The Reel Rejects - ALIEN: EARTH 1x05 Breakdown & Review!!!

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Starting point is 00:01:10 We would now answer Patreon questions. Please do send those in. Good lovely patrons, but we don't have them yet because timing. But we appreciate them very, very much. We appreciate you all very, very much. I have a lot to say about this episode and the pacing choices and a lot of things about this show. I don't want to hear Tara first. The payoff at the end really.

Starting point is 00:01:30 made it for me, especially when we see the xenomorph. Like, I was like, that is awesome. Because it was a slow start, and I was like, oh, because the way that this show opened up with the first few episodes, which just action-packed, pacing, perfect. But I still think that the pacing in this episode was good. It was just, it was a lot slower than what I was expecting out of the show. But I understand that we needed to build that up so that when we see these people die, were like oh this is how we got here um and it's sort of a precarious like position that they put it in

Starting point is 00:02:07 where it's like why is this happening now but i liked it because it was different i was like oh okay i see us not going full steam ahead into what we had just seen in the last episode which i was like damn that's going to be a great ass payoff um we just got a little bit of it there at the end to see like maybe where we're headed, which I enjoyed. Yeah. This episode was definitely a departure from the trajectory where we've been going, but we got a little bit more context as to what happened in the first episode

Starting point is 00:02:39 of the season. I think that the change of pace was definitely an adjustment for myself, especially going back and knowing the fate of these characters, but getting to see them play out, getting the dynamics, feeling the fact that there is a history here, there are these established dynamics, and we were able to

Starting point is 00:02:57 attach ourselves to them in such a short period of time and also feel the dread of all the pieces coming into play with all the mantras we know and how they terrorize people in the episodes we've seen prior to this that take place after this of course and getting a little bit more context as to our main cyborgs motivation and what drives him and what brought him to this point like his his mission coupled with him wanting to take down a prodigy and get the stuff back because his main priority his prerogative is to get this stuff for Waylon Utani. Yeah, I think overall in the, if we're just judging episodes really quickly, I want to say that though I enjoyed

Starting point is 00:03:41 it, is probably my least favorite of the season so far. I think there's still a lot of great stuff in here, but I really dig the characters in the relationship dynamics and the moral questions of you know, humanity, consciousness where that line begins and ends in the other episodes.

Starting point is 00:03:59 And this one is just, I feel like more of a return to form for what we know the alien, original alien movie to be. But, you know, still entertaining nonetheless. And I enjoy the context we got. And, yeah, excited to see how they built upon that. I agree with the end there about this being more traditional alien narrative and less about the hybrids and the new details. Obviously, it has the new alien species in this episode,

Starting point is 00:04:22 but it did feel more of like an action episode. I'm if we're ranking the episode This one is I like this one more than four But more like one through three Were my jam like one through three Or like oh my God the show And four dipped a little for me This one is in the middle

Starting point is 00:04:37 Where I'm like oh a fun like action jaunt But I do like the choice To leave our cliffhanger for a little longer And to go back and contextualize the fact That the genius The Boy Genius the Prodigy concept Was even further back to the point where he's steering this to land where he wanted it to,

Starting point is 00:04:57 to have this be his machinations that led these weapons to land at him. And that shows, you know, Cavalier not only was designing the hybrid system, but even while designing the hybrid system, he made it everything to get these robots to sabotage Whelan Utani simultaneously. You know, we were led to believe that it was, you know, this thing that happened. And he was like, oh, and that was already him abandoning this, like, amazing plan of his and these hybrids and now we find that the two stories like you know he was leading this to his own thing and then was able to test his hybrid so i like that reveal i thought it was

Starting point is 00:05:33 worth um veering off for kind of an eye of hurricane episode it's also interesting to have a show like alien earth is going to be this last act right like this is an eight episode series and now we've got six seven and eight left so we've got you know a movie left like this final act and that seems to be what's going to be on earth so i think the first act was setting up the idea of hybrids and lost boys and all the lore and building and then the second was a

Starting point is 00:06:00 two episode mini act which was a little drier for me with episode four and then this episode five and then we'll get a third act of all the climax and everything coming together I will say this is the first episode where I felt the xenomorphs were not quite as strong as I think of them as being

Starting point is 00:06:15 I don't know if that captain would have gotten away from his zeno for like that long she was able to run quite a little like it was cool visually to experience it, but I would have loved something about it being injured or something that would have kept it as, you know, a reason why she was able to run that long doesn't take away from

Starting point is 00:06:31 my overall experience, but this was the first time I was like, I don't know about that. But overall, I really love seeing the eye inhabit of human and how unnerving that is. I love seeing the relationship the original crew had with these aliens contextualizing

Starting point is 00:06:48 the ship and all that really worked for me here. So this episode, I like to think a little more Aaron, but not quite as much as those first three personally. I actually now that I'm really thinking about it, I think they wrote this episode to show us Morrow's story. I think it really feeds off of him

Starting point is 00:07:04 because now they thought about it, not just how we got here, because we kind of knew but Morrow, we're setting it up or we're seeing him, we're like he's an alien and he's like killing people to save the aliens no matter what. And we love the people that we started with, right?

Starting point is 00:07:19 In the very beginning, which It feels like it feels like 10 years ago now. But in this episode, it's really just to show us like Morrow's backstory, how he got there and why he is the one still standing there now and sort of like maybe a little bit of his moral code. It's like that's his purpose. He's the security officer. He follows rules. He also had a daughter who died. He does still have feelings because we were going back and forth like he's a human and a robot like.

Starting point is 00:07:52 but we realized and we saw him he cries and he still's like a bionic man you know which we just I don't think we saw him cry before anyhow um he smoked cigars he does he does yeah after I thought about it I was like oh I think maybe they they were the writers were smart about that about getting us on the side of Morrow because in the beginning I was not on his side really I was like why are we trying to, I like these people. And now I'm like, oh, I get it, buddy. I get that he's just trying to do his job for someone who took him in as a broken boy. I would do the same.

Starting point is 00:08:36 Somebody takes you in, you don't have an arm. And they're like, listen, I got a plan for you. And you're like, I'll do whatever, man. Like you took me in when no one else would. And now I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes it that toys with our emotions. a little bit more, which I enjoy. That's a really good point. This was, you know, for us to attach tomorrow before the third act.

Starting point is 00:08:55 Because we did, like, he was purely antagonist. Yeah, remember we were like, no. Disco. Especially with the kid and him like, you know, manipulating the kid. That's a really good point. That's what's tricky about, like, you know, week to week, your emotion shifts about what characters you're invested in. And that is the fun of, I think, serialized content versus like a movie.

Starting point is 00:09:14 Like, the format of a movie is like you get the whole ride near like two, two and half hours the show gave us a morrow movie so now we're more conflicted when we have the last act of these characters because this really did manipulate us into liking him in a way that's fascinating because i think we're all like cool actor cool performance cool guy but not like i like the guy you're right but he was an antagonist until this episode now he's kind of a protagonist yeah but i think that's really human right like that's that's no one is mustache swirling evil, caveats with standing, but to see

Starting point is 00:09:47 writing where we get to have the antagonist up until the halfway point, get to be a lead in an episode that actually takes place before we even met these characters is really interesting narrative. Rejignation, I'll be honest. Money has always made me anxious. If I'm low on money,

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Starting point is 00:11:51 Payton, non-client, endorsement compensation provides incentives to positively promote acorns, tier two compensation provided. Investing involves risk. Acorns, LLC, and SEC registered investment advisor. Review, important disclosures, acorns. You guys rock. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can't say I like him, but I understand. I can sympathize with him. You know where he's coming from. I know where he's coming from. Aaron's got no empathy.

Starting point is 00:12:10 I mean, I understand it. I understand it, but at the end of the day, he's still doing a job and values his job over, you know, the life of others. He's threatening a kid's family so he can do his job. He's also saving aliens over the crew. He's also, no matter what, and also, Waylon Yutani, not a good company to swear allegiance to. And again, you know why, but he's still doing acts of Eve. But that's what's interesting about making a protagonist for an episode.

Starting point is 00:12:42 Yeah, yeah. He's still the bad guy. Yeah, there's a difference in empathizing with a character versus liking a character and being on their side. So I'm like, okay, I get where you're coming from. You know, you feel indebted to this family. But I don't know, part of you think it's like, is Wayland behind his daughter's death?

Starting point is 00:12:56 Did they get him? Probably. Probably. To keep him there longer, right? Keep him there longer, keep them focused. Yeah, don't rush family. Dedicated to the cause. Yeah, don't think about your daughter, your security.

Starting point is 00:13:07 You're just to, yeah, exactly. You just work for us. You don't have a life. You don't have a life. You don't need a life. All you need is the company. Yeah. And your shares.

Starting point is 00:13:15 But yeah, that was also an interesting aspect of it. The fact that, you know, they're manipulated and driven by shares of the company rather than just like being paid out properly. Yeah. And, you know, they're paying in their time, you know, their ponds and pieces and tools for, you know, the company's ultimate end of getting these aliens to Earth, which is something that's fairly consistent with, you know, previous. elements in the franchise but I think that this in the longed form really hammers that home the fact that

Starting point is 00:13:44 all these people are just pawned in these five companies game of power. I can also see some symbols of that happening in our future where companies pay and shares like you get stock options now and paid but like you know the prison industrial complex of

Starting point is 00:14:00 people working for their time and you know the dependents they get made they get paid to like make license plates and stuff. Like, it's an interesting thing if you look at, you know, what money versus time is in general, but then zooming out of that, looking at prisons and how we treat people and, like, people that are still in prison for, like, weed charges that we didn't let out when they legalized weed. And, like, that's a part of the system of how money works still today. And the racism and that and the problem with that. And now to zoom out to the future and look at these people that are

Starting point is 00:14:32 giving their time in a more literal way and not getting paid at all and then getting shares. That's not too many steps removed from stay at this company. We'll give you more stock options. Right. And work, you know, your time off and, like, you might not have even done the thing. So, you know, this, to me, alien has always been a commentary in capitalism and our flaws as a species. And I definitely think this episode highlighted some of those flaws. It made me completely forget about how manipulative Morrow was, like, two episodes ago.

Starting point is 00:15:02 I was like, when I was listening to you talk about it, I was like, you're right, he wasn't protected this episode. And then as soon as you venture, I'm like, and then I was like, oh, right, he's a piece of shite. Yeah. But I'm not joking this episode. Like, it existed. And it, maybe it was because I had COVID recently. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:15:19 Or maybe it's just because it was like, we're zooming in on this guy. He's got a heart. He had a family. He cries. If he cried, he can't manipulate whatever things it wants. He smokes cigars. Yeah, man. I mean, wow.

Starting point is 00:15:33 I really did. And then once you mentioned it, I was like, oh, it took me right back to the restaurant when he's there and he's, and I'm like, oh, that jerk. Yeah, but the fact that they did a good job of allowing you to side with him, seeing inside of his private moments, empathize with him, but also keeping him consistent with the rest of what we've seen him. Because he has those private moments, but he's also like, I don't give a damn about y'all, the cargo's what's priority here. Right. So, you know, we get both of those. But like, yeah, on one hand, it's like, damn, you cold. But the other hand, I'm like, you know, you've got to respect a man about his business. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:16:10 It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. I'm curious to see where he goes and what, you know, if he does achieve his goals, because this still takes place two years after Alien or two years before the original Alien movie. So, yeah, I genuinely don't know. He is a bad guy for, I guess, a decent cause, not really. but who's going to get what he wants it's interesting i can't say it's not interesting he led this episode

Starting point is 00:16:37 still a bad guy yeah uh he's still a bad guy i really liked the timing of that too with uh an episode five especially after one through four we're on one journey and then we pivoted and we met some characters we'd only seen the corpses of uh it's always interesting when you can like care more retroactively about things you've seen i think that's always really impressive when a story doesn't take a linear timeline like tarantino does that well and a lot of attour directors like to manipulate your emotions. And I think the three episodes we're about to get are going to be more of a like fever-paced

Starting point is 00:17:07 now that we care about more, even a little, even though we should. Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought there's an intent for why they kept showing the girl in her pod, right? Because the ship crashed, but did we see all the people in the pods die?

Starting point is 00:17:23 Yeah, I wonder who will meet. Because I'm like, if they keep showing her, she don't cry, oh, she could, you know, pop back out and be like, yeah, I've been like, I was molested by Tank for the last 10 years. Yeah, she was also a very effective object of Tang's creepiness. Like, she might have served the purpose of being, like, objectified. Okay.

Starting point is 00:17:39 Yeah. That was so uncomfortable. Tang. If I don't get to see him die of violent death, hmm. You get killed by Zinemort. You didn't. Oh, yeah. We didn't get to Zinem.

Starting point is 00:17:49 You talked about the jump cuts. I blinked it. I, yes, I did. I'm worried about Tara now. Yep. In this moment. You should be. You should be.

Starting point is 00:17:59 It takes me a good. month, I think, for like the COVID to clear out of my brain and for me to pick back up again. She even commented on the death that she just forgot. I did. 22 minutes ago. I really did. I was like, if he doesn't die violent death, it literally happened like 10 minutes ago. Oh, my God.

Starting point is 00:18:14 That's why she thought Morrow was a protagonist. She pitched it so well, I believed for a minute. Well, that is going to do it for episode five. What a journey of just memory and time and loss and playing with chronology. We'll be back next week for episode six, which I'm assuming is going to be a, a 6, 7, 8 mega journey now that aliens are on Earth. We've gotten to Alien Earth in actuality.

Starting point is 00:18:36 So very intrigued by that. Please like and subscribe and do all the YouTube buttons now that at the end of the video, we assume you like us. If you're not subscribed already, please hit that subscription belt, leave a comment, let us know what you thought of Alien Earth episode 5.

Starting point is 00:18:48 What do you think of this season so far? I'm really enjoying it. I was very intrigued by some of the audience reaction versus critic reaction, so I'd love to know if you guys are enjoying what your experience has been. and yeah, we'll see you for episode six next week. Bye, guys.

The Reel Rejects - ALIEN: EARTH 1x05 Breakdown & Review!!!

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