it's true. So I don't know what I saw, but at the 26-minute mark in this episode,

when Boy Cavalier enters the lab to talk to Kirsch, he walks by a tank that looked to me to have a different creature in it. It looked like a spider with like a pale sack. I'm so sorry. I don't know how else. All right. Just go ahead and clip that out for social, send it out into the world. Let's just get it going.

It looked like a spider with like a whole sating pale sack. You're not making it better. And I'm just describing what I saw. I think I saw. And so my question, again, perhaps a dumb one is, is that a new creature? Is that another new creature? Or was that just a shaded, obscured by some foliage in its fish tank? Yeah.

A creature that we had already seen? like, did you think that was new or just one of our old friends? It's hard to tell once they get back to Neverland what has already been in the lab versus what are the things they're bringing in. Like, yeah, the eyeball guy, we already know him for sure, the blood's like for sure, the flora fauna plant situation. We need to talk more about that. Absolutely.

All new. Yeah. Right, because they have that scene in the beginning of the premiere where they're just looking at the scorpion. Like, we know they are collecting creatures in life as well. There's the Marcy, pre-Wendy transfer, Kersh, conversation about like this scorpion in the in the glass casing and what would you do what if you were the scorpion etc so yeah yes to your point they have uh they have their own little little lab

zoo already and there is yeah the aforementioned spidery looking guy another kind of bug more bealy creature that's kind of crawling and eating of some kind and then yeah just like a bunch of like hanging flesh bags that's like i'm not sure if this is an eval like a a prevolution of one of these other animals, if this is something that's about to hatch or grow? I thought the flesh bag was the blood slug before it before it popped.

But it was like hanging up or something. Because like I thought it was like, it was just on the top hanging down. Yeah. And then it could be right. Bloodsack and then it was like. It did seem to set it free. Like it let go with the blood sack at a certain point. It was just crawling around the glass. Yeah. Yeah. It's all very very comforting when you think about. It's all very

comforting when you think about. it. We did get to like, you know, I'll use Joe's patented trademark name for you. We did get to go to like freeze frame Mahoney corner a couple times in this episode. Very excited to talk about one of the other moments, which was Morrow Googling Prodigy. We got some incredible Boy Cavalier news clippings that we'll talk about later. Holy shit. Rich text. But here we get to see a little bit of that flora fauna scouting report? It was hard for me to read a lot of this.

I tried my best. Watching on a screener and really need incorrective lenses made this a challenge. What did you see here, if anything, that feels worth remarking upon? I think there's a couple of things. One, so there's a note that the flora fauna alien we see is not

dissimilar to the terengenus Drosera, which you may know as a sundew. If you've ever seen like a planet Earth-style dock before, you've probably seen this thing. It's like kind of a tendril-y plant that sort of folds up around anything that lands on it, particularly bugs. What I would not give for five minutes of David Attenborough on the blood slug. You know, like we need to get a proper dock on all of these critters soon enough. But this one feels, once it opens, I think is going to look fairly familiar.

And it does seem, yet again, very mucous forward. It seems like that's the way it's entrapping whatever it is that it ends up eating. It did say that there were three ways they had observed the flora fauna killing its food, I guess, question mark, if it is food. They either died of asphyxiation. They dissolved.

Not high on my list of ways to die. It's an absolute note for me. Or died of exhaustion. I guess just like wiggled so much they tired themselves out. Poor little guys in there. That feels like my fate. Diet of exhaustion.

Look, of the three, that's the one I would want. go quietly into the night exhausted. Mallory Rubin died of exhaustion while gesticulating on Zoom about a quote, pulsing pale sack. We're just going to note that away. First line of your obituary is you lived a beautiful life doing what you love. Oh, man.

You know, we all try to leave our mark however we can. So we saw when Tootles, not in this episode, but in the two-part premiere, when Tootles was like, just kind of having a stare down with this particular creature and it began to open and it sent out it's like little like elephant trunk

it's and he Tudles was able to just kind of move around it and walk past it and so then it's like is that creature patient is that creature ultimately not interested in a hybrid if that had been a human would it have been game over instant

we don't know yet, but we have seen enough. I mean, obviously we had harrowing deaths already at the hands of the eye octopus creature and the blood slug. It feels like we are very intentionally

like building toward whatever astonishing, horrific display, the flora fauna unleashes. And like in the beginning of episode one, when we flashed to all of the future, misery aboard the Magina. One of the very quick shots we saw, I think, was like, the outer various little folds and fibers just simply saturated

in blood. It's been busy, all right? All the various critters have been working really hard. My God. But I'm going to need to see it. I'm going to need to see this plant eat somebody. I suspect you will. I don't think you'll be disappointed on this front.

It can't be plant grabs them and then yet another shutter door closes and we don't get to see it. Like, I'm going to need to spend some time with the digestion process. And look, I'm open to whatever that could look like. Maybe it is a synthetic. Maybe it is a cyborg. Maybe the plant gets a taste a la little shop of horrors for some synthetic milk instead. I'm cool with that. But it's going to need to eat somebody.

Another revolting sentence. On the dissolving front, too, like you would think that the hybrids would be as vulnerable to being dissolved. as a human would be. So everybody should be on high alert. On the creature front, we're going to talk about the boy Kirsch dynamic elsewhere. Delightful. But it's really good.

Given that we build toward, you're in charge. Since only in the lab, don't let any humans in or out, I am compelled to note that one of the areas in which it seemed clear to me that these characters were not maybe as fully familiar with the wider alien cinematic canon as all of us.

I would also then not allow animals in the lab. So we have our darling sheep. We'll see a bunch of sweet little bunnies. There are some mice. Now obviously they're there. It's sad to think about it. Clearly they're using them in the experiments. How long until we see a little bunny shaped, a little little xenomorphic

little bunny ears? It's a matter of time. What episode? Put your money on it now. I say episode, I say is episode four. I think that happens next week. Okay, I was thinking five, but I would not be surprised at four. I'm going to say four or six. I, four or six. Double the bets. I like it. Honestly, like, this is the shit we're here for. Yeah. This is one of those things that like even like the alien three iconography with the dogs, you know, morph. Like, it just kind of works. This stuff is interesting and fun to imagine the different forms that the Zenos can take. It's very upsetting. I mean, everything that happens with the dog is just devastating. But that's like obviously where we're heading now.

It's, oh my God, please don't do that. This is terrible, but also I want to see it. Also, I want to see little bunny ears on a xenomorph head. I want to see the variety of what the animal kingdom can offer. It's a guarantee. I think there could be some really cute xenos out there. A zeno with a squirrel tail, adorable. Wow.

Maybe you will in this season of television. One can dream, Mal. You're going to get a sheep. You're going to get a sheep. a bunny for sure. I mean, the bunny is, the bunny, the bunny feels like an absolute lock.

Completely. But we'll know we've hit it when it's like there's a puffer fish xenomorph, you know, when there's a seal xenomorph. Then we're really cooking with something. Seal.

I mean, I'm sorry, but like, this is the world. It's cruel and brutal and occasionally seals get turned into aliens. You're a monster. I'm sorry.

You're a monster. But that's why you're here. One of us had to be the alien, you know? Should we talk about the lost voice? Absolutely. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptitide may be able to help.

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terseptide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take up allergic to it. Or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia

if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zep bound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99-79. or visit zepbounds.lily.com. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market.

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dunked on. This was for the rest of the Lost Boys. This was great for the other for the other hybrids. Let's talk about slightly and Smey first. We're going to talk about Morrow also separately, but of course Maro is a part of the Slightly arc in particular in this episode so we'll be hitting Maro a little bit here too whenever Slightly and Smee are alone in this episode they are so undeniably

palpably childlike the way that they're like swinging their legs over the eggs to play a game like what do you think said them not chickens you said fuck you said shit like they just seem like middle school kids who are scared and then excited and playing around the way that they were when they're back at HQ,

they have their clipboards and they're drawing. And, like, slightly is just, like, drawing a monster. He's a kid drawing a monster. And I found that great and really, like, sad, but also very sweet. And then, of course, when you see them through other eyes, Morrow, again, I think too quickly, I really like that scene overall, but I think too quickly it was like, you're just, you're just like children.

It took the characters in the movie big, like the entire movie, to figure out that he was a child. I think under most normal circumstances, you are willing to explain away a lot. People are weird. People do strange things that are unpredictable that seem childlike. Especially at an active crash site of a spaceship into high rises in a major city where aliens have been loosed upon the public. People might be weird in the face of that. Moro's been out in space. for 65 years.

You come back, yeah, my guy, the slang is going to be a little different. People are going to seem, you know, maybe a little softer, maybe a little more child. Like, imagine a boomer parachuting into 2025 after being frozen in ice, you know? Like, I think they would have some things to say. Oh, my God. You know, we're big Steve Rogers fans here. We love a man out of time story. Absolutely.

It's always fascinating to see somebody have to catch you up to the circumstances of the moment. Maro puts them in an interesting philosophical and moral predicament very quickly. Would you harm other people? Would you do this thing? And again, we'll talk about like everything we hear Maro share here when we get tomorrow, when we parse a little bit of the like,

wait, wait, where are we now on what happened on this ship and what they knew they were heading toward or discovered in real time? We will come back to that. But just in terms of the Smeese, Slightly morrow of it all here. I really liked this. Smee is kind of like, no. And Slightly is like, well, maybe.

Like, are they bad people? Are my friends in danger? And I think this is one of the really smart ways to deploy the hybrids. Children who have only lived and experienced life for so long and are now in this heightened extreme circumstance where everything is possible, facing a very traditional coming-of-age moral quandary that is completely amplified,

dialed up to a million because of their hybrid experience. Very interesting. And then to see, like, well, what feels like a shared response and where is their variance among the group? Already we have so much variance among the group and when they're scared, when they're excited, when they think something is okay, should something be a secret?

Do they blur it out? And how much of that is, to your earlier point about Wendy, how each of them is responding to where they find themselves now, how much of that is about who they were before? I think this is something that's really interesting to keep exploring.

And you're having so many dimensions of that kind of storytelling happening at once. You're having, as you said, kind of the kids among kids, and I think I agree with like the kid style acting and writing really good. Have been really, really fun so far and I think really, really fit in this world

in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated. I think really clicks. And then you also have sort of like kid with babysitter when carches around, right? Like not quite parent, but definitely authority figure. We're going to duck behind him kind of thing. And then adding in kid with stranger with Morrow and like how scary that is, but also like the positive attention that you're getting from it in Slightly's case. It's like all of these lost boys are trying to feel special, right, in their own way.

Right. It's like, why does Wendy get to be Wendy? Why can't I be the favorite? Oh, this person is talking to me and only me. They're kind of like have singled me out to be my friend. There's something like very gratifying about that. Yes. The predation on all of these kids in robot bodies is pointed and obvious and clear.

And it's like part of the text. Also, I mean, if Utoni rolls up with a white van and says there's candy and puppies inside, like these guys are cooked. Like everybody is getting in. They're getting in. Yeah. I think this is all really interesting. Like the everybody needs friends moment from slightly.

in response to the Kirsch Morrow Showdown, which is this very like almost reflexive, pure idea that he utters, the way that that is immediately then deployed as a manipulation tactic by Morrow. Like you said something very wise. Everybody needs friends. Will you be my friend? Praying upon that innocence and that open heart, these kids have gone through a lot.

They have suffered greatly. they're in this situation in the first place because of that suffering. And yet there is something there that the world and the circumstances of just living life have not completely beaten out of them. And it's so harrowing to see how that would immediately be something that someone else would seek to use to their gain. But of course, it's not surprising that that happens. And so, like, when Morrow called slightly and slightly goes from being scared to, like, at the

saying, you know, reluctantly, but saying like, okay. Yeah. I think that this tension, we talked about this a lot last week, but this tension, this ethical tension that is being presented to us, we're like, we in this show, watching everything that is happening, are clearly supposed to fear the proliferation of the AI tech. Like, no question. And yet, when we see slightly,

for example, on the other end of that call with Morrow, how can we not feel protective? How can we not feel a desire to keep him safe from the forces that are seeking to use him when Adam comes and talks to, talks to slightly and Smee, and they find out about that. the cameras. And Smea's like, wait, what? And Slightly's like, I don't think I'd like that. How can we not

feel appalled by the fact that, like we talked about last week, on the one hand, these children have been granted the opportunity to live on in some form. But on the other hand, it's not even just that they have been robbed of their agency and turned into someone else's tool. They don't even have access to the how of it. No. They don't even know what that looks like yet. And that is so disturbing and of course deeply dystopian that it puts us in this interesting kind of constant push pull pulley like system where everything around us is pulling on the heartstrings and bracing us at the same time which is dramatically smart smart quite rich complex very complex and it's juxtaposed too with someone in morrow's position who you know

you get this phone call with him and utani who it's like he he's He's not in this position because he didn't read the fine print. Like he knew what he was getting into. He knew what he was signing up for. Maybe he didn't fully grasp all of the emotional aspects of it. But he's an adult who made an adult decision. Yes. Not the case for the lost boys.

They did not read the service agreement. They did not understand what they were getting into. They were trying to live in desperate circumstances. And because they didn't have a lot of options, they agreed to this. And so as a result, you get them being preyed upon. You get sort of the counterpoint to as boy is explaining the reason why a childlike mind is so rich and fertile. is that it has this infinite imagination. Right.

If you have an infinite imagination, you are also infinitely susceptible to people tricking you and co-opting you and manipulating you, as we see Morrow doing. You're also like, I mean, I'm just loving all the ways that the Lost Boys are reflected in these more adult characters, right?

Characters like Morrow, characters like Kershue, even though he isn't a human, I will say, just like the refraction in Tim Aliphant's performance has really made something very clear for me, Mal. Help me. Raylan Givens.

and justified, speaks to every criminal and would be criminal in Backwater, Kentucky as if they are a child. You could transpose the like, when Tootles is walking up to the monitor and the like look with your eyes kind of line. He could have said that to Dewey Crow looking over some paperwork or something.

He probably did at some point. So it's like there was just something about like the way that these characters. Seth Bullock would never dare with Al Swargin. Really give him some Dewey Crow. Yes. Seth Bullock would probably just punch somebody if we're all being honest about what's happening there.

But I'm really enjoying the way that all of these adult characters are grappling with these sorts of moral complexities and the ethics and the reality of what they are seeing in front of them with actual children who have capabilities that are far beyond their own and yet need to be taught and trained and showing how to harness what they can be. What did you make on that front of the, I thought pretty inscrutable look on Kirsh's face when he was watching the Adam Smee slightly exchange and then Adam leaves and Smey and slightly kind of like huddle up together on the couch and we cut through the observation glass and Kirsh's standing there looking and then kind of looks like off to the side.

What is going through? Again, we'll talk about Kersh Moore through the lens of his conversations with boy, which I think point. to us in certain directions here. But to your point about what the children tell us about the adults, human or synthetic, what did you make of what was playing out on Kirsch's face as he watched

these two lost boys shelter together in the face of their terror with their drawings in their laps? Yeah. It's so hard to tell to your point about the inscrutability of that reaction shot of like how much of this is that character, feeling a genuine sort of tension between, you know,

the synthetics in the alien world are pretty good at following orders, generally speaking. Like, they are programmed in a way that makes them a little more pliable than a hybrid would be, where Wendy will just, like, run off and do stuff that a kid might do. There are exceptions to those rules, but by and large, they are, like, robots who have been programmed to follow directives. But, like, there is also, like, a kind of, like, is it me as a human projecting

a kind of empathy and a kind of emotion and a kind of understanding, and a kind of understanding on Kirsch towards these like kids he has been asked to Shepard that isn't ultimately there and what is the show saying about me projecting it if that's not there? Right. And like how much of what we witnessed there was genuine tenderness and concern

and how much of it is some level of judgment? Yeah. Some level of boy, I need to keep doubling, down basically on what he told Wendy last week. And what he told all of the lost boys when they were marching down in the hall, like, animals are afraid.

You're not animals. When he observes them, because one of the things that we saw in that scene with Adam, he's basically like, we watch everything through your eyes. Keep that in mind. Just the heads up. Genuine nightmare. It's like the classic old shining parody, The Simpson, the Simpson, Halloween. specials like Willie's like

Willie's like that's Willie time Not a lot of Willie time going on in Neverland at least at least yet among the lost boys but they have a lot to discover about themselves and their robot bodies. They sure do.

The moment where Adam's basically just like we missed something and it was what he what did the cyborg whisper to you slightly tells him and then Smea is basically like hey just

making sure he's not going to come kill us in our sleep, right? This was another great checkoff's blank moment because Adam's response to this is, of course not. This is a secure facility in the middle of the ocean. Checkoffs, this is a secure facility in the middle of the ocean. I'm sure it's fine. Marrow definitely doesn't already have a direct line to somebody on the inside. It'll definitely be okay. Nothing will go wrong. Everybody will be safe and make it out of the program alive. Without question. And that fingernail chip, I mean, definitely trackable, right? Like, he can just

follow the blip on the radar. Zero doubt. So the call is going to be coming from inside and outside of the house. We're going to have little bunnies zinos running

around and morrow tracking the fingernail neck chip. It's all happening. So Kursh is watching that. And I'm like, does he, is his heart? Like, I actually find myself like touched by the

plate of these scared young kids, or is he like, I got to toughen them up? they shouldn't be acting this way. They shouldn't be afraid. Or is it a little bit of both? And is that one of the interesting things about the journey we're going to go on

with Kirsch, where he feels like, I need to say, they're not human. Why are we pretending? But does the day-to-day, minute-to-minute reality of interacting with them make that harder? What does his humanity look like

and what shape does it take? I think that'll be really interesting to watch. And like... Especially if he views them as not being human in the way that he said that humans are animals and animals are afraid, does that make him bond with them more, right?

Does that give him a connection where it's like he clearly has a kind of contempt for Boy Cavalier, right? Thinly veiled. Barely. I mean, just the absolute bare minimum of talking to the guy who signs your robot paychecks, basically. The veil is the plastic sheeting that we could very clearly see the xenomorph font. Without a doubt. And so, yeah, if the hybrids are deemed by Kirsch to be, like, this is not just, an evolution, but this is something that, like, I have a lineage to. I am similar to you. And,

like, I am taking under my wing to show you and teach you about the world. Like, there is a, of course there's a kind of ownership and companionship and relationship in that. Yeah, absolutely. I, I liked to, like, because we're talking about what Kersh sees through his eyes, what maybe Adam sees, obviously what boy sees. I thought on the morrow front, too, and just in general, to your point about what all of these interactions between the child hybrids and the adults tell us about everyone. One of the things that I did enjoy about Morrow's first conversation with Sme and Slightly was I mean, we have the, tell me what, tell me what, right? The kind of hot pursuit right away of this information and the puzzle and the mystery and then the quest that that leads him on. But

it's one thing for us to hear in the two-part premiere repeatedly like, we're special, you're special. This is new. We're new. First time. Revolatory tech to kind of hear about how this had never happened and never been done and is this brand new thing. But for us to see that so clearly, now granted, Mara's been gone for 65 years. But, like, and he's still piecing it together, but right away, he can tell this is new.

Right away, he can tell this is different. And that was really interesting. And I thought it was, like, also interesting in this episode how there are a number of different moments. Like, we talked a lot last pod about how many moments really just kind of organically showed us the advantages of life as a hybrid, right? The conversation, the little perch on the cliff side for Wendy,

the speed, the strength, the conversation about all the different ways they could still die or can live forever. What does it mean to be immortal? The moments where boy looks at Wendy and is like, you think she's human. I am human. We talked about all of that, like the kind of heightening of humanity in this superpowered form. This episode was full of the inverse. of that. This episode was full

of Maro chokes slightly and slightly croaks out, get off me in a voice that sounds completely mechanical. There's nothing human about that voice and it forces us in all of these moments where we're

like these poor kids to be like, that's a machine. Yeah. Right? And like obviously the other really central example of this is like when Wendy is brought back to Arthur and Dame Sylvia and it's like we're talking about firmware we're talking a boy can't talk to her because they powered her down they took her offline

it seems safest they need to check her hybrid skeleton for micro fractures like they are talking about a piece of machinery the mood is not let's talk about a piece of machinery the mood is Dame Sylvia being like I failed her I'm supposed to be her guardian the mood is very human forward but But we're not allowed to forget ever in this episode that the hybrids were made, that they were built. Boy and Curley go over to the wall of faces and blood tanks and spines. And it's like, does it bother you that you're artificial? It's inescapable throughout this episode.

And that felt very deliberate. Completely. And it's happening through Wendy's story. It's also happening through Nibbs' story. You know, the flashes that are in her cut are, yes, like the body trauma of this eyeball alien trying to insert. turned itself into her skull. And that's sort of set opposite, her process of becoming a hybrid.

And the kind of like visual parallel of like the tentacles of the eye monster and the wiring under the table. Like there's just like a visual similarity as far as like. Absolutely. Again, a distinct reminder that you are not human. You do not get to choose your own name. You are the identity that we assigned to you based on Peter Pan of all things, which Nibs has some questions. Fair. Nibs does.

Yeah. But every one of these characters is being forced to confront this. I'm like, I'm so fascinated by the circumstances in which the lost boys are scared and which ones they are not. Like, Morrow shows up and everyone's pretty scared of him in the way that a child would be scared of an adult. Some of the aliens, honestly, they seem pretty chill with. And the general, like, sparking, destructing, imploding spaceship they're on,

like, not too bothered by it. In a way that honestly, I'm not even saying that rings false. Like, there is a naive kind of, like, fearless. that comes with being a kid in certain circumstances. And then the one thing, the boogeyman shows up, it's like, oh my God, I'm paralyzed. A stranger coming up to you and asking you questions about your life and forcing you back against a wall and grabbing your neck,

a child would be terrified. The adventure of a monster that you think is a bear? That could be fun. A little scary, a little apprehensive. but fun. Yeah. I think that that's really like, that's a great call.

Like the most core aspects of childhood terror are still coming to the fore there. Yes. And the things that you like, because this idea of like, is this person going to trick me or deceive me? It doesn't matter that they're a hybrid. They should still be afraid of that.

You're in a spaceship. If it fell on you and a part of you broke, they could fix you. That's less scary now. if you needed to jump out of an open hole, you could land. You can do that now. So what fear remains intact and preserved

and what fear is altered because of their new circumstances? It's a great call. It's really interesting. On this front of like, we talked a lot about Ice Age, last pod. So Slightly is watching

when Morrow calls him, he's watching a movie. He is watching the 2003, I believe he is watching the 2013. animated film epic? I believe this is correct. I have not seen this. Have you?

I think there's a reason we have not seen it now. So I was hoping you would be like, I am on it. I'm not on it. I will not be on it. In the distant future. The only thing kids are allowed to watch is garbage animation. It's just truly like bottom drag stuff that we're pulling up here. Amazing to see what has survived.

Okay, so neither of us have seen this. So let's just turn to Wikipedia here. Please. Here's what this movie is apparently. out. Let's see if we can glean any significance from this. Wikipedia tells me that the 2013 animated film epic is about this. Quote, in the film, after teenager Mary Catherine gets shrunk and teleported to a tiny woodland kingdom inhabited by talking slugs, flower people, and tiny soldiers called Leafmen.

She has swept up in a wild adventure between good and evil and alongside her new friends, must fight to protect the world she never knew existed. That was an incredible read. I mean, I gotta say, your dramatization of Wikipedia, A++. I learned from the best, Chris Ryan. We were going to hit Curly Next, but you already mentioned Nibs, and this actually going from Epic to Nibs feels right, because Nibs, as you alluded to already,

just actively starts talking about Peter Pan. in this episode. So let's like just spend another minute here on our dear sweet nibs who is like really going through it, really going through it. I am so concerned about nibs. Tootles doesn't have much to do in this episode. Tootles is basically like, I'm going to explain why Tootles is named Tootles in response to this Peter Pan conversation and then like helps out in the lab. I'm expecting the Tootles has a big adventure coming in subsequent episodes. Or maybe has the safest role to play of all in an alien story, which is someone who is just off screen. Just stay, please stay out of the

xenomorph's line of sight or the bunny xenomorph's line of sight. You're going to be just fine. But can you be out of the line of sight if you're like the Kirsch's right hand in the lab? I don't know. Might be a candidate to be dissolved. You got to resign from that post. Go work in the kitchen with the floor of Hana.

Yeah, it's true. He did have quite the dance. Yeah. I'm worried about everyone. But I'm worried about Nibs in a slightly different way. Because Nibs is going through something existential. And the fact, we flashed to a lot, as you noted, we kind of cut to like the pressing of the eyeball, thinking of the eyeball monster, but also my synthetic body, pulling like her, you know, the cheek skin. Yes. Flashing back to that conversation, that exchange with Wendy in the premiere, like, can we, like, can we go home? You can't go home.

So, okay, I, my worry and my fear and my question is like, when we have this trippy, creepy, you know, hallway journey for Nibbs. We get it from Wendy to, of course, passing the, like, kind of dripping water. We pass our favorite hazmat wall sprayer. Dude, we get to see a face this time. Taking a smoke break. Smoking a SIG. Just smoking a SIG right there in the middle of the work.

I mean, the hybrids don't need to breathe it, you know? The second hand is just not an issue for a lot of the people who live here. I guess so. I feel like it seems that Nibs is going to try to go home. and then not be allowed to go home and basically be shut down, taken offline, and that that will be very upsetting to watch. That's sort of what I'm expecting now on the Nibbs front,

but maybe that's too almost like basic and tame. Maybe it will be even more horrific than that. Could be. I'm curious what you thought about the way that Nibs asked these questions about Peter Pan. Like, why couldn't we keep our own names? Curley's like, we needed code names, we needed secret names. Okay, but why Peter Pan?

Why didn't we get to choose? How come Wendy gets to be Wendy again? All the Wendy resentment. Why the lost boys? We're half girls. Did you feel like, okay, it's not just there for us as the audience. The place is named Neverland. They're all named after Peter Pan.

When they're transformed into their hybrid bodies, scenes from Peter Pan are playing on the ceiling. It actually is meant it is active text in the world. And so it would be natural for children to ask these questions and talk about this out loud. Or did it in any way tip to you into the like Noah Holly's show and his work here? Camp? Like, how did this play for you?

It's kind of both in a way that, to be honest, Noah Holly projects often are. Like, they can be a little direct in their referencing. And it is like, look, these shows are, you know, Fargo Legion. Like, these shows are full of heady and emotional stuff happening. Yes. The allegory and some of the homage is not always the most subtle. And it can be a little bit jarring. but I kind of just take it as part of the deal

with his version of storytelling, but it does take you, it pulls you out a little bit. It forces you to confront this, like, again, taking the subtext and just making it text to the point that the characters are talking about it. Is it a different level of interaction

that, like, I'm a little uncomfortable with, but it's just kind of the worlds that he builds. Yeah, like, I was on the fence with this one as well because I agree, it feels very like, this is the mood and the vibe. But on the one hand, And children are curious. True.

And if you were named Nibbs, you'd have some question. Why did someone name me Nibbs? And if you knew that it came from a book, you'd be like, well, fuck that. Why didn't I get to decide what book I would? Like, I can believe that this conversation would happen with the Lost Boys in a way that I would not accept. I think, if it happened among, like, the adult characters in the show. And yet, there is an, I think, slightly undeniable element of like this feels maybe more like a conversation the people watching the show should have than the people in the show should have. Right.

I completely agree with it. with you. Yeah, again, having child and childlike characters gives you a lot of latitude to explore all kinds of questions, to ask things out loud, to have characters chasing plot threads they wouldn't otherwise, or as you were alluding to, is Nib's the kind of character who would just

try to leave and go home? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but in terms of the original kids before they transferred bodies, like, she seemed like one of the youngest by far, right? Like, seemed very, very young. And it's just like clearly not as far ahead developmentally as some of the other lost boys are. And so, yeah, like,

she would be more scared. Yeah, she would have more questions. She might have more jealousies. She's just not quite up to that speed. I mean, I would have to think that several of these characters are going to meet very unfortunate ends. Like, not all of the lost boys are going to survive. I would be shocked. Feels like a lock. I would be shocked. And in doing so, I imagine we're going to wrestle with some version of Morrow's question of like, when is a machine, not a machine? And one of the answers to that might be you get turned off. And then you're not really anything anymore. You're just kind of a toaster that's sitting there waiting to be used idly because your consciousness is a blinked out of existence.

Yeah. And like what is more disturbing ultimately? I mean, it's all upsetting. The prospect of all of it is upsetting. But what is what is more disturbing and kind of destabilizing ultimately for us to see one of the lost boys dissolved by the flora fauna? I mean, that would be grim. But boy cavalier deciding?

Yep. or Adam deciding you tried to be your own person. I told you that the whole point of this was to preserve your humanity. And then you tried to be a person and make a decision about a thing you wanted. And so I turned you off. And I took your life away. Fuck. Like that would be heavy.

Yes. And I feel like we actually kind of have to have an element of that in the story. And Nibbs feels like the character who is positioned to take us down that path. Currently, it could be a number of different characters ultimately. It feels like that's where we're heading. And positioned in the middle of it, you have Dame Sylvia, you have Arthur, who are already kind of voicing their opposition to treating the hybrids as purely machines, right? Like these are people with sentience, that these are human beings who have been transported into these bodies. And you're right, like, it's a dramatically different turn of events between this child is dying of a terminal illness they had no control over versus I'm going to press this button and they are gone.

It's just a completely, like, maybe it is like a trolley problem kind of trick of the mind, but it is a thing that you. you were actively choosing to do. Yeah, definitely. Not every lost boy is struggling to adapt. Curly seems to be love in life. Oh, yeah. As a lost boy. A pleasure to have in class.

At least really, not only has completed the assignments on time, but has done the extra credit. No doubt. Has that learned French in a week. Impressive. Look, there's no doubt. There's no arguing it. Very impressive, very precocious.

I thought this scene was great and really upsetting. This scene between Curly and Boy. And we're now going to get to kind of like the blank and boy section. We're going to do Curly and Boy. We're going to do Arthur and Dame Sylvia and Boy. We're going to do Kirsh and Boy. We've got a lot of like this character as a very weird exchange with Boy Cavalier about something, stretch of the pod here.

Curly Visiting the boss Who bare feet up on the desk once again And seems to be building a Lego set Yes So Boy Cavalier is both me And Viseras Targaryen Which like all around, it's worrying

I mean he's you and Vassarist Targary And like Mark Zuckerberg He's many many people Put through some kaleidoscopic prism That upsets me greatly but it's also unquestionably effective. And look, the set he's building, you know, monocolor as it is, like, does seem interesting and challenging. Absolutely.

And he was multitasking, you know, multitasking. I feel like I did feel a little like, okay, I caught a stray here with the commentary of like, you know, the boy cavalier of Peter Pan, like the genius who doesn't want to grow up. And we show you that because he's playing with Legos at his desk. And I'm like, I mean, I'm a 38-year-old woman and my house is. positively littered with Lego sets. They're everywhere. Enter me devoting

countless hours of my life to a children's game. You know, it's just like, look, now we have chosen to live in the sandbox. I'm not mad about it, but sometimes you've got to look up

and say, wow, the adults all have their big pants on and they're out of the world doing stuff. Not us. We're just here with our feet up, building Legos.

Not us. We're playing basketball and building Legos. And you know what? We're having a fucking blast, honestly. No doubt. Curly's here to talk her shit.

Okay? She is like, why is Wendy your favorite? First of all, go off Curley. Oh, yeah. Making some fair points. You know you're worse, and you're there to state it clearly. She got broken.

It was a little fucked up, though, because, like, Curley last time I checked, you didn't go head to head with a xenomorph, so get back to us when you do, just saying? But is that discretion being the better part of valor? Maybe.

You know, she didn't go chasing off, like, for, you know, phantom siblings to save. Which Curley is happy to say, right? She's like, all she cares about is her brother. I'm thinking about the world. I'm thinking about how to make it better. I have ideas.

I could be you. I could be better than you. And my ideas are so good. I'm not even going to tell you what they are because then you'll take them. Like, Curly is feeling herself a little bit here, but also like, I really like this. On the one hand, I could see some people maybe responding to this. as like this feels a little soon for the hybrids to turn on each other. But this to me felt,

I just mentioned Vassaris. I'll stick with the fire and blood House of the Dragon a comp for a second. When Curley's like, my dad always threw the first pancake in the trash after Boy said she's my favorite because she was first. I was like I could not help but think of a famous fire and bloodline that Joe and I talk about all the time when we break down, House of the Dragon, the cruelty of children is known to all.

This was just such vintage, sometimes kids huddle together sweetly on a couch and work on their drawings, and sometimes clicks for them in the cafeteria. Sometimes you don't know why somebody else got picked before you in gym, and you're mad about it. All of this feels like it's in the brew of what it means to have formative experiences of growing up, And then you put that in, as Curley literally says in this scene, a super brain. Yeah. And you're like, well, wait, why do you not see that I'm the best? I came here to give you this report because I'm standing also.

No more pooping. Curly's just like, I'm running down all of the highlights of her time as a hybrid so far. And Boy is impressed. I want to talk about what he says in response and what that tells us about him. But anything else on the curly side of this. that you want to note. I'm living for this part of it. Honestly, it would be

weirder for me if this many children were in one place and one of them was not alienated or had their feelings hurt or miffed in some way or striving for some kind of hierarchical supremacy.

That feels as natural. Seeking attention. Completely. Again, all of them want to be special. And some of them are getting that attention and some aren't. Some are more bashful than others. That's all like,

that feels like it's in like the natural firmament of the show. And this show, in addition to being like, what is humanity in relation to AI, in relation to kind of hybrid existences, in relation to an alien? It also just seems like it wants to be a show about, like,

the mind of a child and how, like, what role children can fill and what roles they can't, how they're manipulated, how they're, again, how they're taking advantage of. And this relationship does feel like come back after class for special attention kind of teaching, you know, like a little bit of like after hours, office hours kind of vibe, tutoring.

in a way that feels a little icky and it feels a little icky because boy always perpetually feels a little icky. Definitely. I thought that the way that he like said, you know, I'm going to give you some readings, I'm going to give you some recordings because she's impressed him, right?

And then he says, and then we can get together and play? No, thank you. It's a no. No, thanks. It's a call the authorities. This was disturbing and it was obviously meant to be. and the fact that boy is willfully seeking out a state of arrested development,

striving to hold on to the state of childhood as long as he can, while he is now an adult, is so creepy and disturbing and obviously meant to make us feel that tension and that like what about what he is saying and what drove him there, the mystery that we still have to unlock on that front. and like how does he even does he have to reckon with this? Like does he realize that this is like something

that other people would be disturbed by? Does he care? Like it's early days still, but that's all really interesting. I thought that like, you know, to your point also like, I think that it's interesting to think about like all of these kids being told they're special.

Right. So like what's more likely? I mean, it's the answer is all of these. the above. But like, if you had a kid who was like, oh, I don't feel special, I'm jealous of the kids who are told they're special, that would be one type of pain, one type of longing, one type of jealousy. And then if you had almost like a, you know how you always hear that like the most upset person in the Olympics? It's like not the people who didn't finish or who didn't medal. It's the silver medalist. Like Curly's the silver medalist. And that's like a painful

place to be when you feel like you're that close. So why aren't you the best? It's like you're, You are told you're special. You actually see that you're special. You believe it. You know you are. So how could anyone be ahead of you? That brings out a different type of mania in people. No doubt.

Especially when she has like kind of a sub-authority role within the team. Like, Kersh gives her some responsibility. She definitely has like an older sister kind of vibe with Nibs in terms of like trying to help her feel better. Like there's there's all of these little dynamics in play that are telling Kirli like, you deserve this. People are looking to you to do things. that they're just kind of giving to Wendy,

but you are earning it in a different kind of capacity. I thought that the Curly Nib stuff was actually really interesting because on the one hand, it did feel like nurturing. But on the other hand, it felt very condescending to me. Definitely. It was like, you know, Curly's like, I don't know, sweetie. Because like, it's secret.

Like, fuck off. Nibs is scared. So in terms of what Boy says in response here, when he asks Curley if she knows what a prodigy is. Of course I do, right? A child genius. And Boy says, what most people don't understand is what makes them geniuses is the fact that they're children. This is what you alluded to earlier.

Because children have access to a world of infinite imagination. So now we think back to like a scene we broke down for a while last week, the conversation between Boy and Dame Sylvia about Boy's quest, his pursuit of a fulfilling, engaging, interesting conversation on the mountain top. And we were like, and he thinks he's going to get that with a child? And Dame Sylvia said that to him too. Now we understand why he feels this way about it. Or we're starting to understand more about why he feels this way about it. This idea to him that a child's mind is actually superior, genuinely superior, that after you move through that phase of your life into another, you have lost something that is foundational

to how he thinks about possibility and achievement and ambition. And, you know, that's the other thing about, like, a story where technology and the scope of life is very present, it's like a different version of, but a little bit of a, like, kind of good place-esque assessment of, like, eternal afterlife. And, like, you know, the idea that the thing that gives you, that gives anything meaning is it being finite. Yeah. Like, when you think about the length of a human life and then you think about how much of it or how little of it exists in this. part that boy would circle and call ideal, well, like, when you stretch that out into the infinite, that's an even smaller.

So of course he's trying to make that last. For sure. In the double career, it's like, yeah, well, the adult minds can't make the job. It's like, is that even true? Or does he not want them to make the job? Is this whole pursuit for boy about being able to hold, to either rediscover or hold onto, you know, again, he's the Peter Pan in this equation.

and he's the one who doesn't want to grow up, if he was the prodigy, he was the boy genius, and the source of his genius and his assessment was his childlike mind, then when he grows out of that, does he have any self-worth anymore? That's the thing. Who is he to himself?

I'm so curious about this aspect of the show, and your perspective, Malin, like, where you think boy is right now, being confronted with ostensibly the exact thing that he wants. And the terrifying reality of seeing it happen in a real time. And I, like, in so much of what, you were saying about like the like the finiteness of like the finality of life and the limited

resources we have like that is what makes learning French impressive and so a machine learning French in a week is actually not that impressive because it's downloading a program of French. Pick up the pace, Curley. And so at some point the scale tips for Curley and Boy of this being that I have kind of manifested, maybe not created, but imported into this body and given all these capabilities is achieving all the things that I want to achieve. But they're easier for Curly or for Wendy or for any of the lost boys than they would have been for Boy in the first place. And so there's the pride that's going to come out.

There is like, you know, we mentioned earlier that as Mora is like scrolling through the digital archives about Boy Cavalier, what he is gleaning from them. One of the little stories in there is about how Boy crashed his electric vehicle. Yeah. Because he refused to use like the AI steering or whatever. Yes. Let's talk about this for a minute. For sure.

And it's like, okay, so a 15-year-old boy cavalier doesn't want to use the, doesn't want to use the self-driving car, wants to drive it himself, crashes it into something. Holy metaphor, you know, what could possibly happen in our story? How much of that is a genius thinking he's a genius and smarter than everybody else? How much of that is a human thinking that he is inherently superior to the artificial steering? It's like there's so much to untangle with everything that boy is doing and separating, like, again, the inter-like species or like cross-species with robots dynamics of all of this

compounded with this is a very, very smart but ultimately very flighty person and very easily distractible. Very like ADHD coded honestly for Boy Cavalier of like, oh, there's this, all this alien R&D, like forget my life's work. Like let's chase after this thing for five minutes. I mean, Kirsch literally says that damn, right? He says, was it worth it? What? Risking a decade's work on something new and shiny. He's like, dude, you got distracted. And like, that makes me scared and it makes me judge you. And I want to come back to that from the curse side of it,

because I think that's really interesting to parse. But I like where you're taking us with Boy, so let's stick to the Boy side of it. Okay, I think my quick answer to everything you just asked is like all of the above. So like now let's hit all of the parts of it. Because I think Boy is like just genuinely one of the more interesting characters in the show obviously intended to be, but it's, I think, affect. so far.

I think the like hot shit youngest trillionaire one of the headlines that we see when Morrow is Googling, info searching. Binging. Yeah. Bing made it this part in the future.

Bing, Ice Age, and 2013 movie epic. Bing made it, but you can only access Bing at the very specific internet cafe slash like disco test. that tomorrow happens to be making the call to slightly from. There's just a lot of like what feels like a little bit more like a vintage hubris at play with boy, right?

For sure. Like he's like, Utoni fucked up. This is just like a hot shot CEO talking about his rival being inferior. Yeah. Right? So we have that. There's that part of it. I am going to take this because it's mine and why would I worry about this other person for a second?

all I, the only reason I'm thinking about that other person is because this is yet another reminder that I'm better, right? So there's that. There is the hubris of what we joked about earlier on the pod to like, you know, Arthur is like, I've got some notes and concerns about bringing these creatures back and boy says, oh please, we have a high quarantine lab in the sub-levels. is on a basically like trolley tram magnetic pull to the opening egg before Kirsch pushes him away. It's just like all of this is like, it's, it's icarus after icarus after icarus moment from Boyer here. We really needed like a Donnie Darko style. Like he's just sort of floating towards the egg.

Like full on track shot. Well, we will be returning to Donnie Darko when we get our creepy bunny. So like it's... Time will tell. We haven't left Donnie Darker corner yet. I thought that the, this was one of the more kind of dramatic, like the Prodigy team bringing back their bounty, their hall, and boy observing from the upper deck.

Yeah. Just the kind of like, from a filmmaking perspective, the very like kind of music score forward stretch and we're really lingering in boys' expressions. Like the music changes when he sees the xenomorph. like to your and Kirsh's point about how distracted he is and the kind of like the ADHD aspect of it like he

okay we hear from I was actually confused by this we hear from Dame Sylvia like we're a couple weeks away from going to market with the hybrids I was like you are I thought these were the prototypes that was actually like I was kind of like this doesn't make sense and it's weird what am I missing here but regardless what it does remind us of as do a number of other scenes in the episode is like

he has invented something that nobody else had made Yes. And he already, I mean, on the one hand, he's like very engaged in his conversation with Carly. He's obsessed with Wendy in a disturbing way. That's all still true. But he's like, my life's work in one of the great achievements in the history of humanity is instantly no longer as interesting to me as this oozing corpse you just brought into my lair. Completely. Right away.

And maybe because he and part of the nature of his genius is he's always accepted. excited by and like gripped by whatever the next frontier is. Like I actually thought this was another when he literally says all this ground to break new life forms with acid for blood like an undiscovered country. On the one hand, I'm like, okay, this is how this guy thinks. This is how he's programmed. This is actually how he sees the world. And we should know that.

On the other hand, I was like, do people talk that way? We say when we're talking when we're analyzing the stories, undiscovered country, like, do people actually say that about their pursuits? Maybe, I don't know. Someone like him might. You know, I could be sold that. I agree. I could be sold that, too, that he is, like, talking about himself in real time, the way that scholars talk about great men and their achievements. Definitely, that's true.

Come on. The pomposity alone of this man. The pomposity in the pajamas of this man. That's the title of his memoir. I'm looking forward to it. It might be. But we got a couple, like, real-time titles of his memoirs because, so, okay, You mentioned the crash. The one that like really, really stuck out to me of the headlines and the subheads that we get to glimpse on Maro's screen. I thought this was interesting to see like the triumvir, it becomes the five and get a little bit of like the global evolution of history that way. You mentioned the crash.

That was a really interesting one. There's a headline, Boy Genius breathes new life into Android. And then the paragraph that we see includes this sentence. Boy Cavalier has indicated that the progress made came as a direct result of throwing himself into his grief after the death of his. Dot, dot, dot, we don't see the rest. I mean, the full-on comp into him being a Disney character at this point

is just right there. You know, like, behind every boy trying to create a mortal life is a boy with mommy or daddy issues. Like, you know, it's just right there. So we have now another layer here. Like we have talked about and believe that boy is focused on preserving something about his own mind and brain. That seems intuitive and inevitable. Absolutely.

He is seeking, though, as we already knew from the first two episodes, some sort of peer in the form of the hybrids. A conversation on the mountaintop. So who did he lose? Is it a parent? Is it a sibling? Could be. Is it a friend? Like the idea of that defining death in his life being a kid.

Yeah. A kid who helped unlock something about his imagination. A kid he felt like he was exploring a life with and creating a world building with. And now that's the whole he's seeking to fill feels likely to me. Especially with all the Wendy Hermit elements of the story. And frankly, like, if you were in Boy Cavalier's position, why would you bring Hermit back to your top secret lab? like why would you do that if there's not some kind of

like familial essence in the works here or maybe it's just like this guy this actual human has been exposed to this alien and I want to study him it could be as simple as that but I wouldn't be surprised if there's more in the brew yeah I feel like we're getting a sibling reveal could be

should we talk about boy and Kirsch please I mean this is just fucking great just a great buddy comedy everything that is happening with Kirsch and simply, the only thought, unsurprisingly,

is wonderful. I'm getting real Burton-nerny vibes from these two. How much of that is just because of the eyebrows? Honestly, it might be,

but they are immaculate. How's susceptible are you to the eyebrows in terms of your crops? Boy calling Kersh when they're still at the crash site and being like,

I thought you were supposed to be better than a man, but all I'm hearing excuses. First of all, notable insight into his managerial technique.

I have some feedback for him. How would you say that contrast with your own? How much of a boy cavalier are you? God, well, outside of the Legos, I mean, I can't say not at all, given that we share a passion for Legos, certainly. I can't say that I've ever taken a work call by holding an iPad in my feet.

I can't say I've ever done that yet. There's still time. Your evolution, you're on your own journey, now. I like to think so. I like to think so. What did you make of that line from Boy? Because we know from the premiere that Boy doesn't think sits like curse or better than humans actually.

Like, you know, he said when Dame Sylvia was like, what about Kirsch? Kirsch's information smart data, cross-referferences with the music's very great philosopher, but that's not wisdom. Like he seems to genuinely believe that the human element is a necessary, that's what unlocks the alchemy of the whole thing. So this was almost like there was derision in this comment. There was like mockery and condescension in this comment.

And surely Kirsh is feeling that and then like boomeranging it back to boy in this episode in a way that I felt very satisfied watching a number of different times. When he says like, was it worth it? What? Risking a decade's work on something new and shiny. On the one hand, I read this as like, or I think we have a number of different ways we could read it. you could say, like, is this Kirsch confronting his own sense of, like,

what is my place and all this? Do I feel, I've always felt superior? Do I now feel inadequate in the face of this alien life form? Is it just that he's confronting, like, I work for a dipshit fickle wonderkin? And like, I don't really like that. I'm better than him. Why does he get to tell me what to do?

Or is it like, wait, I thought I mattered to this guy, but he was willing to throw all of us away on a fucking lark. Yeah. So what does that mean? And then the way that he relishes, like again, he pulls boy away from the egg, but he lets him lean in for like a minute there. Yes.

And then he just, I thought this was a great power play from Kirsch, where when he basically explains to him and he's like, you know, like you, the human host, like you, and the dramatic turn, the way he looks at boy, and the diminishment in that like you.

The reminder to boy in that moment, you're vulnerable in a way I'm not. You are inferior to me. You think this is your playground? You can't even come in the fucking room, dude. I thought that curse just dunked on Boy here. Which was even more satisfying after that opening note from Boy. What does you make of all of this?

It's tough being in a human AI confrontation and wanting to side with the AI, but this is what Boy Cavalier does to us. I don't think we're meant to feel like a great amount of empathy for the tech lord trillionaire neither. This is where the complexity of the exercise comes into play. But he's also like maybe not entirely wrong about Kirsch.

Right? That like Kirsh's brain is oriented a certain way. Towards, towards data, towards straight fact, toward the accumulation of information, a very particular kind of information. And from that perspective, he does lack wisdom. From a certain perspective, this is a guy sitting at his computer, typing

things into Chad GPT. And Chad GPT is looking at him and being like, what the fuck, dude? Like, another query? Now you want to know about five different alien species? Like, we were just going on about artificial intelligence. What's happening? So it's like there is, there honestly is some truth in both of their perspectives.

But this is like one of the clearest articulations on the show so far of just the natural collision points between human organic thought and artificial thought, right? Like the ways that those things are going to bump up against each other, the ways that their forms allow them to do and capitalize on different things. Even just sort of like, you can. You could even, if you want to put Kersh into a human form, this is like a tech company type story of like the visionary Steve Jobs type and the very practical Steve Wozniak type, right? It's like someone in operations versus someone in like kind of inside or bigger picture thinking. Great partnerships often have some of all of that stuff.

Is this a great partnership? I would say probably not. Seems pretty doomed, but I'm loving to watch it. I think co-sign all of that. And I think on the, is this a great partnership front, like, we talked about this a lot last episode, but Prodigy is a shit show. Oh, completely. The fact that this is a company that has achieved this remarkable thing, whatever you think about it, undeniably a remarkable thing. And yet, like, I thought this was palpable not only obviously with Kersh, but with Arthur and Dame Sylvia and Boy, because, like, you know, we talked about with all of these different characters on the double premiere.

like they had quickly established, effectively established, different core relationships to the work, different beliefs, different ideas about what made sense and what was right and what they were aiming for. But they weren't actively screaming at each other, grow a spine? No. Like the fever pitch of the attention has already reached.

It just feels like this is so combustible already and of course bound inevitably to lead to catastrophe. How could it not? And it feels like with Dame Sylvia, could we be surprised and could this change for sure? But it feels like through three episodes, we have a clear sense of her relationship to this work. She thinks of Wendy as her child.

She says she's her guardian. She's talked about her before. Like these are our children now. Yeah. I mean, seeing her leaning on Wendy's like operating table. Won't leave her side. Like in her sick bed, basically. And yeah, for a child who was so recently, like, sick in bed terminally.

It's just the visual is so striking in that moment. Very much so. And she talks about her guilt and her shame almost for, like, allowing somebody who she believed she's meant to protect to be put in this perilous circumstance. And Arthur's like, it was her choice. And then he's like, it was boys' choice. But what's the common denominator? It wasn't your choice.

And like, I thought that Arthur, we've gotten the least time with Arthur of all of the, I guess maybe like Arthur and Adam kind of tied, but of the prodigy brain trust. But like, this made me really eager this scene to spend more time with Arthur.

I'm curious, like, I mean, he's completely thrown by what's happening. But what did you read as the source of that? Is this like the boy trillionaire is really reckless with my heart work and that's fucked up.

Is this some version of what Dame Sylvia feels, which is like a genuine protective instinct over Wendy and the other charges? What do you think is going on with Arthur? I think there is naturally a little more overlap between his perspective and Dame Sylvia's because of that. Ultimately, I kind of do get a sense that he's coming from a place of like, you are jeopardizing my work and all of our work. Everything that we collectively at

Prodigy have been building towards, you're just throwing it out in the world. And with that, there is like a tinge of humanism, right? There's a tinge of like protectiveness over these children that I think aligns him with Dame Sylvia certainly more closely than boy. Like, just wants to fuck you

that guy so badly, but simply cannot do it because the money must be sweet. It's got to spend well. That said, you're living on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. I know, but honestly, the lodgings look great. Like, I know that scene with Nibs was so upsetting, but I was kind of like, this room is sweet. I mean, I would live there. You know, it's a little underground bunker, but if you're going to live in an underground bunker, swank it out, you know, it's, it's well done,

lots of textures, a lot of color palettes happening. I'm not opposed to it. A rich woods. Oh, come on. Some stonework. Like, I want to talk to the contractor who's responsible for all this stuff. Ultimately, though, like, it's just natural that they are kind of put like across purposes from Boyd and therefore a boy and therefore like closer allies. Even though I would say at his heart of hearts from what we've seen of Arthur so far, yes, maybe he has a little bit of a bleeding heart. Yes, he has a sentimentality towards these kids. But I think he maybe is a little bit more like more of a practical scientist than she is in certain ways. And yet, and yet either one of those perspectives is justified in being very irritated by what Boyd does on a daily basis.

Yeah. I'm curious to see too if like either or both members of that relationship. relationship end up like being more of a, we've made a mistake. Like we've done a thing we should not have done. Force in the story because right now it feels like, you know, if the, if, if the emotion is so deeply entwined for you in the work, then it's harder to maybe see that and make that assessment about your own mistakes and your own like kind of trespassing into something that is like unholy or dangerous and kind of. unleash something into the world that maybe should not be unleashed.

Well, especially as you're participating in the like, it's not our fault, it's boys' fault. Like, we're just following orders kind of thinking. But it's like, you built this machine or at least you're running this machine. Right. I think this is an interesting segue back for just a minute or two because we talked about Morrow a little bit already. But into the other aspects of the Morrow plot from this episode that we haven't hit as much because obviously Morrow is like the threat to prodigy. He's the opposing force. but I think a lot of what you just said applies to him too.

This question of like, okay, if the anchor to some semblance of a quote-unquote normal life are gone and it just becomes about the work and the cause and the pursuit, it's very like, you're my mission, right? Like, what the way? Sometimes it's beautiful. This also hit too close to home, Mal. The pods are our mission and we have abandoned all. Impleance of a normal life.

It's true. Like, I really like the, you know, it's always, I think, a good move to bring a character back and a lot of time has passed and they have to confront what that means. Like when he calls Utani and is like, wait, oh, she's like, you knew my grandma. And he's like, everyone I know and loved is dead. And we get the really sweet little moment. he's on the phone with, when he's talking about his daughter and he's like, I had, you know, I was a father. I had a kid. Like, she loved raisins. And there's the smile on his face,

which feels like important for us to see that there's that affection that has called back up. Because when he's on that call with Utani, he's just like, everyone I knew and loved is gone. So, because she's like, come back in. I'm calling you in. Let's debrief. He's like, I got the data. And he's like, I'm going to go get the specimens too. This is all I have. The work is all I have. the mission is all I have. Without that, why am I here? What am I back for? Why did, and not just that. Not just how do I make sense of my life in a very kind of like, clearly they're going a little bit for the Ripley, you know, at the beginning of aliens. You've been in stasis for 57 years. So like, why, you know, you're, everyone's dead and gone. Why don't you just go back to like do

some more work now? They're going for that comp, clearly. That scene, that like, cut scene where she learns about her daughter gets me every single time. Always. It's a hundred percent success rate, no matter how many times you watch the movie. But like, For Marrow, it's also, okay, well, I kind of need to, like, justify the decisions that I've made. Yeah. I need this to have been a thing I could at least try to delude myself into believing was worth it. Because everything that he says to me and slightly, he's basically, like, more than one monster hatched on the Maginot, right? Like, when the monsters come and you can't, you don't help.

or when he says like when you hear the screams and all you do is save yourself. Like, was he always like this? How much of this is like, why did he become a cyborg? How much of this is about the decisions he made after that? Would he have done these things before that mission? Is that why he was there to be a person who was capable of doing those things? Did what happened? Did what unfolded in real time reveal this to him about himself?

And I love that like when slightly asked if he's a robot and Mara said, wouldn't that be nice to be all machine instead of what I am, the worst parts of a man? We, you know, we open the series with this like, the race for immortality will come in three guys as cyborg synth hybrids. And the idea of seeing basically what the cyborgs can achieve. Right. But then also like the basically like self-loathing paired with that prowess that the cyborg feels for himself.

was really interesting. I'm interested to spend more time with Morrow. I thought that the way his eyes turned red and the sweat just cascaded off of him as he plugged into the Matrix was very upsetting to watch. Quite upsetting. But very important in this way of seeing this like painful physically taxing bridge between man and machine. It's like you can almost feel like his body rejecting all of the hardware. This is not a thing that should be happening. Not a thing that should be happening.

There is something like perverse about it in a way that feels like, even more distinctly inhuman in some ways than the hybrids do. And you mentioned kind of the like three explanations of, you know, sentient robot slash human life existing on the show in the preamble. When that came up and it showed cyborgs,

I'm like, it feels like a hat on a hat. It's like, it's not that I'm not interested. It's like, we're already introducing these hybrids. And it's like, do we also need these cyborgs? I would say coming out of one and two, my biggest question mark was, how are they going to sell Wendy and Hermit and the importance of their relationship.

Still TBD on that front. Yeah. Second question was, are they going to really make this cyborg thing feel like it's an important part of the show? Because we spent so much in one and two talking about hybrids versus synthetics versus humans. And the cyborg was just kind of like the guy on the side

with the T-1000 arm who's like cutting people down. This clarified a lot for me and made so much of that feel so much more interesting. And so much like, I just didn't think that there would be this much philosophically to dive into with the cyborgs of the idea of, what brings a person to surrender this much of their humanity? And what would it do to them afterwards?

And you can put that not just in terms of getting a robot arm, but also signing up for a 65-year mission by which you're going to return to a completely different world. Yeah. And like the idea that he feels like he is then between, like caught between worlds. And where does he even want to seek acceptance or belonging? Does he think that's possible? Worst parts of a man, it's like the fact that he is able,

vulnerable to the facehuggers because he is like, this is an organic matter. He's not an artificial being in full. It's an interesting way of reminding us that the vulnerability of humanity also means that other aspects of humanity that we would prize are still present in him.

And maybe the question for him is how, actively he seeks to stifle and suppress those, or whether those are things that can be heightened again inside of him, and if the journey for him is confronting that, like, he regrets the decisions that he made, that he laments the decision. Right now, it's the opposite. It's like, well, I have to give meaning and purpose to that by doing that again.

Yeah. I said, we heard him say, the specimens are the mission, period, in episode one, and now he's just doubling down. The specimens are the mission period for me now, still. well, was that always the case? Did he need that to give him meaning at some point? What did you, were you like at all? We talked about this last week. I feel like this falls into the bucket of like we just have more to learn here in subsequent episodes, but were you at all like confused by when Morrow said to Smean slightly, here's a scenario, you're the chief security

officer on a ship, deep space research vessel. So the ship finds something on. a faraway moon eggs. Wait, like, these eggs? Right, these eggs. They're not like normal eggs. And when you take them onto the ship, they start to hatch and monsters come out. This, that description felt to me like much more classic,

like, text of prior stories where, like, they stumble upon this and don't know what's going to happen and then are taken by surprise and everybody dies. Whereas, like, where I feel like where we were last week was, like, they had more clarity and awareness. of what they were seeking and what they would find. And even just the line about like, we lost so many people trying to get these, you know?

I don't know. I don't know how much this is necessarily right now where we are in the story matters, but I am kind of like how much of this was a surprise? Obviously, overall in terms of the wider canon and timeline of the universe, not just the show, this is relevant. in terms of like who knows what when.

For sure. You know, what intel from alien versus predator and like the entombed xenomorph population on the earth? How did that knowledge spread? And then like how was it used or what was just discovered in real time? But yeah, like where are you on how much of the crew of the Maginot knew versus discovered? It's pretty muddled. I think it's pretty muddled because based on the information we have so far,

it seems like they're widely different levels of knowledge among. the crew, Morrow included. He clearly at some point was sort of repurposed. He was kind of given new directives, a new assignment to protect the specimens at all cost. Was that the initial mission?

It did seem like kind of a scientific mission in origin versus the sort of like long-haul trucking thing happening. Like you're a long-haul trucker and then mother tells a member to prize this, go here and like this above the crew. That's just like,

we've seen that before. It seemed more interesting to me for this to be, whether it was canonically, timeline-wise, would click into place perfectly or not, a little bit more interesting. And I still think the like

Utani part of that feels like it's heading in this direction of like seeking this. But I don't know. Yeah, that's... Well, I'll say this. One, this is all, most of the information we're operating from here is Morrow talking to two strangers who are children who he just met and giving them a

story. So is it all true? Who's to say? Also, like, find some aliens and find some eggs could be true to the mission of going on a, like being dispatched to find alien species and bring them back. So it can still fit all of that. Yes, I think that's true. It also definitely seems based on his conversation with Utani that there was a separate sabotage on the ship itself, right? Like on the Maginot, somebody, again, I'm kind of working under the assumption of some kind of corporate espionage happening here. One of the rival corporations, like, Like trying to either compromise the ship to destroy it or, like, break the aliens loose or maybe capture them. And like, again, if you'll borrow the Jurassic parking today, like the Dennis Nedgerie kind of situation maybe happening there.

Like somebody was doing something to sabotage a ship that was not moral, clearly. Right. And that would be because of the triumvirate becomes the five. Yes. Threshold Whalen-Utani dynamic make way for prodigy. and Lynch. So like, when are threshold

and dynamic entering the chat then here? Maybe because like 65 years ago, I mean, Prodigy wasn't around. It's obviously not,

it's got to be some, it's got to be one of the other players. I heard a rumor on the internet that threshold just really, really wants some sweet, sweet alien specimens. Everybody wants a fucking alien. I like to,

like, I've got clearance, you know, like security code 871 keyword falcon. Like obviously he's a security officer, but still, this like, I've got a direct line to the boss, and that would be my expectation that, like,

Utani would pick up. Yeah. Tells us something about, yeah, Maro's distinct role. And obviously, we saw that authority wielded with the rest of the crew in the first episode. Like, he was not shy about issuing orders. So, yeah, was it like you set out and you know that if, like, it comes down to it,

you need to choose the work over the crew, or is that something that he learned he was willing to do in real time? And that's why he was asking the kids, like, what would you do? Yeah. Kind of fascinating. And also, why was this assignment, based on everything we know about the world of alien, to protect the specimens at the expense of the crew?

Why was that not given to the full synthetic on board? Right? Like, we know that there was one just kind of like eyeing various crew members, being generally a creep. I'm sure we're going to learn more about Tang to begin with. But like, why would this responsibility have fallen to more of all people? Even though he does have the link to mother, even though he does have some cybernetic components. But like, he is a human. like still fundamentally if one kind of at war with himself.

I mean, the answer, we could learn that maybe, maybe Tang was in that role. And then Morrow challenged that position. That's possible. We'll find out. Anything else, Rob, on Morrow, on the Maginot, on Kersh, on Boy, on Lost Boys, Creatures,

Wendy Hermit. Anything at all? I do have one last note, which is, We talked a lot about Boy this week for good reason. I think many of the most successful elements of the episode involved him in some way bouncing off other characters. Samuel Blankin has been around in this and that, doing stuff,

never been featured in quite this way. I think he is really, really terrific. Like really, really delivering and walking a really delicate line as boy of the sort of like corporate cynicism that we know well from Alien. Like that's all there. The like, I'm willing to just trash elements. I'm willing to sacrifice lives. I'm willing to even put some of my prized creations on the line

for the sake of a little more data. That's all there. But there's also the naivity that comes from thinking you have dominion over these forces that are so much bigger than you and really over humanity itself. And like, again, threading that particular needle very hard to do from a writing standpoint, very hard to do from a performance standpoint. And like, I'm completely buying, not literally, but I'm buying the performance of Boy, Cavalier, not necessarily his particular PR agenda.

You're all in on prodigy and the mission. I'm leveraged on prodigy stock. I got to be honest with you. I bought big on the come up. And now we're just living there. I have a lot of real estate and New Siam. Did a spaceship crash into it at any point? You know what?

There's insurance for that. Were you having a party, a dinner party, where you were cosplaying as French royalty? Can I either confirm nor deny that I was hiding in the pantry. Was I there? You know what? The powder that's still lingering behind my ears won't tell a soul.

Could be anything. Could be. Rob, we did it. We talked about another episode of Alien Earth. Three down, only five to go. I know. It already feels like we're so far along. Sheesh.

It's a blur already. It is. Was it worth it? Risking a decade's work on something new and shiny, like Alien Earth. What I think? 100%. To do it with you, Mal.

Absolutely. What a joy. Thank you, Rob, for joining me in Neverland. Yet again was an absolute blast to talk about this episode of television with you today. And thank you as well to our lost voice. Carlos Chiroboga and John Richter for producing this episode,

Arjuna Ramga Powell for his additional production work on this episode. And Jomi, Adonoran, for his work on the social for this episode. We will see you in mere days for the peacemaker season two. Premier. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Levato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavat Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary.

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