House of R - ‘Alien: Earth’ Episode 7 Deep Dive

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Jo, Mal, and Rob are back together to dive deep into the penultimate episode of ‘Alien: Earth’ Season 1! They talk about the Isaac aftermath, Wendy as “Mother,” Kirsh vs. Morrow Round 2, and more! (00:00) Intro (06:34) Opening snapshot (11:14) Mailbag (22:13) Slightly, Smee, and poor Arthur (01:09:56) The Isaac aftermath (01:31:51) Escape from Witch Mountain (01:46:29) Eyeballs and secret synths (01:57:04) Morrow vs. Kirsh: the rematch (02:01:17) Wendy/Marcy is Mother Hosts: Joanna Robinson, Mallory Rubin, and Rob Mahoney Producers: Carlos Chiriboga and John Richter Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango, Yuzu chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with the yellow sale sign storewide and everyday low prices on 365. brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. Welcome back to this is one of the last triple house of ours. I'm Joanna Robinson.

Joining me today. It's Mallory Rubin the second R and Rob Mahoney the third R. To talk about episode seven of Alien Earth. Mallory Rubin, how you doing? Mr. Strawberry says fuck off. We're never going back. That's right. Hell yeah. Rob Mahoney, how you doing? I was doing quite well. but hearing this is going to be one of the last triple house of ours. Do you guys have some plan to put me in a pod with a face hugger that I don't know about? Don't worry about it. Finallies are always active. What could possibly go wrong?

Don't worry about it. Okay, hello. As we mentioned, we're going to do our classic triple house of our deep dive on alien Earth. We missed Mallory back last week, but she is back in full force. I will be missing from the second house of our this week, Mallory, Ribbon is going to be chatting with, has already chatted with at length, with James Gunn, about peacemaker. So really excited to listen to that interview.

I've heard nothing but glowing things about it from Mallory herself. And I don't think that's true. She just said you had fun. She said you had a good time. That's all. So I'm really excited to listen to that. So that will be later in this week. And also over on the Prestige TV podcast feed, it's a triple house of our moment.

Look at that. Hooked Battlestar Galactica. Rob and I will have a special guest, and that is Mallory Rubin. So we'll be talking about Battlestar Galactica over on the Prestise TV podcast feed. For all my life. As well as, yeah, Mallory's got her.

You've got your Vipers shirt on, right? I do. Yeah. I wasn't sure if we'd have time for a profit- between pods. I couldn't risk it. Yeah, good. And then also we've got the ongoing task coverage

that's happening every Sunday with Bill Simmons, Rob Moni, and yours truly. Spoiler warning. Alien Earth, episode seven, we have not watched ahead. That is what we were talking about here today. There's one more episode left this season. We have not watched it. We don't know if anyone else's face is getting hugged.

If anyone else is getting acid, saliva drooped on them, we have no idea. And then also the entire Alien Cinematic Franchise, which we have watched. And we are allowed to talk about at any time we want. I'm really excited to talk about this episode with you all. this pen ultimate episode of alien earth. In light of not knowing who is going to get face hugged, do we have on FaceHug watch, how many eggs are left? Do we know?

I think it's like at least three, right? Yeah, I think so. Three and then a cracked one? Yeah. Three that still have their... Who would you put it... A little hunger-waiting. Who would you put it top of face-hug watch?

You know what? I would be disappointed if we'd... didn't get a false start where a facehugger tries to attack a hybrid and then realizes midway, oh, wait, this is not going to work. Like, what's the point of having this many robot bodies around if you're not going to have any, like, mistaken identities? He's like, I'm gluten intolerant. I can't eat this.

Exactly. I simply didn't. Oh, no, sorry. Of course. Dairy. Dairy avoid it. No milk for me. Okay.

Mallory, do you have anyone at the top of your facehugger watch list? You know, I do think this question overall is tricky because, like, there's only one episode left after this one. there's only so much time to mall and maim. And, like, the xenomorph took care. Our little friend the xenolung is growing up and developing an appetite for all sorts of manned flesh. A lot of carnage in this episode.

So they've, like, kind of cut down on the ranks of, we can just have this random person killed in a hallway. That said, plenty of candidates on that front still. But, like, eyeball jockey's got to do some more damage, thanks to everything boy has cooking in this episode. Flora Fana. Flora Fana. I'm worried, guys.

Waiting to get in the mix. Have we seen the last of the blood slug as tics? I don't know. So, like, how many more starring moments is the facehugger going to get, given that there's one episode remaining and this was a very face-hugger-centric pursuit? I don't know. I feel like, I agree. We've hugged our last face for this season, but there are hopefully more seasons to come. So, you know.

This episode, yeah, go ahead. I do hope we have heard the phrase ass tics for the last time. I wouldn't mind seeing them. I just, I need that out of my brain. That's a Mallory Urban special, and you will hear it again. Okay. That's from Mr. like, episode six, blue jubes. Lord over here.

I don't know what to tell you. That's just what was happening in the text. All right, episode seven, Emergence. Yes. Directed by Dana Gonzalez, who is a frequent Noah Holly collaborator written by Noah Hawley and Maria Melnick. Emergence is, you know, a word we use in our general language, but it is a loaded term. It has biological ramifications and has philosophical ramifications, essentially from my

light, shoddy, attempted understanding a complex philosophical concept, emergence seems to be this idea basically that something is worth more than the sum of its parts, that something can become something more than its components. And I think if I had to guess, I would say this is hybrid related. But what is your interpretation of what emergence means here, Rob Mahoney? I mean, that definitely seems to be where it's leaning. and specifically Wendy related, right? Of the hybrids, the one who has evolved the most,

who has shown the most capacity to surprise, that has become... I don't know. Nibs is pretty surprising in this episode, a lot of growling. You know what? Totally fair. Just a more formidable opponent

than anyone would have banked on earlier in the season. But I think this is absolutely speaking to Wendy, first and foremost. And of course, to the tiny baby's xenomorph exploding from Arthur's chest cavity. That was another emergence of many. You know what, you're right. Emergences of all sorts in this television show.

What a rich death. Morrow and his pals emerging from the water. There's a lot of literal emerging happening and philosophical emerging happen. I should say, Hobbes and Dragons at gmail.com, if you have any thoughts or feelings about emergence or anything else that has to do with this episode. We've got a ton of great emails. We're going to get to a few of them in the side of this episode today. Opening snapshot. Mallory Rubin.

Yes, ma'am. We missed you last week. Let's start with you. overall thoughts on episode seven. How are you feeling? I had a good time. I had fun at the movies, as they say. You know, I had fun on my living room couch.

Yeah. I, you know, certainly am receiving this episode as part one of a two-part finale. That is definitely how it felt. I felt a strong urge to be able to just hit next and then realize I would have to wait before I could do that because that episode is not available to us. So, you know, it had that kind of propulsive force at the end. I'm curious to discuss as we go through. through today, like which plot points we think, are there any we think we actually might be done with

and waiting to return to until season two? There was like one in particular where I had a little bit of a, oh my God, is there a chance we're done with this in this season? So I'm, I'm interested to see where everybody is on that front, but broadly sets up for a raucous, bloody, acidy, milky, good time next week. Can't wait to see how it all wraps. A quick question for you, Molly. Do you feel in your heart and your soul that we all die alone? That's just a quick question that I have, a follow-up from last week's episode. I, you know, I like both of you would be invested in helping a colleague trapped under a bookcase. Of course.

Regardless of my answer to the prompts. So let's get that, you know, established on the record, definitely eager to help a friend. I don't know if we all die alone. I think we probably do, but I think my hope would be that we had enough companionship until that final moment to carry something with us moving forward.

Oh, for sure. But when we die, I'm sort of like, that's probably a wrap. Okay. Follow the question for you, Rob Mahoney, who has been somewhat ill since you made that statement of we all die alone last week.

Grievously ill. Leaving aside the lost boys who are there, do you feel like Arthur died alone or do you feel like if you have a chest burser inside of you, you have someone close to you when you die? How do you feel about that? Joe, this is why you're a pro. You know what?

The turnabout is fair play. But you know what? He did die alone because we all do. Because this is an in inescapable truth of our time. Maybe he and the chest buster in a way are, you know, two skeletons holding each other in the like buried ruins of Pompeii, right? Like that is kind of what they are to each other in a sense, except one of them happened to kill the other.

One of them is, you know, the volcano is Vesuvius. Okay, all right. Did Arthur see a hand reach out from some sort of Great Beyond to guide him? Maybe we don't know and we won't until we're all there. Here's what he didn't see, his fucking wife. Tough. Really tough. Really tough.

His dame. My dame. Deerly, I mean, a true villain as far as I'm concerned. Okay. Ramone. Has she thought about Arthur? She was looking at some those same vacation photos.

Well, if only she had lovingly been stroking something else with a proper farewell. Oh. You know? I was like, I'm desperate for a conversation. Mallory's like, I'm desperate for a sex scene. And that sounds like

true. Two kinds of goodbyes. Romahoney, episode seven, Big Picture of Thoughts. I also loved it. Also, I mean, look, the two-parter nature of it is baked in. I think what I was pleasantly surprised by

was that it wasn't part one set up part two mayhem. This was already so action-packed. This was already so chest-bursty and jaw-rippy. And the fact that we're getting all of that in what is supposedly the build-up to the big finale, that makes me feel like we got some real fireworks in play. Exciting. It was interesting to watch this episode in the context of the homework we all did for Battlestar Galactica,

which involved a couple two-parters with the lost coverage that Rob and I did last week, which is a two-parter thinking this is a very losty episode to me. We've got like different interested parties traversing the island. How will these plot lines converge? So I really liked this episode a lot. I still have a few questions and comments and concerns, but I really like this episode. I'm deeply devastated by the death of Arthur Sylvia and those poor kiddos. And so we are going to go... Tragic. Not quite beat by beat.

We're going to do sort of like plotline groupings because it is actiony, but it is set up. So a lot of these plot lines are sort of siloed off still before I imagine they all come back together. Before we get there, I want to just hit you with a little bit of mailbag business. We'll have emails sort of throughout, but this is just like a little quick check-in at the top here. First of all, our listener, Isaac asked, I think, the very reasonable question. Which, Isaac, do we think this is, are we hearing from? AK Tootles from Beyond the Grave. Wow.

Reboot and restore. Reboot and restore. They figured it out just in time for a mailback. Guys, we have a special guest here today on House of Ar. This is a very uncommon occurrence. And so I'm sure John and Carlos right now are like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Hela's not in frame. Why are you moving your camera?

But he's in here. He's never in here during recordings. This is what we call the cabinet king. It's where he stands and he begs to go into a cabinet that he's seen the inside of thousands of times. And as soon as it's open, he will have no interest in it. It's a very alien on brand a moment to involve the cat inside of this recording. Hi, Halo. Hey, hello. Say hi to Joe.

I mean, then everyone else, but it's your beloved Joanna. It's true. Sorry, I got so excited. He's never in here during a pod. It's a thrill. We're breaking new ground. What do you think Halo thinks of Isaac's question about whether or not shouldn't Morrow have footage of Boy Cavalier sabotaging the Maginot to bring to arbitration last week?

Thanks for Alaskin. asking Isaac whether or not you are also Tootles. This is a good question because we obviously were quite struck by and it really like wormed its way into our brains as well. The data transfer that Morrow did because we were like, oh my God, the sweat, the red eyes, right? The kind of like visceral proof that the machinery is not meant to exist in that human form in quite that capacity. We heard him, not only do we see that the data transfer was complete, but then we hear him tell you, Tani, I have the data. And she's like, I don't want it.

I want the specimens. And then he's like the specimens of my life. And we get back on that focused track around retrieving the specimens. But he has the data from the ship. It is then also erased from the original source. I don't quite understand, per Isaac's question, why he's not offering this up. Like, he's there in the boardroom in the arbitration scene. Why is he not like, by the way I know you were involved?

A theory I've seen is that he only had so much time. And really, he focused on downloading the critter data, not like, every single piece of data that exists. So if he just has like, I got all the creature information and not all of the Zill calls that existed over all the years. That would explain maybe not having the proof

to offer up, but why isn't he mentioning it? Yeah. It's great question. He watched it. He knows. That is odd, right? He should have at least said something. I do wonder if it's, he already kind of thinks he has the Zeno in the back. Like he

is kind of convinced that the slightly plan is like reasonable enough to work potentially or just storming the island will be reasonable enough to work. Maybe he doesn't need to play that card just yet. And narratively speaking, I kind of wonder if we'll get a mutually assured destruction standoff situation because Kirsch's plan has now baited Morrow and Wayland Utani into a gross overstep of what I imagine is highly illegal. And so maybe there is sort of like an offsetting leverage situation from a story perspective as to why he wouldn't say that. From a character perspective, yeah, he should have spoken up. Okay, so Rob Mahoney

is like, please for the finale, give me more arbitration. I would like to see it if it's already on record. Just get the eyeball jockey in the room for it. Put your whole body back on the table, boy cavalier. Okay. Craig, this one is for Rob, right? Craig wrote in to say it was expressed that Rob does

not have an appetite for puns. But the fact that y'all used teen xenomorph when Tina Morph was sitting right there is unconscionable. And here's my question for you, Romoney. Yes. given the runaway success of the Animorph

book series, are you willing to enter a new career as the author of the Tina Morph book series? You know, people have been asking me

this, Joe, and I'm happy to say... So hot right now. It's really my calling, and I'm willing to take on that mantle. You know, Tina Morph is right there. I also saw, you know,

some people pointing out in light of the righteous gemstones, the tingeist, Tina Morph's comp. It was just, again, right there for us. A lot of low-hanging fruit that we missed on the pod, Joe, and we regret the error. Yeah. I feel confident if Mallory here that would not have slipped past us.

No. Teen-Jist's a very memorable moment in recent television history. Just astonishing stuff from our guy guys. Fucking love Teen Jus. Last and not least, this one comes from, I believe, this name is pronounced Zach. I did look it up. This is a really fun spelling of Zach if that is indeed how you pronounce your name. Here's Zach's theory for Kirsch as Tinkerbell, as a Tinkerbell comp.

He's a non-human sentient who exists thanks to, quote, belief, i.e. science, intellect, and a result of human agency. He appears as boys slash Peter's loyal sidekick, but as a defiant streak and does mischief. The spiky anime slash Billy Idol Hair, very fay. And last but not least, the waggle. And this is how Zach, if that is indeed how you pronounce your name, signed this email. And for the record, a shiny crisp, almost neon green, Granny Smith is the best apple. It's amazing. His email made the cut.

Yeah. Let that inform your opinion one way or another. I'm not here to say that if you sign your email with a pro-Granny Smith point of view, it will make it into the podcast, but it doesn't hurt. Mal, how do you feel about this Kirsch's Tinkerbell idea here? I like it. I think you guys really nailed the observation last week that while we are certainly inclined, as I assume not only many viewers of the show, but certainly listeners of this podcast are to make these comps that they don't quite fit as tidily inside of this season based on some of the adjacencies of the passages and what is unfolding in the plot as they might otherwise would.

So I think this is a compelling case, and it's also fair to say that very few of the characters can play of them fit with another character comp, but there are very few. it's like you could not make the case for someone else having a little bit of a tether to that compass well or that this character could go here. So it's not 100%, but I do like this. I particularly like the hair note. And the waggle. The waggle I dismissed because to me that's just pure Timio. It has nothing to do with anything else. But it could come into casting.

You're like, wow, we want someone who has a fay-like waggle to them. Yeah. Who can rock those hips? It's Timio. What do you think, Rob? Does Tinkerbell waggle? You know, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, flitting about? Do you need to waggle? Well, I mean, Timmy doesn't need to waggle either, but he does it. It's just a part of who he is.

I think it depends on your version. If you're Julia Roberts, Tinkerbell, you're not waggling very much, I would say. But I think classic Disney Tink does waggle a bit. And then specifically, originally on the stage, Tinkerbell was just like a light that they just sort of like put about. That's a, that's a, it's a flit and a waggle at the same time, I would say. That is absolutely true. And spiritually, I will say, Tinkerbell has the sass that is like a, that is kind of a functional waggle, a waggle of personality. Yeah, yeah. Who among us? Personality waggle. All right.

And last one at least, I just want to run, race through a few fun facts I learned from the official pod this week that maybe go, hmm. First of all, the production designer, Annie Nicholson made sure to point out that there are vents in every room. They put vents in every room so that if the doors are locked, people can't get out, but creepy crawlies and aliens can't get in. So fun fact about that. said he made Dame Sylvia's room the most menacing room, not having to do with the vent

thing. This was like a later conversation, but he was talking about the juxtaposition between the soft, we were talking about this like last week, Dame Sylvia's sort of soft hippy-dippy aesthetic in contrast to the decisions that she's making. And so he was like the soft child therapy sort of furnishings and then the awful decisions and all conversations and ideas that are being generated here. he wanted that to be the sort of like creepiest dichotomy on the island.

That's so weird. I don't think of that room as soft at all. Like I think because it's the mid-century modern design, even the most cushy chair, I'm just like, I think you're sort of meant to be uncomfortable here. I think color palette wise, we've got like sun oranges and browns and oranges. For sure.

Yeah, yeah. But there is like a throw-a-knit blanket over some brutalistic, like brutalist architecture kind of vibes in there. It is discordant. It is upsetting. It is, I think, true to what Dame Sylvia has become, like, she might be number one on the characters who suck most on this show. I think so.

Like, there is just an element to her complicity that I think kind of transcends everybody else right now. I think the sequence where Curley is like curled up next to her and she's like struck him being like, darling, it's all going to be okay. I'm like, this is, this is worse than Boy Cavalier being like, well, there goes another six billion. Like, at least he's up front with his. He's awesome about it. You know, exactly. All right. On the Sylvia, Arthur, and Dame front,

Essie Davis and David Risdall Improved a bunch of relationship scenes. This is just something they did as actors together because they were like, there wasn't a lot on the page of their relationship, but I was like, that's my note too. I would have liked more of that. In fact, can you release the improv acting exercise tapes? I would love to see the Sylvia family dynamics a bit more.

So that was something I thought was interesting. but also highlighted something I wish we had had more of. And then one of the producers was bringing up this idea, and I'm upset with myself that I didn't make this connection. Earlier when Adam is talking to Joe about the lung and the debt and all of that sort of stuff, drawing a connection between that and the preoccupation of the latest season of Fargo and this idea of, like, ownership in debt inside of our sort of corporate-run culture as something that is preoccupation for Noah Hawley.

I thought was a really interesting connection, this idea that like, prodigy city is essentially a company town, like, you know, in this sort of like coal mining sense. And then, you know, these like militia, these company-owned militias are all part of this idea that is connected to, you know,

something you guys have been talking about throughout, which is like corporate-run cultures. But that idea specifically of like debt and what that does, how that paralyzes you and how people leverage. that in order to control you, I thought was really interesting. Yeah.

Fascinating to take something that you normally play with in one place, one community, and just say this is what the world is like. This is how it is everywhere. Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah. Let's go now to our deep dive. All right.

So we, as I said, we're going to do some slight character groupings this week, and we're going to start with slightly Smee and poor Arthur, rest in peace. Not that we thought you were going to survive after your face got hugged, but it's really tough now. You're just a shattered corpse, a drift in some water, and it made me very sad. Quick question for you, Mallory Rubin. If you're engaging in some corporate espionage,

is slightly going to be your guy or not so much? Like, how do you feel? Emotionally committed to the role. Deliverables, we have. some questions. What do you think? Yeah, I think as a general rule, I will not be enlisting any children. In my corporate plots. Whether or not they involve espionage.

So, yeah, that's just a general rule that I will be following in my pursuits. And I think that the opening glimpse of slightly huddled, you know, knees up against his wall as just an arm tucked out from under. his bed was just the perfect visual and like emotional reminder that this is a kid. Like it took me back to, you know, when we're all kids and you're like, well, what am I, got to hide something, right? Like I don't want to take my, when I was a kid, I would take, I didn't want to take my vitamins. I would put them in my pencil box and then tuck that, like, under a bed or in a desk store. It's like, they won't find it there. There's just a

body under his bed. He's like, this is where kids hide things under a bed. It's where monsters belong, right? Yeah. Yeah. Fun fact about me and Rob, I'm curious, if you ever hit something as a child. Famous Robinson family lore is that we used to do this additional outside of school math program that I hated and they gave us these stapled, you know, math exercises to do. And I would just peel off like the back two pages and then just like fold them up and stuff them in the couch so that I didn't have to do it. Nobody ever called, no one grading the papers ever called me on it. My parents ever called it. And like years later they found all of these math papers that had just been like rolled up and stuffed down into the couch by me, Joanna Robinson.

So that's what I hid when I was a kid, math. Rob Honey. Any smuggling hiding? I'm trying to remember what the items were that I was smuggling, but there really is something to that when you're a kid of like, if I can't see it, it no longer exists anymore. Mine was like I had a bed pressed up against the wall, and so it was the crevice between the bed and the wall.

If you shove anything down there, it's never coming back, and no one will ever ask about it. That's just the void that it will live in, you know, from here to eternity. That being said, like slightly's, Underneath Slightly's bed is not a void, right? Arthur is there. There is a sort of like bellows, wheezing, gurgling, snuffling, sounds. Gurgles, wheezing, continues, squelching, muffled grunts.

The official's subtitling for that stretch, which is dismayed. That was also how I sounded when I had COVID for the record. Okay. Rob, when you had COVID, did your lovely wife ever offer you some green juice sort of via a straw past, you know, the obstrable? of your congestion. This is slightly, no one has ever tried, I think, as far as I know, to feed someone who is actively being face hugged. Were you, Arthur, I thought you might be hungry.

It's just like a very sweet and sad. In the sort of like corporate prodigy bottle. Malibin, what did this? As slightly sort of tries to slide the facehugger out of the way to get the straw in? You know, it triggers on the facehug. hugger's part, the classic, this is my body now. Yeah. The tightening around the neck, the response, horrifying always.

Slightly has not watched all of the movies in the cinematic franchises we have. And so he doesn't, you know, he doesn't know, like, this is, we're taking care of the oxygen. We are putting the body in this, like, state of stasis that we need to maintain in order to properly gestate the next monster. And so the facehugger's like absolutely not. Get your hydration materials out of here. This is my body now and you are no longer welcome to. Get your silent away from me.

Yeah. It does look pretty gross. Like the prodigy green juice, it's not my favorite color. I also think were I the one being face hugged? Sure. More green gloop is not like what I'm looking to add to the equation. It's very well-meaning. It's very sweet.

But like I'm not trying to choke on this juice too. And as we established, like, the facehugger is doing some things with your airway, apparently. It's like, it's going for the lung, we think. Yeah. As my favorite foodie, well, here's my question to you. Were you to be face hug, God forbid. But were you to be face hugged? Do you have a request for our final meal that we try to shove past the face hunger?

So you just have, like, one more taste before you go? Just wait until the facehuggers off and enjoy a proper meal before it explodes out of your chest. In the, like, five minutes you've got. Yeah. Yeah. It does go fast. What a burger. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Is that your final meal? Waterburger? I would love a, you know, a honey barbecue chicken strip sandwich from What a burger as my final meal post face hugger. If it needs to happen while the face hugger is on, skip the green juice. Like we're not trying to be healthy in this moment, but it also needs to be soft and easily digestible. Like maybe just give me like a tapioca pudding or something in that instance. Look, I'm just trying to understand what is accomplishable under these, under these.

under these exact circumstances. Here's what I want to request formally of you to, my dear pals. Cut open some part of my body. Not cutting the face hugger. I don't want any acid dripping into me. Cut open like something on my palm and just sprinkle some old bay seasoning into my blood. Jesus Christ. I feel like, send me home.

On the heels of this tremendous Emmys weekend for the pit, I feel the challenge of like, can I perform a trache on you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. avoiding the coils of the face hugger in order to get the old bay sort of like into your esophagus. I think I can do it. Okay, thanks so much. All right. It's really pleasant.

Yeah, that's great. Joe, do you want a barbecue sauce made out of like a plum picked from your yard? It's a great question. I don't know. I think just like hydrate me with a Topoico and I'll be, I'll be thrilled. There you go. I'll be delighted. Honestly, Topochiko might have the exact level of carbonation required to kill the alien gestated.

I think it'll be like, oh, spicy, and maybe we'll, like, uncoil and skitter away. Could happen. All right. So, Smee knocks on the door, very, like, Anna, Elsa, do you want to build a snowman moment, right? And just, like, demands to be let in. Immediately clock, frankly, like, shit job of trying to hide Arthur under the bed, not even bothering to tuck one flaccid arm, just flapping in the breeze for all to see. And Smee, suitably, in panic mode, you know, confronts slightly.

And I really thought this, the word choice here was interesting, right? You did this to Arthur Smee says and Slightly says you would have to if he had chosen you, this twisted idea of being chosen, right? Mallory, did that stick out to you? What did you think about that? Very much so. I thought this whole opening stretch was really great. You know, we've all loved Smee and slightly as a duo and as individual characters.

And so I thought just like having Smey seek slightly out that kind of like intuition of young friendship that we're never busy. line when we have like, Tootles with his lab work and Wendy with all of her important chittering and shattering and clicking tasks and curly on her various missions to be teachers pet or lap assistant or whatever. It's like, right, the show kind of acknowledging that the thing that these two have had to do is like be pals and figure out how to navigate this kind of like hybrid literal literal literalization of a hybrid phase of existence. Smee is like a personality hire, right? He's like there to like make you laugh. Well, I just like can't wait to see what I really hope that Smee makes it out and has a more active plotline in season two. But I thought this was

lovely. And then on that chosen front, yeah, because like it takes us back very effectively to their encounter with Morrow on the crashed ship and these various prompts that he put to them, these exercises that he was running through. As he was processing very quickly, you guys are behaving like children. Wait, parents. Like, is it possible you don't know? He was also processing his own guilt and throwing out to these strangers, these like moral quandaries, right? What would you do in this situation? And they've responded differently. Like Smee was the one immediately who said, no, I would not do this thing.

I would not harm another person. Slightly was the one who started asking all the follow-up questions. Like, are they bad people? Would I be doing it to help my friend? And then Smee does get back involved, right? He offers up on the heels of slightly saying, friend, like parents and slightly like parents. Yeah. Parents are parents.

And we linger very meaningfully on his face before the whole plot with his family. But the fact that their response, their kind of base instinct about how to behave and the situation was distinct was very effectively brought to the fore here. And in terms of that idea of chosen, it's like, yeah, this has been a motivator and something that has been leveraged and weaponized for Wendy and the Lost Boys throughout the entire season. And obviously, it will be very present as active text here for Wendy throughout this entire episode. You know, we're premium. This wasn't supposed to happen to us. So to get a version of that here for slightly and sweet, it's like, well, being chosen. isn't always good.

Sometimes it means you're chosen to do something horrible. Yeah. Well, especially, I mean, we've returned throughout the season over and over to that theme and the idea of like predation on kids by making them feel special.

And the feeling of being chosen does make you feel special and putting that light on somebody else to say, if you were in my shoes, you would have done the same thing, understandable under the circumstances for slightly. But in the case of like these hybrids, they're also kids who were very vulnerable,

who were told that they were going to be safe and we're learning very quickly. That is not true in this space. Like all of the promises that they were made to them are just crumbling over the course of this episode. So despite watching Arthur just like gurgle and snuffle and like slurp around, right? Slightly sticking with this idea that like he'll be fine.

We just need to get him to the beach and he'll be fine. Yeah. Help me. Please, please, please. Right? And so these kids are going to take, whether or not slightly actually believes this, this is like a desperate sort of story

that he's telling himself of like he's going to be fine. I didn't do anything permanent damage to Arthur. It's going to be fine. I do think, because I was like trying to think back through all, what does he definitely know? And you know, in that same first interaction between Maro and Sme and Slightly in the eggs and like they know the monster comes out, but that's ultimately only step one, right?

When Mara's like you've seen it, you've seen it more if they know what it's going to become. but the exact through the chest cavity is not something that they have clarity on. And like what Morrow says to slightly, is this wrong? Is it immoral? Is he putting a person in peril? Is he lying? Is he deceiving?

Yes, all of this is terrible. But what Morrow said to him was in response to what happens to the person I choose is, well, they'll have a bad couple days for sure. But I'll make sure they're comfortable. Yeah. So like he has, yeah, he has spent a lot of time curling up inside of that framing to tell himself that this is not the ultimate betrayal of taking a life. It's very childlike

of like, I was told it'll be fine, so it'll be fine, and I just need to get him to the beach, and then my family will be fine, and then we'll all laugh about this, and let it be noted, then I did try to keep Arthur hydrated while this was happening. Don't worry about it.

Okay, elsewhere in the plot, Boy Cavalier, hisses to Kirsch, we'll get back to that scene, but be useful, to which Curse says, sarcastically, sassily, however you prefer to interpret it. Yes, sir. And that's when we have Kirsch intersect with the boys.

As they are trying to move the body through the hallway, curse stops them, slightly starts to sort of like desperately explain. Kirch is like, yeah, yeah, I know. What are you doing? I know. I know all that. He's seen the video. He's been on his iPad.

He's seen the social breakouts. Sure has. You're taking a circuitous route to the beach. You got to go down the elevator. This is the level you have to take. you're going to be late. You've got an appointment to make. The very cold and casual way,

I mean, we'll talk about Kirsch's reaction to Isaac and our interpretations of that, but the very casual way he just takes in a face-hugged Arthur and like, unlike slightly, definitely knows that that's his curtains for Arthur, Arthur Sylvia, right? Yeah. What do you think is going on here?

Shall we assume this is all messily, dramatic, and elaborate bait for Morrow? like because, you know, he's got this gloating gotcha moment at the end, you know, don't be a sore loser sort of thing moment at the end of the episode. Or how much do you think this might be Kirsch wanting his own chestburster, like one that didn't come out of a lung, one that isn't bonded to Wendy Marcy. Like, what do you think is going on here with him? Because like the whole point of Kirsch and the whole point of synthetics in general is that

they are like inscrutable. But I feel like there's a level of inscrutability inside of this as, episode for Kirsch that I feel like I want a few more hooks inside of. Rob, what's your interpretation of what's going on here? I mean, he's certainly inscrutable. And he is, look, messily dramatic,

as you alluded to with his plan. Joe, like, that is kind of who Kirsch is. So I buy that he is into some of the pageantry of how this is all unfolded. The why he wants another chestburster, or why he is interested in that alien specimen in particular, I don't quite know.

Because it's clear he doesn't have a lot regard for boy. But I think there's a difference between wanting to fulfill boy's mission versus wanting to fulfill some programming objective or some like obedience to prodigy as a corporation or his role within it. Like those are kind of two different ideas, although they're in some ways one and the same. Exactly. And so it's like in what way is he deviating from core programming and in what way is he obeying it?

That's what I just don't have a good handle for. Even this deep into the season, which I'm not mad about. Like I love, I love how inscrutable that character is. Malory, Rubin. Yeah, I think that the ambiguity has been delicious to this point. I do think we, I am expecting and hoping to get some more clarity. Clarity in the finale about what is exactly driving all of his decisions. But I think it's, to me, it felt like kind of like all of the above.

You know, I think the fact that we go immediately from it felt very deliberate and useful, useful to get the be useful yes, sir, immediately, like immediately before the elevator, Bay Reminder, because it's interaction, because it's just one more, I mean, frankly, not that we need it at this point, but one more little reminder that Boy has no regard for anybody in his orbit, including Kirsch. And in fact, was like, you know, this guy's just basically like baseball reference. That's not what I'm looking for atop the mountain, right? Like, it's not enough for him and Kirsch has no reason to think otherwise based on the way Boy treats him. I think that all of this, though, whether it's boy-centric, prodigy-centric, whether it's about the hybrids, whether

it's about Morrow and like kind of luring him in, all of it fits under the umbrella of Sith supremacy for Kirsch. And like I was, I've been thinking a lot about that thing he said to. I know you just said synth supremacy, but it did sound like Sith supremacy. So I got really excited about it. Mallory always speaks in absolutes. We know. She's wearing the red for a reason.

This is a, this is an anti-Syth podcast. But yes, since supremacy, like, you know, that thing that he said to slightly in the fourth episode, that's what being an adult is a constant test. Obviously, that's about all of the other characters, but also in some ways for Kersh, everybody is going through a test of what they will do when pushed to the limit or push to make a big decision. And so for Morrow, like, you know, I love the chat that you guys had about. And it was not at all surprised that you guys loved the elevator exchange.

Of course, that was just fantastic. And like, you know, the things, like, see, I would imagine it's the pain that makes it satisfying, especially for cyborgs, the moment when you realize you're not a machine after all when the eyeball pops. He can't wait to give this guy a reason to come inside so that he can beat him and say that he won. I think that's clear. And to be able to have playing in his mind all of the slights from Boy, but also Morrow's words of like yesterday's model, the incredibly irrelevant robot.

What's it like working for a company that made you obsolete? It's so interesting that you said, because on the one hand, I agree with you, but that is such like a human resentful. You're describing, like, built up of resentment. And, like, with Androids, like, because I'm wondering if it's more of, like, a David scientific curiosity from Prometheus kind of idea of, like, when they asked, like, what happened to Isaac, science, right? Yes, yes. Like, how much of this, because. For sure.

If he were a human character, I'd be like, yeah, all these petty slights from boy from Morrow building up to this thing. but I was like, is that how a synth behaves, or is a synth like, I'm single-mindedly focused on science or my instructions for my programmers or this, that, of the other thing? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I think, again, it kind of all feels like it's in the mix to me because I think Kersh is a character who says, whether it's to Dame Sylvia or Wendy or anyone else, like, she's not human, stop pretending she is. The idea that, like, boy, positions the hybrids as superior because they have the human mind and consciousness and experience and memory inside. of the overall synth experience. Everybody else views that as like a feature. And Kirsch is like, that's a bug. Suppress that.

Then if those same impulses, like, as you guys know, I found it very touching and tender when he like said, yeah, that feels that seems right when Isaac chose his name. Like he can't totally tamp down the thing that he thinks is actually a weakness in other people. Like that's president of him too and how could it not be? So I think that's interesting. I think it'll be really interesting. And I'll be curious to see how it's all plays out in the finale.

It's like rewatching that scene, like, given how dispassionate he is in watching what happens to Isaac, you know, over on the iPad, and then like inside of this episode, his reaction is sort of seeing the corpse due to like the seeming lack of reaction here. And then I go back to that Isaac scene where he's like, that seems right. And I'm like, is that paternal? Is that emotional? Or is that just sort of like casual? Yeah, that seems right. I find that I don't know. And I am open to.

all interpretations. And it is interesting. In the official podcast, David Rizzell was talking about how, you know, we'll talk about Arthur and his paternal interaction and he has to slightly in Smee in a second. But this idea of like, Kersh as this other father figure. We were thinking a lot about like Kirsch versus Dame Sylvia as these sort of like two influences, right, angel and devil. And you can decide who is the angel and who is the devil or they both are morally compromised inside of this scenario or something like this, whispering into Wendy Marcy's, ear about who she is. But in juxtaposition with the raw emotionality of Arthur, this, like, bid for, like,

those of us who love you, which is a lie because there's really, like, only one person who loves them and it's him. Like, I think that's an interesting juxtaposition. For sure. What is the contrast to the heart, the now tattered and torn and shredded heart of Arthur Sylvia versus the course. the cold calculation of a Kirsch. You know what I mean?

I think, I mean, the heart of Arthur is clearly the core of what makes that character so human, right? And that's what we're tapping into. And I want to get into David Reisal's performance. It's so key to this episode. And I think bring something alive in the show that's kind of been missing in terms of that emotional core. But there are human parts of Kirsch, too, even though he is a synthetic, in the same way that like any designed algorithm contains human error and human flaw and human programming, right? It's like by the nature of where it's coming from, it's going to contain some kind of humanity. And in his case, like, I do think there is a

judgment that you get from Kirsch that I think we also saw from David, to be honest with you, that I think, especially in these earlier synthetic models, does feel kind of consistent in that synth or Sith supremacy kind of way. Like, there's something, honestly, it would be very good. But they're, like, they are tapping into something with that of a, whether it's a want to prove, versus more organic people, whether it is want to show that they're right to show that their way of thinking or existing. Like being a synth is an existential battle in a human world. And I think there's always going to be that oppositional kind of force with them. Yeah.

And we've talked about this with like, you know, my favorite Prometheus scene being David, like watching Lawrence of Arabia. There is like a yearn there for a, you know, a very like wall-esque sort of like urine for something. But often perverted or often misappropriated or misunderstood or misinterpreted or misappropriated or misinterpreted. executed, which I think is interesting. Which also is whether the characters in question feel this way about it or not, like very human. Like, Kirsch is exhibiting the standard human hubris. I think the fact that he might have certain human tendencies, I need to show this person on better. Why does this person think they can compete with me? You know, all of the snide rejoinders, et cetera, I maybe feel something and then I can suppress it. The human emotions don't dominate my life

the way they do. Other people's behavior. I'm superior. At the end of the day, watching what he was watching on the iPad and letting that unfold is a choice that he made to believe he could be in control of that situation. Same thing with everything that happens here. Is he going to be able to maintain control of that situation? That's the folly of humanity to think that you can. Now, he is actually probably better equipped to do that than a person would be. But that doesn't mean it's a good choice or a good judgment call. And not just choosing to do it, but choosing to lie about it, right? To in the moment obscure it from boy until they get on the ground and then he is kind of manipulating and massaging all these situations as they unfold. Why ruin a perfectly nice jet flight when you're playing Peter Pan?

Struct and relax. Nothing you can do. Okay. Let's go back to the boys. So the boys are in the jungle. They're hiding from prodigy men. And as they hide, Joe, I got to ask you about the prodigy men who stroll by two adult children and basically a old corpse at that moment.

Are these stormtrooper level incompetent soldiers? Or have they already been given the heads up by Kirsch? Like, look, you're going to see Silen's me out there. Just pretend you don't see them. Like, just walk by. That would be nice to believe. But I think militias on both sides are not showing themselves to be the sharpest tools on the island this week. Okay.

So what I liked about this is that the boys in there hiding, the camera also loses track of Arthur. So when we turn around, Arthur is just gone. gone. We get the facehugger flopped down. Incredible. Artish's like, artist who plays slightly, his shrieks.

Yeah. One of my favorite things that I've ever seen in my life. Both of those guys are just doing incredible job. And then Arthur just like stumbling out of the jungle brush being like, what is that? What is that? What's going on?

What's happening here? Really good. I'm curious what it was like, you know, we have seen, unlike slightly, we have seen all of the alien movies. We know what this moment is between the facehugger release and the chest bursting. So what was it like for you guys? All three of us are huge David Ristel fans. Yeah.

What was it like watching our guy Arthur knowing that like, that like anticipation, that ticking clock of when is the chest going to burst? Mallory, what was that like for you? This felt to me like another version of kind of episode five. where, like, the fact that we know the outcome definitively for one character actually helped heighten how, like, riveted I was watching it because it was so fucking sad. Like, not only do we know that this is just, it's more minutes away, like, you can feel it. The fact that he spends his final moments being so tender and so sweet. And saying children need to learn to lie and you two are still learning, like, I can tell you two are scared.

promise, like, I'll help you. In a series and a franchise where people are so often motivated to trick or deceive or use, it is such a rare, I mean, like everybody else, Arthur makes mistakes and maybe has, like, opted into a corporate culture here that I don't know what he thought was going to happen. Right. Working for Boy Cavalera Prodigy, ultimately. But, you know, he tried to, like, extend to helping nurturing hand. and you just know that that hand

is going to be trying to contain pools of blood and cartilage and bone in mere moments and it was brutal. It was tough. I'm glad we got it though. I was just fully prepared for a future in which his body was smuggled off island in a pod

and we just never saw like an awake, cogent David Rizzdall again on this show. That would have been a bummer. And so from the moment he wakes up, like this is why you cast him is for this moment among others. And I'm curious like whether this was

initially conceived. as part of this character, where there's something that, like, developed from some of those conversations you were talking about, Joe, with him and Dame Sylvia. Like,

I'm going to say the primary concern of alien Earth, I think, is ideas. Like, this is an ideas forward show and philosophy forward show. Yeah. The secondary concern is alien horror. Yeah.

And then, like, somewhere way down the list is any kind of emotional core. Like, that's not what many of the alien projects are about. It's certainly not what this alien project is about. But when you put David Risdahl in this world, not unlike Fargo, which is a cruel, unsparing kind of show and world all its own. And you make him the exception to the rule. You make his character the exception of the rule.

Like, as a performer, he's capable of this, like, incredible, like, emotional softness that I think raises the stakes in a totally different way and presents a different show within the show you thought you were watching. And that pull, that rug pull, I think is super important to this episode. I think it's really important to rounding out the story we thought we were internalizing and understanding. He takes what is kind of a sparse characterization and gives it a beating heart. And that's something that not a lot of actors can do. And I think I'm blown away by what he brought to this episode.

I'm sad that we're losing him, but he bursted with the best of him. So he's got this real community gas leak year befuddlement as he first wakes up, right? And he's like, we had a fight, me and my dame. I have to leave for a while. Like me and my dame is just guys. I know.

It's so sad. I know. Did they reverse engineer Dame Sylvia's name so he could say me and my dame? That's a great question. I don't want our last memory of me to be, I'm sorry, thank you. I think maybe you saved my life horrifying. Because of course, slightly is the reason that he's in this situation. And they get down to the beach.

I have a quick question about the drum beats that are sort of like thumping behind them as they're walking. down the beach because, you know, the score throughout the season has been really interesting and distinct. This felt like something different to me. And so like a sound I felt like I hadn't really heard on the show before. So I had a couple ideas. One was like, is this like, you know, like a heartbeat sort of like ticking clock kind of idea of like it's, you know, the last minutes of the life of Arthur Sylvia or something like

that. But another idea I had was like it sounded like this syncopated rhythm that. that was almost like, and this is where we touch on one of the stickier sides of Peter Pan, but like, there's a whole plot line with the native group that live

on the island of Neverland. And one of the various important parts of the Peter and Wendy's story is you have all these factions sort of, you've got the pirates are over here and Tiger Lily and her people are coming this way and the last boys are coming this way and there are

mermaids in the lagoon. It's just sort of like these groups that are circling each other and they all have like enmity with each other. And so I was thinking about that with the with the Whalen Utani militia and the prodigy prodigy militia and like our escaping lost boys and all of these sort of people circling each other on the island. And so I was just wondering if that was just like a moment to think about that kind of adventure that Peter has, Peter Pan has to offer of all these sort of factions sort of running around barely missing each other, sort of brushing up against each other as they go. But I thought it was like a really interesting

I'll be curious if the composer gives an interview where he talks about some of the various things but I thought that was like a really interesting moment. I love that. It was that or have boy read another passage. Look, I'm ready for the drums. Maybe this is me speaking from our recent Battlestar experience but I forgot how much I missed just like a rolling drum beat

to build the drama. Exactly, exactly. All right. So then we get this beach scene that you guys, you know, have been referencing already right, where Arthur says, whatever it is, you don't have to do it. Let's go back.

We'll figure it out together. I promise you, I will help. Very Dr. Allen Grand, Jurassic Park, positive masculinity as far as I'm concerned. Smey is the one who like takes Arthur's hand, but then Arthur reaches out for slightly and then it's burst in time. And like I got to say, like on the level of, I don't know if you guys have opinions about this. In my opinion, the number one A plus ever reactor to a challenge.

chest bursting scene is Veronica Cartwright in the original alien. The blood spray and her screaming is just like, absolutely horror, classic, iconic. These, once again, Jonathan and Artish, who are just like have been so good, did an incredible job. Obviously, Jonathan's character, Smee stays in the shock space and slightly's like, where'd the monster go? Right? I did all of this. I have clearly killed Arthur. and I had to have this monster

that was the point and so he was just like looking around you know the chest bursters gown looking around in the brush just skittered right away just slithered and skittered out of frame totally gone and then so the horror

of the misaligned reaction slightly is still just sort of like one track and then the horror of the like overhead shot of like Smee's still processing and slightly is already just like picking up Arthur's corpse and pulling it along and say we have an appointment, you know, we have to get

there. We have an appointment to make. What do you think of that, Mallory? This was among the highlights of the season, this stretch and their disparate reactions to this. The fact that like, everybody is terrified. You're a kid. No matter what age you were, this would be one of the time. I mean, this would be the thing that defined your life having witnessed this, right? Totally. What an atrocity. I think, Joe, to your point, the center and of Arthur's humanity and then the moment where it's felt so crucial to me that slightly, even though it was on delay, did go take his hand. The fact that he, what reason did he have actually to believe that there was a choice other than the one like to listen tomorrow? Right. So in that

one moment and then to have that ripped away so cruelly along with your skin and your tank top and everything else, just anguish-inducing, I thought that the way that the kids, even though they are still going to be paired moving forward, like, have that moment of really blaming the other one was, like, a perfect choice. That's the monster they wanted to me. But then what did you do? Like, he's blaming his friend who he will, in short order, protect and defend and say you can't harm. But here is like, how could you let this happen? You said you were going to help me. What did you do? And Smee is like, you told me this was, you do, right? Be okay. Like, you said this was, going to be okay. That's why I helped. And I was thinking to part of, again, part of what Morrow said to them in

that episode three scene was in that, like, that feeling you get in the scenario exchange, when the monsters come and you can't, you don't help. Maybe you're feeling it now. When mother says the crew's life don't matter, only the bounty matters, when you hear the screams and all you can do is save yourself. Like, they heard the screams, including their own, and slightly went right into, I got to figure out how to make sure that this is okay because the one person who gave me another path is gone now. And that doesn't mean he's not scared. It doesn't mean he's not feeling.

But one of the things that carries forward into that hybrid body is the human impulse for self-preservation in a moment of terror. And I thought that was just perfect. I love your point. I love the indication that you're making, though, that is like then when they confront Morrow and his first thing is like, he's my best friend. You can't hurt him.

Not please don't hurt him, but you can't write him. These are the rules. He is my best friend, and the rules dictate you are not allowed to touch him. Exactly. Exactly. I think the reason you get that is because obviously moral lied to him in the first place. Arthur's going to be fine. He's going to have a rough couple days.

Ultimately, he's going to be cool. Get some green juice down him. Yes. It'll be fine. But you have all, I think a lot of the kids in this episode, a lot of the hybrids are clinging to these lies that an adult has told them. Even here, Smee is like Arthur is lying too about I'm going to do everything that I can to help.

Well, my guy, the only way. way you can help is by putting an alien in your belly and going with like these malicious soldiers, he's not going to do that. Right. But Smey is taking his hand. If he goes back to the building, they shoot him. He knows that. He can do nothing.

He can't do anything. Yeah. He's at least well meaning. Yes. But Morrow has clearly lied to slightly. But the only thing as Joe alluded to, he can do is kind of cling to that lie. And the fact that if he does deliver even Arthur's body, maybe his mom will be safe somehow. We see Curley kind of clinging to the lie from Dame Sylvia that everything is going to be okay.

It's not. She doesn't believe it. believes it, everyone knows better. But what else are these kids to do other than that? What else are these kids to do other than in this moment of pure terror, cling to the adult figures in their lives and hope that one of them will have an answer? I just think the moment where Arthur says, like, those of us who love you, right? And it's like, I don't know, given what, you know, Dame Sylvia has done and, you know,

just fallen in line with the corporate orders, right? She can concoct whatever story she wants to justify her actions. Well, it would be worse if I left these kids alone. So I have to do what the corporation says in order to stay and protect him. That's like the message she's telling herself. But it's ultimately not true. There's Joe who we have thought a lot as like he was going to be this sort of like beating heart human part of the story. And he is to some degree, but he is singularly focused on his sister.

He is like, do you really have to get any of the other? other kids? I don't know. Maybe just be the two of us. We'll move faster. He's not... He's not those of us who love you, right? And so it's just Arthur, himself alone. And then... I know. And then that kind of sentimentality...

I don't think this is something that Noah Hawley is saying, like, he personally believes in, but in this cruel world that they exist in, there's no place for it. No. There's no place for that. Certainly when there's this kind of consolidated corporate power. Like Boy Cavalier doesn't have any understanding or, as you said, place any role for that kind of empathy within the operation that he's trying to run. Can I hit two more chest bursty notes before we move on from this stuff?

Please. I wish you would. For one, just on a pure, like, body horror level. I thought this was a particular, like, mucusy chest bursting situation. The viscosity of whatever was happening was, like, more than just blood. Also, I'll tell you what it was, is KY jelly. Well, there was a lot of it. The like pre-cum, you know, like initial little like pulling before the full burst was just beyond the veil.

It was beyond the fail. It certainly was, but also it's why I'm here. This is why we play is for the chest bursting. And I do appreciate you. We talked about kind of the second wave of responses from Slightly and Smea in terms of like, once the screams stop, what are their instincts? It's kind of like mission oriented for slightly. still kind of stuck in shock for Smee. But in the moment, if you just played somebody this clip of them screaming as the chest

buster comes out for a fan of the alien franchise, who has not watched the show, they are indistinguishable, these kids in this moment from the way that everyone else reacts in the alien universe. Like, this is the one moment where everyone is brought together is when you see this fucking thing come out of somebody's chest. Unless you're a synth, and then you'd be like, you on. Nonpluss. Okay.

David Ristel in the official podcast was talking about how, and this was about episode six, so he did not talk about episode seven. I haven't heard that yet, but he was like, I spent hours with that face-hugger thing on my face, right? They built multiple versions. There's one you can breathe through.

There's one that's one that's animatronic so that they can press a button and it taps its talons or squeezes. Absolutely not. And he says, there's also one going around, and I think you guys have seen this on Instagram, but somebody made a facehugger C-PAP machine. I saw that.

Good stuff. I mean, just great work. He's like, I was smeared in K.Y. Jelly. And I don't know why, like, why do you have to smear them in K.Y. Jelly for the face hugger? Authenticity. Usually, like, they're sweaty. I would imagine, like, some sort of glycerol sweatiness.

But, like, okay, so he's like, smeared in K.Y. Jelly has, like, he's like, I got a terrible nightmares. I got a bit of PTSD. Oh, no. And then I went to go see Alien Romulus in the theater. and it was so upsetting because I just had this, like, visceral memory of being face-hugged. And I think as far as, like, characters being face-hugged

and then, like, having to do things, is this, like, one of the most active face-hugged performances that we've seen? Because usually you're, like, lying in a chamber in the lab somewhere or something like that, waiting for the face-hagor to drop off or something like this. But he's, like, they got to do all these setups across the island with Ristol and, like, reattach the face. face hugger to him. That's tough stuff. Anyway. Which I love because it's like it's very much entwined with the the thematic resonance of what's happening in that scene. It's like you know,

even though you know what's going to happen, you trick yourself. He's walking. He's talking. We've got more time. It's a false beat of hope. Yes. Amid the rationality of our mind. And like that is just really rough. I think Rob, what you're saying about the kind of great unifier being the reaction to this. Yeah. I think connects really nicely to what Joe was saying about. Because I really agree, Joe, I think there, there to me is a read. I also have, I have no idea how Noah Hawley personally thinks about this, but I do, I think there is like a read of this that is almost even inside of Alien too bleak to bear, where

it's like the one person whose love was actually directed outward turned other people and not about his own desire to receive something in turn or feel validated in turn could not move forward. The only thing that saves that from being like, I think the most nihilistic, and maybe this is ultimately more nihilistic, I don't know, is like, nobody's going to be. be okay, really? It's not like this is a universe or a story where the people who have less pure motives are going to be making it through their day.

I think they're going to have Florifana spikes through the chest or eyeball jockeys in their cranium. I would say he's the only human that acts that way. I think you could make an argument that Wendy, who's like, we have to get the other kids. Wendy who's like, hey, Zina Marce are people too. For sure. You know, like all the sort of stuff. Of the humans. Of the humans. Totally. Totally. Okay. So,

The Boys have other located or very quickly assembled a raft with which to drag Arthur's dead body through the water. And I have to say, David Rizzell, we've already praised you a lot, but I got to say his corpse acting 10-10, no notes. I would give him an Emmy just for the way that he is lifelessly sprawled, limbs akimbo on this raft as they drag him through the water. Swiss Armyman-esque the way he is a full-on character in this show stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Daniel Radcliffe wishes. Love it. Enter Morrow and his militia, his commandos, up out of the water. Like creatures, like mermaids, if you want to be in your Peter Pan space. I was initially really, I don't know why I bumped on this so hard, but I did every time I watched this episode, how they just rip off their masks and then drop them in the water. That's good gear. What are we doing? Wasteful. It's polluting. Don't you know. need that, but I guess your explanation is like they have no plans to go back out

the way that they came. They're still in the transports. I'm like, you're just dropping high tech gear in the water? I was very... It's amazing. We got to a place in this fictional universe where five corporations rule the world. People are just like old tech, don't need it. Give me the next model. My God.

Dump your curses and your masks in the water. All right. So we get that. I needed help. He's my best friend. You can't hurt him moment, right? which takes us back to episode three, that exchange that Mallory's referenced a couple times, right? Like, I don't have friends. Everybody needs friends.

She won't let you have them. What's on this ship, she spent billions, people's lives, they belong to her. So this idea that you can, like, still connect, think of other people, even though slightly had that moment where he was not thinking of Smee, has come back around to thinking about Smey. So, like, that mentality versus the cold corporate.

it's just it's been an expensive day they say in arbitration and then it's like yeah the lives sure sure sure the lives also that's a that's a cost as well what did you think of this morrow slightly interaction again like

I don't think we can say more to compliment Ardash Gerov for his performance he's really great here like I did everything you asked me true and then and then and then Bavu Sisei we've also praised is that were true wouldn't be standing over a hollow corpse. Like, this just, like, devastating.

Yeah. We've watched slightly just boil at this level of desperation for episodes and episodes, and then to just be sort of, like, cast aside Arthur's corpse just, like, dumped in the water. How fucking dare you? I don't want to pick aside. Uncalled for. Between the two militias who both seem bad, but, like, only one of them dumped Arthur's

body like that. So I guess I'm team prodigy. The fact that they could have just left the body, but they kind of go, out of their way to dump it. Gotta feed the crocodile, guys. Come on. Malo, what do you think? I, so we've talked a lot throughout the season.

I think this has been one of our favorite aspects of season one of the show is like the way that Morrow dances between the hero villain's fears. My reaction to this scene was that I thought this was the cruelest and most horrific thing Morrow had done yet, was saying to slightly what you just quoted, Joe, if that were true, you wouldn't be standing over a hollow corpse moment and you're acting like a child, you know what grown-ups do and they make a mistake, they own up to it moment because...

For context, Mel, this is a man who watched his entire crew die by alien, but he could have saved at least like four people. There's a basic responsibility for that. He doesn't it. Yeah. I had to do it. Yeah, it's like there's the kind of like, is that what grown-ups do aspect of this

where we watch these grown-ups flail constantly? But also it's like I had sort of, you know, what I wanted is for like in the face of this terror, like looking at these kids for Marrow to go back to that like she liked raisins moment and feel some softening inside. And it was really the opposite. It was a calcification of the mission, which was harrowing to confront. And I think the like, again, just everything Arthur gave us feels like it is it is operating in such stark contrast to the way other people are behaving. Because what all, really all of the adults are doing is like invoking what other adults do,

what it means to be an adult, right? It's a constant test. It's this, it's that. You're like that you own up to making a mistake. What slightly needs here is what only Arthur was willing to provide, which was saying this is what it's like to be a kid. And that's still what you are. Yeah. You don't have to do this. You don't have to do this. You might think there's no way out. I mean, to your point, what was Arthur really going to do? But like, he was going to try. He was going to go through that hatch and get shot immediately, but what an end it would have been. He was not going to, as Morrow does a few scenes later, put a gun to a child's head, which is what Morrow does. Rob, anything you want to say about this, this moment here. Well, I mean, not only

are they speaking to adulthood versus what it means to be a kid. They're speaking to only their specific version of adulthood. It's like, this is how I operate and thus I am interpreting it's the way all adults operate. I will give moral credit for this. He has practiced what he has preached here in the sense that he is not

a character who has made excuses. He lost the specimens. He has gone every step necessary to try to get them back without ever like over-explanning himself or blaming anybody else. So his version of adulthood is like, is that? It is kind of fucked up sometimes. He also, like, the particular needling he does of slightly here is the kind of needling

that I think, like, only a parent would be able to locate so precisely, which is the damage and the pain of, like, you have disappointed me, right? This is a very specific button to press with a kid that is a twisting of his humanity in that way. I love that you're putting that in a parent space, which is right. But also, I was thinking, like, that I wouldn't be sitting over a hollow corpse is very, like, horrible bosses. You have not delivered

what I asked you to put together. Like, where's no excuses, please? I asked you for this. Where is it? Why isn't here? And inside of this corporate sort of environment, this sort of just heartless, like, I don't care who you are as a person, but I asked for this piece of IP.

You have not delivered it to me. And isn't it like appropriate for both of those things to be in the mix when your job and corporate home becomes your family. I think like that's why that defensive Smee feels so, it's like the, it's the tether to Slightly's humanity. And like, you know, he has been caught up in this thing that is too big for him to navigate, but he is not bad at his core. He is not bad. And like, to your point, like, for Morrow, it is just like, you're my mission, you're my mission. And

Slightly's reaction when he grabs Arthur's legs and drags him is you're my mission. But then to have the reminder that there's something else beyond that right next to him for him to choose to prioritized that was like so crucial. Also, we know you're my mission. Just secretly means I love you. It's a direct translation. Canonical in marble. I agree.

But to get that like corporate deliverable kind of juxtaposition with on a performance, from a performance standpoint, this like stuffy-nosed affect of like a kid who's really going through it. Like that contrast, I think is particularly stark. Anytime you have Slightly and Morrow talking to each other, but especially now that everything has gone to shit. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptitide may be able to help.

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order now at order.sweetgreen.com. All right, let's zoom back in time to the Isaac aftermath, right? Our listener Hunter pointed out the sort of Old Testament significant of Isaac's name as this like sacrifice, this sacrificed child, especially in close proximity to a sheep or a lamb. I was like, that's interesting. I hadn't thought about that. So we've got Kirsch. Boy is in a safe, safely behind some glass as Kirsch and the team come and clean up the lab, right?

Boy is doing what I call the Obi-1 Cano. be impatient hop that we get in dual-the-fates behind a barrier that you want to get through the sort of moment. But is staying safe there while Kirsch and everyone else cleans things up. Doesn't seem great to me

that the fly spit a bunch of dissolving acid onto a control box. Yeah. A bunch of sparks came out. That doesn't seem great. I don't know if that was going to... Is that going to come back around? I don't know. But it just seemed not great to me. And

And Kirsch, I don't know, looks on with like consternation at best as the flies get zapped and boxed and all this stuff happened. So we've talked a lot about this about sort of like how we're interpreting this Kirsch reaction. Let's talk a little bit about BK's, good old BK's reaction here, Boy Cavalier, right? What did we lose? One of the children got careless. This is this ongoing runner inside of this episode of the kids being naughty, which will come back again to with Kersh and the boys. at the end of the episode, right? And Samuel Blinken, who we should point out,

is an English actor playing Scorpius Malfoy, all famously on stage, adopts this dodgy British accent, right? Oh, what do you do? I'll send him to bed without Jenny's supper. Like, very funny moment, but an interesting, an interesting, like, cutesy runner with the kids that I'm not sure, like, fully lands for me in the button at the end of this,

but this moment I thought was really good. And for everyone that helps me, holding out hopes that Tootles might be restored and rebooted. The tech is not there yet. It's not. The acid went right into the face and the head. So this is just not, we're not coming back, unless we are. All things are possible inside of a TV landscape, but who knows? And then Boy's responses, there goes that $6 billion. No more kids in the lab. Why were the kids ever allowed in the lab? Is my question. Except Wendy. We'll talk about that. So, Molly, what did you think of Boy Cavalier inside of this moment? Okay. So on the No Kids in the lab front, we had seen this kind of like organizing geometry of the xenomorph cage before. But I was really struck for some reason in this episode with something about the way when they came in and they've got their like mini canister to retrieve the fly that kind of looks like a duffel bag.

It's like a weekender for our experiments, you know? I was so struck by the way the Zeno. was sitting like sulky kid and it looked like the like squares of that space. Tina Morph. Which is there?

Tina Morph is still here. Tina Morph, it reminded me of like, I do not have children, but I believe it's called the Nugget. The like couch that you can move the pieces of to play with. Oh yes, yes.

You know what I'm talking about? That was really what like, yeah, the squares of the Zeno space. It just felt like a room for a kid, which I thought was really interesting and kind of with the like no kids in the labs. of heighten that.

The only other thing I'll add on the curse front before hitting boy is just to your point, Joe, about the dispassionate, like, collect the hybrid, even more than science, collect the hybrid was like, I thought brutal as a like emotional remove from this person that he had spent a lot of time with. On the boyfriend and the shoddy accent, he is, so this is what Utani said to boy, right? like she was like during arbitration or we'll send you to bed without your supper. So I thought that was really notable.

It's not like he's just, I'm going to be Tywin and make you feel like Joffrey. He's like, someone else made me feel that way. So I now need to turn that around and project that out into the world, which feels like a big insight to me into his character and like probably how he got to this point when he was a genius hot shot prodigy kid

and adults were like, you're lesser and he's like, actually I have the creative power of a brilliant young mind. I'm going to send you to bed with that, your supper. We didn't get your full take on the arbitration scene. Did you feel like there were moments in that scene where boy didn't feel like he had the upper hand? Or does that not matter whether he felt like he didn't have the upper hand?

And I think that actually makes this more of a damning insight into how he conducts his affairs. If he is so clearly already dominating, but then that wormed its way into his mind and he can't abided. He has to put it back into the world as like a negative evil force against others. I thought the way that YouTube broke down that scene, which was like, you know, 70% incredibly potent character inside and 30% foot stuff was appropriate. So thank you for that. You're welcome. Again, it's right there in the text. Live to serve. But I love that idea, though, of, you know, kind of boys' intrusive thoughts, whether it is the insecurity that comes from a comment like that and needing to repeat it or put it out in the world,

or just this idea that we've been dancing around for episodes now of like what is the shiny new thing that makes you forget about all the old things? And this to me felt like an extension of that too of, oh, that's $6 billion. It's not my world-changing innovation. That was yesterday's news. We have all these aliens now.

I'm obsessed with all these guys. I can't wait to make out with eyeball jokey in human form. He's not obsessed with all these guys. He's obsessed with one girl in all the world. One girl. Sorry, gender neutral guy. One girl in all the world. The flora fauna can go through as far as he's concerned.

I'm honestly, I really am worried we're not going to get a flora fauna escape, especially now that all the other species are moving out of the lab. I just don't even think we're going to see flora fauna again. Let me soothe you. Because I had the same worry, and then I remembered that one of the flashes that we have seen in the flash forwards in the opening is some very bloody, I think, Flora fauna. spiky prongy thingies.

So I feel like that's promising. Yes. I thought so I'm not a scientist. It's coming for. Spiky prongy things. So I feel like that's a promise of a very violent flora fauna death still to come.

We're also running out of humans. I know. I guess there's endless redshirt militia members who it could kill. Not as many after Wendy free the I know. And like the militia that's down by the dock. Like the Zeno's just in the

just in the brush there. How long are they going to survive the opening minute? I'm going to say 30 seconds into the next episode is my guess. And that's like, it might not even be that long. Do you got, why do they not have the cloud at Prodigy Corp? Because, I mean, obviously, to be clear, I do not think that a version of Isaac uploaded from the cloud would be the same Isaac. But that would be interesting, actually.

So there's no, I thought this was, I don't know, this was a little odd to me. I don't know the science, because I'm not a scientist, but I don't know this. Were they putting living brains inside of these synthetic bodies? Or were they putting in Westworld, it's like a, they call it the pearl. It's like a little like, billier ball. Not living brain. No, no, I think not a living brain. They're just, yes, right?

Oh, yeah, that doesn't make sense to me. If at some point you put the neurons wave something, I'm not a scientist, somewhere. They have the nice pillow around their heads. The lights go through the tubes. Yeah. And then they're there. Yeah. While we are all in the lab together,

you know, just really getting into the nuts and bolts of how these beings operate. I'm still, have a lot of milk-related questions. You know, like, Nibs gets shot and starts milking a little bit as one does.

Oh, come on. Okay. Even for you, that phrasing is appalling. Really bad. Y'all, this is one. What happened? I don't know what else to say. What is the milk doing? What does it do within the synthetic body?

Is it lubricating? Yeah, it keeps them moist. It's just keeping a moist. That's it. Yeah. And do they need to be, does the milk need to be changed out? Do they consume? I think we see in like an aliens, Bishop eating like some milk pellets or something.

I don't know what like, do they need to replenish it? Do they need to be drained? I just need to know how the milk works. Okay. Hobbes and Dragons at gmail.com. Please. If you have some insight into how the milk works. How the milk works.

Whether the synthetics have brains. If we need to know all this stuff. If you were making an email for this episode, it would be how does the milkwork at gmail.com? But that's not what we're doing here. It's interesting to me that curse seems like so unimpressed with the eye did because like we're all pretty impressed with what the eye did here, which is the payoff of the earlier lab collab between alien species. And also, Kirsch kind of misread, this idea of misreading it of like he, he did this,

it didn't benefit him, her, sorry, she did this and it didn't benefit her in any way. But of course, it did. And in both cases, it allowed for her to escape the lab first. When she helped the leeches, it distracted our already distracted scientists enough that she didn't lock the pod in enough shape that the eye jockey could escape there on the Maginot, and then here, she's got herself a one-way trip to good old boy's office. And a boy is like, let me offer up various bodies to you to transfer into. I just want to talk to you and maybe make out with you.

I don't know, no big deal. So I think it's interesting that despite having a good read on her intelligence, they're still not fully aware of all that she can do. Well, there's knowing that a being is smart and there's not realizing that they're smarter than you, right, that they are seeing a version of the board that you are not seeing, the cause and effect chain that's leading you to do

exactly what it wants you're, sorry, what she wants you to do. I think even Kirsch is behind. Like maybe this is one of those areas where even someone is theoretically smart as boy doesn't have the synthetic type mind to organize and understand that he's getting, played. And even a synthetic like Kersh doesn't have the human wisdom to understand that he can be

played. Yeah, I think this feels like a hybrid mind in order to practice. Perhaps so. In theory. I think this feels very connected to like how Joe was kind of bundling all of the the Kersh comments from before where like on the one hand, I think there's genuine scientific curiosity behind his observation and statement. Like, wait, well, what is going on here? What is the motivation and a a desire to further understand. I think there is that like it doesn't only imperil humans capacity to

underestimate your foe. And then I think there's at least, this was not how I read it, I'm with you guys, but I think there's at least the possibility, however small, that he does have a deeper theory or insight and is like, keeping it close to the vest, prompting boy up

to be in another perilous situation. You've just been, an itching for that eyeball will be in boy's head no no no that's been my dream that's you're getting your dream fulfilled there is no question based on Samuel Blankin's beautiful gorgeous giant peepers alone I want that eyeball inside of boy's head you're getting it I want the that's also what boy wants at this point that's his dream phrasing I want the tentacles playing his vocal cords I'm getting it I want that you are getting it in the I will be shocked now if that doesn't happen in the finale.

That's all I dream of. No, but what you've been wanting is for curse to shove boy in front of one alien species of another. And if it's not a phase hugger, why not an eye? Why not an eye? You know, Joe, you kind of threw this away earlier that boy might try to make out with the eyeball jockey. I think there's a non-zero chance that's going to happen. Like, whatever human being, the eye jockey inhabits, he was tearing up at their interaction. at the thought of like,

I have finally reached the mountain top with this hyper-intelligent being. They were having, again... Who can give me three, actually only two digits more into pie? With the stink of sheep shit in the room, he is swooning. He's on it.

All right. All right. So we get Wendy, Marcy, coming in to witness Isaac's body here. Curse sort of tries to stand between her and Isaac's dead body. This is where he says, you know, what happened? He dispassionately says science, right?

Happens to all of us. Wendy Marcy is floored. This is the line that Mallory quoted earlier. We can't. We're premium. I have some early odds association with that phrase, but I will leave it for another time, right? And this is a real, like, the last of us, you're not immune from being ripped apart, Ellie moment for Wendy Marcy. I have just sort of like, there's one thing knowing that.

you're synthetic, that you can leap up, you know, a cliff on a beach that you can run faster than anyone else, that you're stronger than anyone else. And it's another to see the milky innards of one of your brothers, uh, split out before you. And this is similar, I think, to Nib's, you know, trying to confront what is inside of her, what is going on inside of her and her physiognizum and stuff like that. So I think that like that, that this moment, this confrontation coupled with what she learned last week, because she had a big moment last week of like, oh, you can just erase our memories without asking us.

That's one thing. Seeing this sort of the viscera, the milky viscera of Isaac is another sort of rubricon for her to cross. So just sort of like, I'm out of here. This is it for me. And I was thinking about... I just don't know why I get my hand slapped for milky viscera, or for saying milking, but milky viscera is above the pale.

You invited it. You welcomed it. I'm just saying, look, we're all in the milk together, you know? That's where I'm out with it. I've been waiting impatiently to cite this particular quote from Peter and Wendy. I was expecting it to come for boy, our like, but per malice's earlier conversation, it's not a one-to-one cop on all these characters. So this moment of confronting your own mortality is a Peter Pan moment, a famous Peter Pan moment inside of the story.

But this is a real Wendy moment, right? Peter was not quite like other boys, but he was afraid at last. A tremor ran through him like a shutter passing over the sea. But on the sea, one shutter follows another till there are hundreds of them. And Peter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again with that smile in his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, to die will be an awfully big adventure. Now, that's, of course, not quite where Wendy lands here.

She's not like, to die would be an awfully big adventure. This idea of like thinking you're immortal and then confronting your immortal. Yeah. Peter's not like other boys. Wendy's not like other girls, right? And she's just like, we're premium. We can't die like this. Oh, I can die like this.

Okay, we got to go. Time to leave. And also, I'm going to go with my monster pal, just a few steps behind me as I go. Mal, what are you thinking about Wendy Marcy's thought process in this moment? A fantastic passage that really further unlocks all of this, because I think it's a good reminder that that point of clarity, to die will be an awfully big adventure to the well-organized mind. Death is but the next great adventure. Choose your tale, right? That is a place of clarity and acceptance that the characters have to work their way toward. We are at the beginning with Wendy, and the beginning is not just the beginning of this phase of her life and phase of her arc. It is rooted in the work premium, the special, the chosen, the reason that you exist in the first place is because of the limit of the form that came before. We left that all behind.

And so it's not just confronting the fact that, like, there is vulnerability, that there's susceptibility. It's confronting the lie. It's confronting the falsehood of the entire pursuit, which is then shattering. What do you have to hold on to to understand the choices that you've made or that other people made for you if that is taken away from you? And I think, like, the, I love that you invoked Nibbs, Joe, because this is something this season has done very well. We've talked about this in other contexts, showing us that the reactions or the relationships to something that is unfolding is different for each of the kids.

So, like, Nibbs's relationship to that is rooted in a very different place than Wendy's. But there's still an examination of looking inward, thinking about your mortality, refusing to accept it, etc. I thought that the fact that Wendy, in hindsight now, the fact that Wendy was not in the room when the other, when the kids are sitting there talking about all the ways they could still die was like really notable. That's a conversation Wendy interrupts. They're like, could we drown? Could we burn? Could we get trampled by a hippo? And then Wendy comes in and is like, we got to go.

But what does Wendy hear when they then go? It's that speech from Kersh. You used to be food, that one, right? But in the animal kingdom, there's always someone big. bigger or smaller, who would eat you alive if they had the chance. That's what it is to be an animal. You're born, you live, you die. He was saying that to Wendy as a way to establish for her that humanity is inferior and insignificant compared to what both of them are. But it's not that, it's not just that Tootles died. It's the Tootles died in exactly that way. The Fly Made Tootles food.

So they're still food. Wendy's like invitation to this new world is you're not food anymore. and then she has to stare at the plain truth of it in the face. There's always someone else who can make that what you are again. Horrifying. And that's been the, like, core of the alien franchise is, like, we think we are the apex predator. And then not to invoke predator because that's a whole different other kettle of fish. But, like, we think we are the dominant. You know, this is something that, like, Noah Hawley talked about, right?

We are the dominant race. And then we encounter. And this idea that, like, and they were talking about this on the official podcast, this idea that like space exploration is sort of like this idea of manifest destiny, this idea of like we are meant to go out and conquer for their worlds, for their lands, for their worlds. And of course, when we get there and plant our flag, we will be the scariest motherfucker in the valley, right? Like, we will be the ones to conquer.

And then we meet something that bleeds acid. And it's like, and gestates inside of us. And it's just like, oh, shit. So that is the role of the human inside of the alien franchise is like, you are not it. You think you are and you are not. I really think that Prometheus, for all of its flaws, really encounters this the most intriguingly to me. To put that in another species, to put that in the sense, in the hybrid, sorry, is an interesting sort of step forward. evolution of that idea because you're superior to the humans, but you're still inferior to

these bugs that we've taken from the stars and brought to our little rock. And if there's no reboot restore, then the stakes are there. That might actually be a rat. You can't just be reloaded. Things matter because they end. I always say that. Okay, Rob Mon. I think the superiority to the humans is even up for debate because, like, there are kind of two lessons here. There's everything that just happened with Isaac. And that is exactly what you guys laid out, the kind of evolving food chain that they themselves are still a part of. There's also the different food chain within Prodigy itself, kind of characterized the what we saw with NIBS, which is not necessarily one of consumption and food, but like, Nibs is a pawn on

the board whose memories can be tampered with, who is still susceptible to everything that these human beings want. And so the idea of being in this superpowered body in which everything Wendy has seen firsthand to this point has been jumping off of cliffs and running at super speed and decapitating a xenomorph. She has every reason to think that she is above all of this shit and to then learn that not only can my body be melted by acid, but my brain can be tampered with at any time. I can be turned off. I can be tracked. I can be reprogrammed to be whatever they want me to be. Like, they are more than humans, but they're also less than because they're controllable by human technology. And this is also, this is a great point. And it's also outside of this alien idea or this food chain

idea, just a very simple human growing up idea of like confronting that, you know, the things that were, you know, spongy or healable or all these things inside of you when you were young and you felt immortal and you could fall off your bike and you're just sort of like fine. And then you grow up and you're like, oh, no, I'm much more breakable than that. Oh, no. Like these things actually do matter and have an impact on me. Is it a growing up moment no matter who you are? out of the lab into, you know, once again, I just want to register my, I guess, slight disappointment at the way Alice Lothar has been used this season.

Joe feels like a real, real ineffectual presence inside of this episode. And I love Alex Lothar, and I feel like there could be so much more going on. And maybe we'll get that in the finale. But he's just like kind of a footnote in this episode. What are you going to say, Rob? Maybe this is me giving him in that character. too much critics. I agree there's like the way he's being used within the show and the plot. And then there is sort of the character in this world. And the character in the world, I think,

is baffled in the way that many human characters are baffled in this story and like ineffective and doesn't know how to do anything that he wants to do. And so it's like, I wonder how much of that is kind of counter programming in terms of the casting of like you're expecting an Alex Lothar performance or at least we certainly are. And yet his character is somebody who's like, so ineffective as to be kind of contemptible. What do you think, Mal? It's entirely possible. I think it's just not the...

I think he's like just the least developed and successful character on the show. That is also true. It's just a huge bummer. A real mess. Like, I think we... I think what you're... to you're identifying,

we are bringing our expectations to it, undeniably. But if we had never seen him before, I think we would still be like, this Joe guy is just kind of a, dip shit. It also sucks. Has, yeah, yet to give me.

And I think there are moments that just, like, flit up against the kind of thing we want. Like, I think it's, in theory, really interesting that all season long, Wendy has found herself in moments where she's like, you used to be the big brother and the older one and the one who would say, you're going to walk out in front, but now that's me now. And then we build to a point where, like, he basically, even though it was all thanks to Arthur. All thanks to Arthur, he basically gets to be the one who's like, it's okay. The trackers are off. You still need me.

You still need your big brother. I have some utility. I drew a map. The map I still can't get over or believe was real. It was just like, I'm like, this hell of how many days have you been working on this? Crazy. I basically just said like lab. But we don't interrogate that aspect of their relationship.

We've yet to circle back to. Wendy's resentment over the fact that he didn't visit her. I was waiting for that to just really central. Trying to weaponize. And it's just like... Yeah. Now it feels like we're almost out of time.

I mean, maybe that can come back in a big way in the finale. But like it almost feels like we're out of time for that to be kind of central core emotional text like we were hoping it would be. So yeah. And then I think what you pointed out already earlier, like when he's like, we don't have time

to help the others, I'm just like the thing that this character is supposed to represent is that there's always time to help another person you gotta try. So I'm just like, and again, there's a way to make that interesting. It's like for the deep selfish nature of I thought I lost you and you're gone, I thought the moment of him looking at the grave was like... It's not just that. It's like...

Touching? Sorry. No, no. It's... I like this idea that the only hybrid he's able to identify as human is his sister. And he can't identify the other ones as human. as human. And she says, like, the way you think of me, that's how I think of them.

Like, you know, and it goes back to that conversation that he had with her where she was like, hey, these aliens in the cages, they didn't ask to be here. And he's like, they're hunters, they're, the enemy, they're this. And she's like, not to them, they aren't or not this one. It isn't. You know, so like, he's representing this point of this, this regressive point of view. Yeah. And that's fine to have that.

No, I mean. How much is a, a. pro zeno zinos or people to agenda regressive. Not regressive, but just sort of like... I think he's very right about that, I think. But like this... Well, I don't know. I agree with Joe here, because I had that same response last episode

where I'm like, this is a character who I think is best used in the show to actually have empathy toward other people, even if they're not people. Breachers, whatever it is. And if you're going to warp that and say, then the myopia is so full, it's only rooted in his personal loss and his personal guilt,

that's an interesting story choice, but needs to be more deftly explored. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think if you were, oh, go ahead, Joe, sorry. No, no, no, you go ahead. I think if you were going to have him as, like, an empathy source for the show, you need to not have him in contact with the xenomorph

out in the world at the beginning, where he is seeing the mayhem and being chased. Like, if he was kind of approaching it from a more abstract perspective of like, oh, look at this little, look this cute little critter who you're raising and talking to. Let me convince some gringes. Honestly, was he, you know, what was slightly trying to feed the face hugger? We never really considered that.

Well, I mean, that's, that's, then I would have loved for him to say that of like, it hunted me or it took me, you know what I mean? It's true. It's true. Remember me and it took me and you had to come rescue me and decapitate it. You know what I mean? Like, remember this thing that happened just a couple episodes ago. Yeah.

But like the way that. And then she could have been like, sorry, I forgot. It was behind a closed door. Yeah. saw it, so did it happen? Or it wasn't that one. Remember, that's her defense. It's not this Zeno.

Hashtag not all Zenos. But like, did we know that their last name was Hermit? Did we already know that? And I just wasn't paying attention. Okay. I straight up did not. But maybe again, maybe this is all the Battlestar. I've been like racetrack pilled.

But like I just assumed that was just like his call sign. And I did not understand that it was Marcy Hermit. I thought it was his call sign at first too. And then I think the only reason I realized it was his last name is because it's just listed as his character. name on like oh okay i think i thought that was like joe slash hermit or something like that anyway that's their last name um but like let's yeah let's we've been touching on it let's just go through it it's like they they encounter the graves yeah yeah they have this interesting conversation actually before we do that i do want to go back to nips because this this nibs conversation when

we when we encounter her and she's with curly who's boot looking bootlicking to the very last is just sort of like they want they have her best interest in heart uh boy would never do this it's it's Wonderful. But we get this nibs moment, right? No, I've got all my mind. What's in me? Nobody's messing with my insides. Isn't that right, Mr. Strawberry? What's ours is ours and nobody can take it. And then I don't want to be a ghost. Like, I just thought this writing was really, really well done. Spooky, sad, like all these things together. And then to then have nibs at the gravesite and have this conversation. of Marcy being like, Marcy Wendy being like, that's not us. Like, I'm still here. And this conversation of like,

what is, what is me? Who am I? What is my body? What is myself? Inside of these few scenes together between who, and what team am I on? And that's what it all comes down to is like at the very end in the confrontation

on the boat. And Joe's like, am I with my sister? Or am I with these humans? Who is? the us in the last of a scenario here? What what pot am I in? Am I with nips?

She doesn't seem right. I'm with Mr. Strawberry personally. I'm always in Mr. Strawberry. But like I just think I think that encounter of him like putting his hand over Marcy's mouth to stop her from calling the xenomorph. But then earlier when she does call the xenomorph, the xenomorph kills all the men. And and then the xenomorph comes towards them. And he tries to put himself between the xenomorph and her.

and she's like, get out of the way. I'm the one who could protect you in this moment. And she has this conversation with the xenomorph, the clicking and the cooing and the murmuring. With her handout in front of Joe and in front of nibs to be like, eyes on me, Zeno, you and me. Yes. This is my best friend.

You can't touch him. Like, I am protecting these people. But because she is the, the, the, the, the protective. And this is the issue that Joe has where he keeps trying to be protector. It's true. And this is not something that he is suitable for anymore

inside of this new world, you know? Yeah. I thought the scene with the graves kind of hit on some of that too. Like the kind of changing nature of their relationship and I think really highlighted their completely

and vastly different experiences with processing Marcy's alleged death or as he understood it. And like the fact that Wendy in that moment can be like, yeah, I'm still here. I'm not bothered by seeing these graves. Like, Nibbs is having an existential crisis, but I am not. I'm just going to, I'm ready to move on.

Right. And it seemed like of all the people, Joe was sort of the most, Joe and Nibs are kind of the most affected by seeing the graves. And it's like, it makes sense because he has been processing over years and years, this idea that his sister died and mourning her and trying to understand what had become of his family. And to Wendy slash Marcy, like, she's just always been here. This has just been a part of her life.

And then poor, poor Nibbs, who, I agree the writing is so sharp in terms of her dialogue in this episode, like very River Tam and Firefly to me in terms of like somebody whose brain has been tampered with and kind of like how if you were in that position, could you ever trust anything you experience ever again? How could you think that, oh, that wasn't a planted memory that I have? How could you think that there isn't something missing from everything that I thought was complete? Like her situation feels the most tragic, honestly, of any character on this show.

Mallory, what do you want to say? I thought the grave scene was a really nice touch as well, because on the one hand, I'm kind of like, I'm honestly shocked that these are even here. Yeah. Right? But then also it's like it's not like they're being cared for intended to. Like, Joe has to remove all of the twigs and the detritus that has settled on what should be like a maintained space.

I thought that Joe's saying, hermit saying, you let it out, was. you know, he's on the one hand, like, okay, I, and that Graves could be another lie, frankly. Like, we know they're not, but from his perspective, it's not like it's ultimate definitive proof, but it's closure of a certain sort, right? It's like a bridge to something that, per the test that Adam sent set him, like he is validating their premise, which is I believe this is my sister, right? And frankly, the fact that, you know, he doesn't give a shit about the other hybrids doesn't diminish the fact that he, in some ways, heightens the fact that he's like a person. and I knew is recognizable here, so they're more worthwhile to me. Then he has to confront,

wait, I don't know who you are anymore. And the choices that you're making and the things you're able to do are beyond me. So on the one hand, there's the protective instinct. Joe, you put toothless, you put a gif of pickup and toothless in our notes. I had written in my notes, very Harry Buckbeak slash Amid Vagar. Like, undeniably, it's giving that energy, right? where there is a transcendent kind of like, whether it's scientific or magical bond between two beings that other people cannot access or understand. The fact that Wendy is able to say,

not only let's have a little chat, but I am going to protect other people there in my halo of safety. And Hermit is not just like, cool, we're good now. He's like, wait, the fact that you can do that is like unholy to me. Yeah. It is forcing me to confront the fact that you're not that body in the grave. You're a thing I don't understand. But if you are the mind and the heart and the soul of my sister,

you have become, that part of you has become something that morally I can't wrap my eye. You know, like we watch the Zanomorph out of the cage just murder so many people. So many. And like it's one thing, you know, the militia that she's like, you can leave. Why don't you leave? I'm giving you a warning leave. That's one thing.

It's another thing to say, Dame Sylvia, or Boy Cavalier, or all these other people, et cetera, et cetera. But these, like, lab grunts, you know? The bold sprayers?

Yeah, there's nothing to her. Yeah. And that's just something that, like, Joe's like, we can't be on the same team. Right. I'm not,

I'm not with this. Okay. See, I think we might need to walk back this idea of Wendy as an empathic character. Like she does care about her kind of functional siblings, her actual sibling and these other hybrids who have kind of become her siblings. Everyone else, who's not a Z no more, fuck them. You know, like that's a weird perspective to hold for a character in this world.

Yeah, I guess it all comes back to that sort of like Last of Us glanish idea of like who's the us. And for Joe, it's like a clan of two. Yep. Right. I guess now he's like expanding it to include his army pals, right? but like, you know, and for Wendy, it's like Joe and the, though she doesn't seem to even look for slightly insme, but it's just hope that that happened off screen.

Doesn't care. Doesn't even seem like she really wants to convince Curly that much? It's like, okay, I don't want to go. Please don't tell. She's just like, please don't, please don't wrap me out. I know you want to. I know you want to. Yeah, I like to.

I think the last of us, us, them parallel is a great one, Joe. And I think like it's, it is an interesting idea for the show to explore and tease out that like when this bridge from humanity to hybrid status is established and Wendy has a lot of like gratitude, not quite, we're never in quite like, you know, like a sycophant territory with Wendy and boy, but you know, a lot of like what the boy genius said, right, that we have to kind of work our way through the illusions into this current state. And then the place that you find common ground and understanding is like, it's not with my old family. It's not with the people who gave me this new life. It's with the other people who are

like me and that extends to, we are alien too, right? And so this idea that this, I think when the show starts, viewers are inclined to say the hybrids and the aliens will be opposed because they are the strongest forces and the idea that they would be aligned as like the other groups is, I think, a compelling turn in the story. Bad news for boy. All right. Let's go now to, Secret Synth Corner with Joanna Robinson. Wherein I realized, via close captioning, that Adam's full name is Adam Einz.

Now, this is, you know, this has, it's not, this has not been out there. It's just like sort of in the cast list that I've been looking at or whatever. He's just been listed as Adam, A-T-O-M. Ein's means one in German. So this is like Adam 1, A-T-O-M-1, A-D-A-M-A-M-A-1,

A1, A.I, whatever you prefer. I'm just like, this guy is a synth. That's how I feel about the name Atom Aynes. And you're going to have to try really hard to convince me otherwise because that's how I feel about this guy. An added layer to this, our listener Jen wrote in about Adrian Edmondson, who's playing the aforementioned Atom Ains, is that he was on a, you know, he's sort of like a UK legend on this show, the young ones, which I've never seen, but I am aware of, mostly because of his co-star Rick Mile, I am aware of in other things. But he plays this, like, punk rock, like, bright orange, mohawk, pierced, like, punky guy. Like, that's who he, that's who he is,

like, iconically in, in UK culture, that character. And so the fact that they've, like, cast him here is this, like, robotic Jeeves-esque, you know, Upper crust, what does he say? Like, I must renew my concerns. Big here inside of the show, I think is really, really interesting and funny. Where are you on Secret Synth Watch? And I know you both were like, we don't want it or we don't care or whatever, but I am hosting this episode. So I'm making you engage with me.

Mallory, where are you on this? I think I'm in the same place where I think this is entirely plausible. and to your point, probably even likely, I don't challenge that for a second. I don't, if this is a reveal and presented as a big reveal in the finale, I don't think it will have an impact on me. Like, I won't care. So I think that's just like, I'm not challenging that he is likely to be a synth.

I just don't know what we're supposed to feel about that. Yeah, because he works for boy who makes sense in hybrids, whose office is adorned with hybrid faces and milky blood bags. He, I think what would be interesting is if he had interacted with other characters, because I'm like, boy, I assume knows that, made him. If not, that would be interesting, but do we have enough time to explore that? So, like, if he had been positioned with other characters more often as someone who was, like, saying something about the state of synthetic virtue versus humanity,

then there's a, or someone could be surprised by that. that, but I'm like, the characters who could learn that, what would it mean to them to know it? I would say the person who's had the most meaningful interaction with him is Joe, right? This idea of, like, he's talking to Joe. He's blackmailing. I'm not saying this is going to be revelation or anything like that, but he's talking to him. And then he says that thing about, like, an old model nobody wanted, which is something that, like, we lashed onto at the moment of, like, is he talking about himself? That's the only sort of satisfactorily pay off I could think of. I'm not sure that that's that interesting.

So, yeah, like, I'm kind of with you both in that, like, I mean, I feel so convinced he's a secret synth. It is something that Noah Hawley is interested in in terms of, like, the way that Ash has revealed in the alien movie. But how can they do it in a way that's interesting inside of just, like, one more hour of television left? I don't know. Rob Monty.

I think the only way you're creating any kind of interest in that character that would feel fulfilling on like a on a story or theme level would be is like if kersh is deviant in his behavior enough that adam feels like the safe synth by comparison right it's like the old the safety and the older model as opposed to this kind of newer one who won't do what i say who clearly has some kind of agenda maybe it aligns with the companies maybe it doesn't like maybe there is a dividing line among the synths you know in terms of their behaviors and their patterns that could be interesting but that would be interesting in like a season two way not in a season one I have like a kind of a hairbrand theory that I don't actually believe to be clear.

But I'm like, okay, there's a version of this where it's like, we've been led to believe all season that only child mine. If he's not, if he's won because he's not a sense, but he's a hybrid. That would be interesting to me. Specifically, what if he is Boy Cavalier's father? Like we've been talking about these headlines about his, like speculating about his dead parents and what happened with this car accent. And I'm like, is there a version of this where we look? Because the person who, the secret sense revealed that would get me is Dame Sylvia. Because so much of her story has been rooted in like, I wanted to have children.

I couldn't. I'm trying to explain to this person across from me that they don't understand their body. Like, what if there's, and I don't think that that has to be what happens to be clear. And I think in some ways that would actually be kind of like fraught and naughty. But like, what if they're like Adam and Dame Sylvia were boy Cavalier's parents and he killed them? And then he uploaded their minds into hybrids. And then we're just like then going to say in the canon. that the child minds,

I don't know. Something like that would be interesting. I like this idea that it's connected to, because to your point, there are various threads that we're like, how are we going to pay this off? And this whole, like, who is, what is going on with this biographical information

we know about, we've been fed a few times about Boy Cavalier. How is that going to pay off? And if it is related somehow to this, like, secret synth reveal, that could be really interesting. That's a great connection. In the spectrum of TV Daddy,

issues. Turning your dad into your obedient like jeans robot is like that's straight to the mountain top

as far as I'm concerned. They're just playing catch guys. They're just tossing a ball. Yeah. Field of dreams out here. Okay. Anything else we want to say

about this eye jockey and boy moment of connection and mathematics and sheep shit that happens here. I want to say

the menacing clip clop I just love this sheep so much. It's great. Character just design, the malevolent cast of the face, the clip-clop of the hose as it goes forward, the bleeding, which again, the bleating that, like, really feels to me like a step towards I can talk now.

Oh, yeah. And boy, I mean, I think boy is, like, clearly thinking the same, right? He's, like, put it in a body so that I can have that conversation atop the mountain. Joe, did this feel to you like the shitting? First of all, I will say, I thought this was an iconic scene in one of the highlights of the season, just genuinely great. I do wish, to your point about the actual digits in pie that we had just had, like, whether it's clop in the hoof or something else, do the nine and then do the two. I think if the deuce is actually in the right spot for number two, it's even better, but still very good.

Do you think, Joe, that this is further evidence or even proof that that is a living body still? That the eye jockey has not killed that sheep, but rather is, like, do you shit when you're dead? You shit as you die. It's been eating straw. Bobby Barathean taught us. They never tell you how they shit themselves, right? Because no one, Holly said that really interesting thing to us in the interview where he was like, is it irreversible? Can you pull the eye back out and that thing is still alive?

I don't know. Bodily functions seem to be intact. Do zombies take dumps? It's the Phil K. Dick, a follow-up that we've been. Do zombies take office dumps? Hobbiton dragons at j. com. Let us know.

Do Andrews Electric Sheet? And do zombie sheep take dumps? I would watch. One for the philosophers, you know. Romahony,

what do you want to say about this love connection we're seeing between your best friend, the I-Jockey and Boy Cavalier? Look, I'm charmed by it. But as somebody who has

the eye jockey's best interest at heart, I'm concerned about her getting looped up with a guy like boy. You know, but you love yearning. You don't love the urine that's happening here for Boy Cavalier.

The urine feels one-sided. Boy is yearning, for sure. Downright. Eye jocky is shitting on the floor. He's nagging. She's nagging and it's working. She's definitely nagging. He's into it.

Don't King, shame. If that's where the finale is going, I don't want any part of that, I got to say. This is what our listener, Andrew, had to say about eyeball jockey, and it's really an all-time house of our moment, I think. Andrew says, I love the eyeball jockey more than any character I've loved since Sansa's Dark.

And as I was thinking about why these characters resonate with me, I realize it is because they are the same. Oh, my God. Initially seems like she just wants to find a partner to call home, a fleshy eye socket or Joffrey, is captured and becomes a silent, cunning observer of her captors. Axis heroic backup during her friend's battles, blood slug versus scientists, John in Battle of the Bastards, watches with a chilling remove as her enemies are ripped apart by dangerous animals, Tootles, Ramsey.

Unafraid to immediately confront Big Bad, even though physically outmatched xenomorph, Danny. Will eventually rise to a rightful place as a queen of the realm? So, um... Wow. Thank you so much for that incredible on-brand email, Andrew. Um, and I think we should all be prepared to bend the knee for, for Queen Eye Jockey. Long may she rain.

I'm pretty excited. Queen of the North. Queen of the North. I can see the wherewood leaves stitched into her coroner. nation outfit now, Joe. It's beautiful. A lot of symbolism. I can hear, you know, whether it's

boy or another character saying like they're loyal beast, I can fucking hear eyeball jockey saying they were, now they're starving. I'm in. You're in. This is the one character who, if eyeball jockey died, I would be the most devastated.

Like if season one ends. These are your two favorites. Boy and, like, they're not both making it out. But to be comfortable. They might be both making out, though. Again, this is what boy wants. This is what he wants.

It's eye boy, you know? It's eye cavalier. It's like, you know, what's their couple name? I don't know, but they're going to be in one body. I'm really excited. It will be horrifying and I can't wait. Okay. Morrow versus Kirsch, the re-rematch.

Yeah. The Prodigy unit just captures the chestburster like NBD. No big deal. This is menaced people across many films and franchises and they're just like one toss net out on the island and they've got the chess burser in that aforementioned weekender containment unit. How did they even find it?

I don't know. It seemed to be triggered by a sensor as it like skittered across the desert. Skitter traps. Skitter traps everywhere. Perhaps, yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think frankly, like we've been trained to say that that wouldn't To your point about like seems bad that the fly melts the circuit breaker.

You know, we like have some theory corner stuff to mine with like, why was the handle of the cage broken when Isaac went in, was their sabotage at play? Right. But also could it be like this facility is not built to handle monsters? These are not as creatures. And Boy Cavalier is operating as a secret saboteur and agent of espionage and not really telling people what to build this out for and doesn't know. So, like, yeah, I don't know that all that tracks together, but I do think that the idea

that they would be prepared to stop anything from, like, evading them on Neverland seems right. Though, I don't know. There was, like, the kind of, like, lost beachcrafty yellow machinery that they, it was, like, overrun with mines. They passed that, yeah, it was really covered and rusted out and made it me think, like, how much of this property is actively being maintained. So that's kind of in conflict, too, with the idea that, like, the censors would be functional everywhere.

Yeah, they just have motion sensors. The tracking is off on the sense, but they have motion sensors everywhere, and they're like, something is skidding around much faster than the usual critters on this island. Let's throw a net over it, like perhaps. Anyway, Kirsch has the upper hand.

Marl busts in is like, I got this and then is quickly surrounded. Kirsch is like, it's sass o'clock, here we go. Drop your weapons. Nobody likes a sore loser. Finders keepers. all of this shit from Kirsch. So good.

Morrow says this isn't over. And I should hope not because it's very anticlimactic if it is. Do you think we get one more Morrow v. Kirsch confrontation? Okay, Maui looks concerned that we won't. No, this is what I was asking about earlier. Like, are we done? I hope so. I hope we're not done. I hope we get another.

But I do have a tiny worry that they're like, let's save it for season two. Oh, I guess that's always a possibility. But, like, this was ultimately such a big blunder from Morrow of just, like, showing up and expecting that, like, he himself is enough of a machine to know that he could have been eavesdropped on, that his whole plan could have been foiled. Like, why wouldn't he think that this could be a possibility that everything he was doing was being observed? I think he's smarter than that, and yet he walked into this trap. That's the thing that's happening in real time on this show. but I don't think that character is so small within this world that he's just going to like go to the brig and be done with it.

I hope not. I agree. That's that's it. Let us have one more Kirsch, Morrow confrontation before all I said and dead. And crank the bitchiness up to 10. Like we just need it full, full volume, full speed. But a lot of stuff has to happen. There's like everything with Wendy and Joe and the xenomorph that she can communicate with.

Like, you know, with eyeball jockey and boy, like he's like, I know just. where to put it. Like, I know which human form to you. I'm going to cut to Joe. Sorry, sorry, who knows just what's a what now? This is going to be quite a finale, y'all. Oh, man. Very easy to imagine Boy Cavalier trying to put eyeball jockey in a person so that

the vocal cords can activate to light Joe briefly. They could have the conversation on the mountain top and that eyeball jockey's like that cranial cavity looks better instead. That's a wrap on boy. How much time is there for whatever has to happen next with Maro and Kirsch? There's only one episode left, but there's got to be There has to be another beat.

There has to be. I think so. I think so. All right. Let's just wrap up this Wendy, Marcy, xenomorph nibs at the dock. We've already talked about some of this, but I just want to say,

first of all, I've already mentioned it. I just need to mention it again. The nibs growling, give it all to me. Big fan of it. Oh, yeah. Incredible. All of it.

You know, Mr. Strawberry says, fuck off. We're never going back, which Mallory opened the up pod with. Absolute iconic moment. The jaw rip. Disgusting. Not since history of violence,

wherein there is a flapping mandible that haunted my dreams for like the following decade. Have I seen such incredible jaw work? I went to Golden Compass here, Joe. I mean, that's polar bears, but still. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great call. It's a great call.

This was an incredible Nibs moment. Can we say behind the curtain that when we interviewed Nohoholy and Babu Sisei, We were briefly taken into the wrong sort of waiting room. And it said, like, episode seven and then the actress who plays Nibbs' name, Lily Newmark. And so, Mallory and I both were like, what is Nib's getting up to an episode seven? Now you know. That someone definitely has to interview her for episode seven. We were so excited to find out.

It's jaw rip in time. That's clobbering time from Nibs. Great stuff. Mrs. Strawberry's in the Water. I have some questions, is Nibbs dead? She gets shot in the milk. She keeps going and then she gets zapped by Joe. Sorry, she gets shot in what?

In the milk. You two both need a timeout. And I can't believe I'm the one who has to say that. Right in the milk. I know I talk about Westworld a lot and it's not necessarily everyone's touch point, but there's this great moment in Westworld, which is a nod to aliens, where one of these various evil or malfunctioning hosts have been chugging milk. It's a thing that they do.

And so at one point, one of the chuggy milk gets shot all thing, and then all the milk comes out of his bullet holes inside of the scenario in Westworld. Great stuff. That's what I was thinking about when Nibs was, to use Rob's term, milking. And then she gets zapped. Yeah. And all that wet milk plus the electricity can't be good. No.

She's fried. She's fried. She's frothing on the ground. Wendy Marcy, what did you do? What did you do? a real great, like, cliffhangers, you know, POV from the Bush, like part one and part two moment.

Is Nibs dead? Is it curtains for Nibs? It better not be. Have we mastered, reboot, and restore in the last couple hours? How are I feeling? I'm hoping she's just napping with the electricity. You know, like it sent a jolt to the system

to turn it off and turn it back on kind of moment. A great you, you forbid them. Sleeping with the fish is, snapping with the electricity. I think that's a wrap on nibs, guys. Oh, no. It just seemed to, we lingered too long on the twitching. And the frothing.

And the frothing. And the frothing. And Wendy's response. Now, not that Wendy would definitively know, it could just be a scary thing. But, like, so that's the same gone that took down a xenomorph, granted, only temporarily. But, like, that's a heavy jolt of electricity. And this is a synthetic being. The only thing that I am holding out hope for, and this is just,

perhaps because I love nibs so much and I want her to come back. You know, like, let's fetch Mr. Strawberry out of the water and just dry them off and then just like dry off and remilk nibs or whatever needs to happen to resurrect her. I don't know.

But having said, there's all this chatter about like, don't shoot the merchandise. So I'm wondering if like the guns are set to stun instead of like kill, right? Because they're not trying to like kill the hybrids. They're trying to capture the hybrid. So it's possible that they're,

electro guns are only shooting stunning forces. So what that does in combination with like gushing milk, I don't know. I just, I love a jaw rip or throat rip depending on the property.

I love to see a deeply disturbed girl in a robot body coming into her power. It would be a real shame if this is the last we see of nips. I will miss nbs dearly as well. I do sort of, I mean, I really hope that we don't lose slightly in Smey, but I do sort of worry slash wonder if, like,

reboot and restores just being saved for Wendy and, like, no one else is going to be making it. Again, how much time do we have left to say goodbye to that many characters? But, yeah, I just feel like that was a, that felt like a kind of, like, showcase death for Nips, I think. It was very showy. If she is dead, I mean, is the relationship between Wendy and Hermit now, kind of irreparable.

Because that would be her brother killing her sister effectively. Right. Here's what I wish we had had to better underline this conflict.

If we were all headed towards this showdown at the dock and Joe has to choose between his sister and his army buds and, you know,

Marcy is having all of these conflicts. I need the Nibbs Marcy relationship throughout the season to have been better established. Because we get the like Marcy with the kids at the beginning. But then there's just like this idea of resentment of Wendy Marcy.

She is the favorite one. She gets her brother there. Like there's this idea of her being separate. So then to have the like Nibs Marcy Bond be so important here at the end so much so that she's like, how dare you shoot my sister, my brother? Like I wish that that. that had been, that track had been better laid throughout the season. Like, Nibbs could have been her particular favorite for one reason or another because she's the most vulnerable.

Yeah. Or the youngest or whatever. Like, you know, a caretaking relationship. Like, either that or where you need Mr. Strawberry developed as a full-fledged character of the cast. And sadly, neither of those things happen. And if we want to Mr. Strawberry webisodes between now and season two of Alien Earth, I would gladly receive it. Oh, yes. I mean, I think we're losing more children's toys into the water and the finale.

based on the bobbing doll's head that was featured in an episode opening flash forward a couple weeks ago. So more children's toys will suffer here. I agree, Joe. I think that the one thing I could talk myself into is that like the fact that maybe they didn't have that closeness, it helps to maybe like amplify Wendy's series of epiphanies, right? It's like, it's not like this, I'm doing this because I really cared about this person that deeply. It's like I have no choice but to confront the way that we have been used and that this is not a place that we are safe. I think it's interesting that Curly was kind of often the one shown with that proximity to nibs and that closest, often in a way that we found kind of like controlling condescending, also sort of hollow and false in a different way.

And then, you know, this was the most tender I felt toward Curly, like seeing Curly go. Racked up with Dame. Like you said, Joe earlier, like Tootles, Curly, everyone's earning. their names, right, to like basically curl up into the fetal position, like against the, you know, milking of another sort, like the kind of like bosom of a motherly figure. That's your moment. There you go. We all got there in the end. Now you're all. Just the milkiest episode. I mean, probably not at the end of the day. I feel like the finale I'll end up being the milkiest episode and thus of our podcast too. I stay incorrect.

But like, you know, when Curley said, I think we all feel similarly about Dame Sylvia. and, you know, certainly we understand why this character is doing these things when we hear Curley say, Mom. And she's like, this is what I have wanted and did not have and have told myself I can build and forge and craft and then must protect for myself in this new way, at the expense of everything else, including my husband, right? For Curley, that's just like a kind of nibs-esque, I'm a scared kid, and I don't really know what to do moment here, which was like, I thought very, very tender and sweet. I will say this.

Wendy's like, Curly you have to promise you won't tell. She's like, okay, I was like, that bitch is narcking immediately. And she did it. As far as far as some conflict. Yeah. He hasn't had to hold the secret in front of boy yet,

which is much more dangerous. But I was just like, this narc is going to tell on you right away. And she doesn't. She's just scared and upset. Are we positive that she didn't? Well, that we've seen. So far she didn't.

Otherwise, I would think the militia might have better things to do than sit inside a boat. Like, there are Zeno's out on the loose. Because his friends were like, stop asking these suspicious questions about the boat, where the boats are. Right. We know what your plan is, don't do it. But there's also the full-on army with them, you know? They're also like, we saw what Arthur and the brother did. And this was something that drove me crazy actually last episode where I'm like, it's very clear that there's like,

surveillance footage of them doing this. Why are they not more worried about like people being on the case? And obviously Joe in this episode is like, I don't know how much time we have. But I think, yeah, all of that information is something that could have made its way to them in another form. I think that it's interesting if this is one more price that Boy Cavalier has to pay, that Curley's basically like, I worship you. I want to learn from you. Why won't you choose me? Very, we have some notes still on how she was basically like, fuck Wendy, pick me.

But still. and then boys like go push buttons in the corner. Like you weren't French, but can you do this? One more price he has to pay for treating everyone around him like complete shit. Yeah. In the anti-corporation coalition, we welcome even the pygmy girls. You are welcome to join us. You know what, especially in a world where I'm kind of over Wendy's worldview in a lot of ways.

You know, like she is making space for the Zenos. I haven't heard her say one thing about a blood slug. I haven't heard her say one thing about an acid fly. A little xenophobic in a certain sense. This is reverse xenophobic, really. You know, it's every other alien. She knows she's, she's speciesist. Okay.

It's fucked up. Incredible critique. Anything else you guys want to say about this episode of television, episode seven? Loved it? Apparently not milky enough. We'll see in the finale. Again, I can't wait to see how the ante is raised from this. If we're getting multiple character deaths,

if we're getting lots of grisly violence. If we're getting, and we didn't say enough about it, I thought the xenomorph out in the jungle, just slaughtering soldiers looked awesome and terrifying in a way that it's never been an alien before, kind of out in the open, in the daylight that much, at least in like canonical entries. Running all the drills at the combine,

not confined to a tight hallway in a ship or a lap. I thought that was great, too. I absolutely understand what that means. I do, actually. You do now? I do. It just took me several. years of being on this podcast. I don't get it.

Oh, man. All right. Well, then, pack your lactate for the milk stravaganza that is the alien earth finale that we'll be back with next week. Before that, of course, you will have the pleasure of listening to Malie Rubin, talk to James Gunn about Peacemaker, season two, on this feed. We are so thrilled and honored to have that. We are thrilled and honored to have Mallory Rubin over on the prestige TV feed to talk

about Battlestar Galactica. Hell yes. We are doing actually later today, but we'll be up later in the week. And thank you to everyone involved today. Thank you to Arjuna Ramka Powell for everything. Thank you to Carlos Chiroboga. Thank you to John Richter. Thank you to Rob Boney, Mallory, Ruman.

And of course, for the clipping the incredible social media moments that have just captured your hearts, Jomey a dinner on. We thank you all. We're back next week. but also later this week on the speed Bye Yamava Resort and Casino

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