Alien Earth: In Space, No One… review S1 E5

In Space, No One… was a masterful episode of television. Director/writer/show runner Noah Hawley crafted one of the most memorable and quintessential chapters in Alien lore with this installment of Alien: Earth.

The only thing holding In Space, No One… back oh so slightly were the commercial breaks that kept interrupting one of the more genuinely unnerving and terrifying horror experiences in years. Were it not for the commercials, it would have been easy to mistake In Space, No One… for a movie.

As the first episode of the series, Neverland, played out, I lamented how quickly Hawley breezed through the events that played out on the Maginog before it crashed in Prodigy City. In those brief snippets, it felt like being cheated out of what looked like a pretty fascinating standard Alien setup.

Hawley’s master plan comes to fruition with In Space, No One… as the events unfolded to show very little with Alien: Earth was as it seemed.

It’s 17 days before the Maginot crashed on Earth. The crew is dealing with the mundane activities of life on a ship for a lengthy stint when some excitement arrives. A fire has destroyed the ship’s navigation system and Clem (Tom Moya) lets Morrow know that Captain Nagg is dead and Bronski (Max Rinehart) might be too. Clem happily shares some ship gossip that Bronski and Zaveri (Richa Moorjani) have been hooking up.

Now that Bronski has a face hugger on him, that won’t be happening the rest of the voyage. After a brief investigation aided by the ship’s security cams, Morrow sees the case holding the eggs was intentionally opened. An intentionally set fire brought out Nagg and Bronski, who quickly got co-opted by two face huggers.

Nagg died when Dr. Rahim (Amir Boutrous) and science officer Chibuzo (Karen Aldridge) attempted to free his mouth only for the acid blood to spurt out and kill him. Morrow tells Zaveri they need to put out a ship wide alert and lock it down until he can complete his investigation. She doesn’t want to panic the crew and instead places Bronski back in the Hypersleep chamber.

Morrow threatens to take over if she doesn’t call a ship wide state of emergency. His priority is keeping the creatures unharmed, but that isn’t necessarily at the expense of the lives of the crew.

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In Space, No One… offers up some surprising background on Morrow. His beloved daughter died at 19 during the eighth year of his 65- year space assignment. When it’s over he can come get her things. That’s thoughtful of the corporation… This might just help to explain some of his actions throughout the series.

Zaveri gets the update from Mother that yes, the cargo is more important than their lives. Good thing then that she and Morrow are on the same page in terms of not making it a them or us deal proposition with the aliens.

An explosion rocks the ship, which engineer Schmuel (Michael Smiley) said made an already bad situation worse. The fire turned the ship into a missile barreling to Earth, but the explosion has now been turned into an arrow. It’s not the flight that kills you, but the landing is a totally different story.

Hawley fosters a griping whodunit in the sci-fi confines of Alien: Earth. Morrow and Zaveri return to the Hypersleep chamber to see Bronski’s chest exploded — the xenomorph is loose and freezing them doesn’t do any good. At least the rest of the crew is still safe and soundly asleep in their pods.

Chibuzo’s experiments in the lab go horribly wrong as the leech-like alien manages to get out of its containment chamber. The eye alien wants to scrap with the freed alien, which distracts Chibuzo in placing it into a new location that she never notices the main tic squirting a bunch of its seeds into her water bottle. Gross.

In Space wins for having one of the most disgusting and ominous sequences in an Alien installment since the first film. Rahim does put the leech back in its chamber but distracts Chibuzo so she fails to secure the eye alien, which of course escapes.

Zaveri finally calls the ship state of emergency and informs the others of the saboteur. Malachite is feeling especially chatty and hungry. He’s doing so much he just casually grabs Chibuzo’s water bottle and drinks from it. That’s not gonna work out well for him at all.

Malachite vomits blood and passes out. In the “yes, it can get worse” department for In Space, Chibuzo realizes the eye is out. Zaveri wisely encourages her to seal the door and leave.

Mr. Teng is a full-on creep. He’s been doing something to Sullivan (Victoria Masoma) while she’s in her Hypersleep pod and casually mentions to Morrow that he knows who is causing all the mischief in the ship. He won’t tell Morrow who it is, but teases that it’s someone who isn’t as sound asleep in their Hypersleep pod as they seem.

That information gives Morrow a head’s up as Mother has finally finished repairing the damaged communication files. Petrovich (Enzo Cilenti) was communicating with Boy Kavalier about setting up the crash to bring the cargo to Prodigy. It wasn’t the random accident that it initially appeared. This was all engineered by Boy Kavalier to get his hands on the aliens. In Space is closing some loops on some “plot holes” no one knew existed.

Before he can act on that news, Rahim and Chibuzo want to try and save Malachite. Morrow understands he’s a lost cause and tells Zaveri to order them out and to seal the room. Everyone else is more focused on saving Malachite, especially after Rahim and Chibuzo find tics in his body. Rahim tries to remove one and it unleashes a noxious gas that immediately kills them. Now, Zaveri realizes they need to seal the room.

All of his smugness couldn’t save Mr. Teng as the xenomorph stalked and killed him.  In Space certainly frames Morrow in a totally different light as he’s the responsible crew member actively trying to keep the others alive — even if his methods don’t seem all that friendly.

He suggests Zaveri have everyone, included the currently asleep crew members, sealed up in the bridge and a cleaning crew can deal with everything when the ship crashes. Zaveri is too shell-shocked to issue commands, so he takes over. With Clem by his side, Morrow goes searching for Petrovich, who manages to wing Clem twice — once in an arm and the other in a leg.

Morrow thinks he was able to pull him out of range, but a final shot from Petrovich is a kill shot to the head. Morrow does manage to get some revenge and skewers Petrovich. Meanwhile, a slew of ticks burrow into Clem’s head.

In another terrifying scene In Space finds the xenomorph stalking Zaveri, who barely manages to escape into a door she is able to still lock. The bad news? She finds the eye alien using poor Schmuel’s body as its latest puppet.

Morrow manages to save Zaveri and realizes Schumel is also a literal dead man walking. In Space features the most unlikely battle of the xenomorph vs. the eye alien, who’s surprisingly game to tackle the far larger alien. Frustrated with its smaller, nuisance of a victim, the xenomorph turns to an easier target Zaveri.

It makes a lot more sense now why Morrow didn’t try and help her. She’d failed to listen to him all this time and it was inevitable she would prevent him from accomplishing the mission of getting the cargo to Yutani. His efforts to seal the door proved just enough to hold the xenomorph off of killing him after it finished mauling Zaveri.

Given all this context from In Space, No One… fully explains why Morrow is in a less than charitable mood when he encounters the Prodigy soldiers. They helped seriously jeopardize his mission…and kill his friends/co-workers/associates on the ship.

In the present day, Morrow speaks with the present day Yuetani vowing to kill Kavalier. She’s fine with that course of action and it’s hard not to understand his feelings on this whole deal now. Babou Ceesay has been a very fascinating player in Alien: Earth, but this episode should be his Emmy submission reel for Best Actor/Supporting Actor in a limited series. He’s a cyborg detective complete with a stogie working a hard to crack case focused on getting the job done. If he can save a few lives in the process, even better.

In Space, No One Can… completely flipped the script of the series by revealing the true villain’s identity and his machinations from the start to jeopardize everyone. All in the confines of the most satisfyingly horrific installment of the Alien franchise yet.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Photo Credit: FX

Enjoyed In Space, No One Can? Check out the six feature Alien collection including Alien/Aliens/Alien Iii/Alien: Resurrection/Prometheus/Alien: Covenant on Blu-Ray now at Amazon. 

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