Episode 6: The Fly

Summary

Alien: Earth – The Official Podcast

Episode 6: "The Fly"

Release Date: September 10, 2025
Host: Adam Rogers
Guests: Director Uga Hauksdóttir, Production Designer Andy Nicholson, Cast Members Essie Davis (Dame Sylvia) & Damon Ryisdal (Arthur), Co-Executive Producer Migzi Pensineau

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Episode Overview

This episode of Alien: Earth – The Official Podcast digs into the pivotal sixth episode, "The Fly," exploring diverging storylines, escalating character tensions, and the show's nuanced takes on autonomy, morality, and design. Host Adam Rogers is joined by director Uga Hauksdóttir, production designer Andy Nicholson, cast members Essie Davis and Damon Ryisdal, and producer Migzi Pensineau to break down major moments, philosophy, world-building, and the episode's intense plot developments.

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Character Divergence & Emotional Arcs

[00:01–03:37]

Main Point: Characters split into individual storylines (“diverging paths”) with their own conflicts and goals — all building toward a charged finale.

• Director Uga Hauksdóttir:
  “The bottom line is to really ground the audience in every storyline with the conflict of these characters and making sure that we're engaged emotionally and that we care and that we understand the motivations and why these rifts are beginning to take place.” (01:22)

• Wendy & Nibs:
  Wendy resists having her memory wiped, marking a major turning point for her identity and autonomy. Nibs, post-wipe, becomes a mirror for Wendy’s own struggle with dehumanization.

  “They are not being regarded as human by their owners… That decision to treat Nibs as an IT problem, not as a person. So that's a big change for how they regard themselves and their own minds and bodies.” (01:59)

• Wendy’s Independence:
  Wendy’s journey is one of breaking free from control — even rejecting her lab-assigned name:
  “This episode is where she sort of breaks up with Neverland in some way. And we have that scene with Dame where she basically says, I refuse to be Wendy. I want to be Marcy. I will control who I will be.” (02:35)

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Isaac’s Death – The Tragedy of Innocence

[03:37–06:43]

Key Scene: Isaac is manipulated into the fly’s cage and killed — a wordless, tension-soaked moment.

• Directorial Choice: The silence amplifies dread and vulnerability:
  “There's a lot of tension in that silence, in that emptiness… And so there's something really uncomfortable about that silence.” (03:49)

• Childhood and Responsibility:
  Isaac’s childlike innocence makes his fatal mistake tragic.
  “He should have never been given this responsibility.” (05:22)

• On Set Realism:
  “When the fly sprays this acid into his face, we actually did that as a one shot. So that performance was the first take. And Kit was incredible.” (05:40)

• Raising Stakes:
  Isaac’s death proves even hybrids can die unexpectedly, escalating the sense of jeopardy.
  “Now there is jeopardy for them, too, which there hasn't been really, until that point in the show.” (06:08)

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Negotiating Power: Boy K vs. Yutani

[06:55–09:36]

Key Scene: Boy K, the reckless prodigy CEO, negotiates with Yutani in a display of arrogance and power imbalance.

• Dichotomy: Boy K is chaotic, dismissive, and dangerous, ignoring corporate formality.
  “He doesn't think about consequences because he doesn't care about consequences. I think that is what makes him extremely dangerous.” (07:08)

• Memorable Moment:
  Boy K’s unscripted, bold move: getting on the table during the negotiation, an acting choice that defines his disregard for authority.
  “On the day, the actor, he came up to me and… he was just like, hey, what if I just like get on the table?... And I immediately thought it was just so bold, so strong, and it really became such a great character moment for Boy K. And I was just like, this is gonna be really memorable TV.” (08:56)

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Building a Near-Future Earth: Production Design with Andy Nicholson

[09:36–18:35]

Designing a World That’s Familiar — Yet Not Ours:

• City Design:

  • No futuristic cars (“Nobody's really. Everybody's given up on having electric cars…” – 10:08).
  • Bangkok’s rivers and humidity mirror the impacts of climate change and create a unique, plausible future landscape.

• Key Locations:

  • The semi-submerged, brutalist Neverland facility with children’s hospital vibes — both joyful and sinister.

  “It was also a sinister place. And there was about the balance of making it sort of that anemic… The color palette they use and because of the look and the style of the furniture and it's all friendly… but yet it's still a hospital.” (11:31)

• Set Details & Easter Eggs:

  • Conversation pit in Dame Sylvia's office sets the stage for both intimacy and chilling conversations.
  • Inspirations drawn from original Alien films — recycled industrial elements, vents everywhere (“if you're human, you can't get out of the room. But if you're an alien… you can go everywhere you want to.” – 12:16).
  • Authentic recreation of set materials, like the red shipping pallets from Alien and Star Wars.
    “We made thousands of those. We made them in metal for flooring, for the walls, for everything. And that gave us so much of the texture…” (16:10)

• Weapons:

  • Corporate militias wield contemporary military tech; no sharp distinction between the weapons of various corporations.
    “Everybody can buy an M16... And it also meant that you didn't have to agonize about design…” (17:54)

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The Morality of Control: Dame Sylvia & Arthur’s Philosophical Rift

[18:35–29:11]

The Mind Wipe Dilemma:
Nibs experiences trauma and is ordered to be ‘fixed’ by a memory wipe. Dame Sylvia (Essie Davis) and Arthur (Damon Ryisdal) are confronted with the implications — for parenting, for science, and for personal ethics.

• Essie Davis (Dame Sylvia):
  On accepting the wipe for the greater good:
  “She would like to take the time to give Nibs some therapy... But what they have instead is this very scary and confronting situation. And… Wouldn't it be great if we could just cut out trauma?... But it has narrative consequences.” (20:18–21:21)

• Consequences of “Fixing” Trauma:

  • Nibs realizes her memory can be changed at will, which sparks existential horror.
  • “We fix the trauma, but we gave her something bigger to worry about… Who is in control of her body? Who's in control of her? Is she a puppet?” (21:40)

• Arthur’s (Damon Ryisdal) Crisis:

  • "He believes… we need a new code of ethics for these humans. ... His heart is growing and his confusion is growing…" (22:37)
  • Arthur’s idealism makes him resistant to treating the hybrids as products.
  • “We're gonna erase this kid's memory, this hybrid's memory. That is so wrong… they're not going to have autonomy. They're going to be under our thumbprint for the rest of their lives. It's a huge line for Arthur and a huge betrayal.” (26:17)

• Personal Betrayal and Fractured Relationships:

  • The crisis splits Arthur and Dame Sylvia both professionally and personally.
  • “She chose Boy K. In that moment, we could have had a united front against this, but we. We didn't. ... I've seen now what we're doing with Nibs, and they're all going to be controlled by this company in this conglomerate.” (27:04–27:58)

• Extending Empathy:

  • Raises core franchise themes: How far do we draw empathy — to hybrids, aliens, machines?
  • “That question of, like, how far do we draw that circle of empathy? And do we owe these machines?... It is still humans, and they're deserving of the same kind of dignity and self respect that we give to humans, even though we don't give humans very much dignity in this alien world.” (28:11–29:11)

• Memorable Quote:
  “It's past humanity. It's just kind of me as an animal trying to survive also in that moment.” – Damon Ryisdal on Arthur facing death, [29:31]

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World, Ownership & Morality – Producer Insights

[31:44–37:02]

Property and Personhood:

• Space Manifest Destiny:
  “If you think about space exploration as like another step in manifest destiny, then you're looking at people who claim wherever they get to first. ... Weyland absolutely 100% owns at least those individual creatures.” – Migzi Pensineau, [31:44]

• Corporate Control Model:
  “Basically just think of them as company towns. ... The moon's a company town and you can buy things at the company store or elsewise, but it's going to be more expensive and you're, you know, it's. It's pretty intense that way.” [34:12]

• Subscription Model for Existence:
  “We've gotten you a new lung and it's not free. You do this for us and we sign this contract for you or we'll bill you. And that kind of crushing debt… I hadn't thought of it as Hermit's lung being a subscription model, but yeah, that's kind of what it is. His life is threatened in a technical legal sense if he doesn't comply…” (34:41–34:58)

• Mind Wipe as Revolution Spark:
  “The inciting event that sparks the sort of revolution is when they assert their ownership over not just the body, but the mind.” (35:57)

• Autonomy vs. Ownership:
  “Boy K created the hybrids. Does that mean he owns the consciousness within? There are arguments to be made that he doesn't and there are arguments to be made that he does. But just morally, I think it's just against this spiritual law to rip somebody's sense of self away from them.” (36:11)

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Notable Quotes

• “He doesn't think about consequences because he doesn't care about consequences. ... It's about wealth and power, greed, success, and the fact that no moral questions get in his way.” — Uga Hauksdóttir on Boy K [07:08]
• “That is for sure will have some pretty intense consequences. In the future. For Boy K, it's always going to be. I do think that the lack of morality, it's the stuff of good sci-fi, sort of the downfall of the person that brings that into the world.” — Migzi Pensineau, [36:11]

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Memorable Moments & Easter Eggs

• The “Conversation Pit” in Dame Sylvia’s office: An intentionally 1970s design, creating intimate—and chilling—dialogue space. [13:14–13:46]
• Vents Everywhere: A meta nod to classic Alien design, highlighting human vulnerability and the ever-present threat of invasion. [12:06–12:52]
• Reproducing iconic set pieces: Real-life stories about rediscovering set artifacts, like the red plastic pallets, used to thread continuity through the design DNA of the franchise. [16:04–16:10]

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Final Thoughts

Episode six, "The Fly", is a tense and philosophically rich turning point for Alien: Earth—escalating personal and societal questions about personhood, responsibility, and rebellion. With the death of Isaac, the increasing assertion for autonomy by Wendy and her peers, and fractures at the top of the hybrid program, the show confronts the cost of treating people—synthetic, hybrid, or human—as property. Design, narrative, and performance all combine to create a world teetering on the edge of revolution.

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Key Timestamps

• 00:01–03:37 — Character arcs and story divergence (Wendy/Nibs, independence theme)
• 03:37–06:43 — Isaac’s death, innocence, narrative silence
• 06:55–09:36 — Boy K/Yutani negotiation, character power
• 09:36–18:35 — Production design (locations, sets, ships, oddities)
• 18:35–29:11 — Ethical dispute: Dame Sylvia & Arthur, mind wipe, empathy
• 31:44–37:02 — Producer breakdown (property, control, subscription model, revolution)

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For listeners, "The Fly" podcast episode is a dense, thought-provoking deep dive on not just plot developments but also the ethical, visual, and philosophical foundation stones of the Alien: Earth world—preparing you for the coming storm.

Transcript

[A]

You know what I like most about killing synths? They don't feel pain, so nothing clouds their minds when I start chopping them up. See, I would imagine it's the pain that makes it satisfying. Welcome to Alien Earth, the official podcast. I'm your host, Adam Rogers, and we are just hoovered onto the face of this show every week. Tail coiled around the throat of each episode, proboscis like a pen, bandage stuck in the. Well, you get it this week, episode six, the Fly. Plenty of spoilers, but you can watch the show first. We'll just wait right here. Today on the podcast, I'm joined again by director UGA Hauksdotter to talk about all the diverging paths of the characters in this episode. And then Andy Nicholson, a production designer on the show. We'll talk about building or, I guess, sort of rebuilding a sci fi world. Then I'll talk with Essie Davis and David Rysdal. That's Dame Sylvia and Arthur, the creators of the hybrids, who are probably going to need extensive couples counseling after all this. And finally, co executive producer Meigazi Pensineau is back to ask this week's big question. What is the morality of property? But first, let's talk about how the characters split up in this episode, each pursuing their own goals until eventually those stories kind of turn back toward each other. This is director Oogla Hauksdottir.

[B]

I think the bottom line is to really ground the audience in every storyline with the conflict of these characters and making sure that we're engaged emotionally and that we care and that we understand the motivations and why these rifts are beginning to take place. Each episode builds to a climax, and this certainly has one. You kind of start to feel that these storylines are connected by thematics and the tension is sort of, you know, rising, rising, rising. And so it becomes essentially one movement towards the end.

[A]

And there's this scene between Wendy and Nibs where she's had her memory wiped and so she feels a lot better. But Wendy won't have any of that and says, no, look, something happened. We all saw it. They did that to you. And both of them, I think, realize that they are not being regarded as human by their owners. They kind of realize that together because of that decision to treat Nibs as an IT problem, not as a person. So that's a big change for how they regard themselves and their own minds and bodies.

[B]

Yeah. And I think especially for Wendy, it's a major wake up call. Wendy's arc is one of independence. I mean, she is becoming more and more independent in each episode. She wants autonomy, and she is tired of everybody around her, even her brother hermit. Everyone is constantly trying to control her. Everyone except the aliens, actually. And I think we're beginning to see, especially with this. I don't know if we can call it a friendship with the Chest Buster. And then in this episode, the baby Zeno is that she is starting to really see the parallel between her being an experiment at the Neverland facility, just as the aliens are. This episode is where she sort of breaks up with Neverland in some way. And we have that scene with Dame where she basically says, I refuse to be Wendy. I want to be Marcy. I will control who I will be.

[A]

I want to talk about Isaac. This is a tragic scene. The eyeball sheep basically manipulates Isaac into the fly cage, and the fly kills Isaac. There's no dialogue. It's just straight visual narrative. So why tell the story that way?

[B]

Well, I think there's a lot of tension in that silence, in that emptiness. It creates a lot of dread. I think we are aware of the fact that that lab is filled with creatures. And so there's something really uncomfortable about that silence. And I think the best sort of trick to impactful tension building is to jump between the subjective experience of Isaac and then jumping to the objective sort of view of the lab, where we feel how vulnerable he is. And when he enters the lab, he's, like, putting on his vest and he's so excited that he's with his task of being alone in the lab and Curse trusts him to go and feed the creatures. It's one of the few moments where we really see the child that he is, because he's always trying to be a bit of a grownup. And so I think there's something in his innocence when he enters, where we immediately feel that this can't be good.

[A]

The scene, first of all teaches us what's supposed to happen. You're supposed to open the special door. You're supposed to put in the food. You close the special door, and then the inner door opens and the monster inside gets the food. That's how it's supposed to work. Great. And we don't realize that the. The eye mage is learning that lesson at the same time as we are. So when he goes to the fly chamber and it doesn't work right, he forgets how strong he is. He breaks the door and decides, like, oh, well, I'll just break protocol. And it's a moment that, as a viewer, is designed for me. Watching the screen to shout at my screen, right? Like, don't do that. What are you doing?

[B]

It also goes back to the fact that in that moment when he breaks off that door handle and he decides to step into the containment, it's another of these moments where it's because he's a child, he doesn't know better, and he should have never been given this responsibility.

[A]

You're making it worse.

[B]

And it was devastating when we were filming this. And when the fly sprays this acid into his face, we actually did that as a one shot. So that performance was the first take. And Kit was incredible. In the moment where he collapses and he's starting to twitch is that there's this innocence in his eyes. And you just realize, like, oh, my God, this is a child that I'm watching that has been killed by this fly.

[A]

It's also kind of a lesson for those of us outside watching the universe and internally, that the hybrids can die by misadventure. Even if the bodies can last forever, something bad can happen to them. So now there is jeopardy for them too, which there hasn't been really, until that point in the show.

[C]

Right.

[B]

We are discovering here that they in fact have no idea what they're up against with these aliens. It's highlighting how vulnerable they are. And Boy K, you know, he thinks he's in control, but I think that we're starting to see that this isn't gonna end well.

[A]

Yeah. His approach until this point has been one of I'm a genius and it's pure intellect and none of this emotional stuff. It's a kind of a moment that, like, no, this is really spinning out of control, even for him.

[C]

He.

[A]

I want to ask about another scene with him because episode six also has the negotiation with Yutani. What's the difference between that scene and the sort of more intense two handers and alien fights and stuff that also go on in the episode?

[B]

It's one of my favorite scenes that I directed on the show. There's something about just being in that grand formal space and them sitting at the end of this long table with this moderator and. And Boy K comes walking in with his dirty feet and he completely dismisses Yutani, the moderator, the purpose of this meeting. And obviously he completely outsmarts Yutani by the end of it. Boy K, he's somebody who. He doesn't want to grow up. He doesn't think about consequences because he doesn't care about consequences. I think that is what makes him extremely dangerous. It's about wealth and Power, greed, success, and the fact that no moral questions get in his way. Yeah. It's a scary world that he's building.

[A]

It's clear that that's a room that the oligarchs are supposed to take seriously. And he's ignoring that. Like he thinks he's beyond even that. It's really chilling in its own way.

[B]

Yeah. And I mean, he turns the law on her, on Yutani. He's a mindfucker.

[A]

And the way Sam does it, Yutani is such a coiled spring character and formal and playing very straight. And he's like taking up the space of four people, putting his feet up and stuff like that. That dichotomy is really. When they're together, you really see it the most.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's also not scripted. The fact that he gets up on the table and puts his feet up. I mean, putting his feet up was something that Noah had mentioned in a tone meeting. And I was like, oh, wow, we're not going to go that crazy with Boy K. That's fun. And then on the day, the actor, he came up to me and we were talking about and he was just like, hey, what if I just like get on the table?

[A]

Really?

[B]

And I go, wow, that would be kind of amazing. I hope I don't get fired for letting you do this. And you have not much time to make a decision. And we decided to rehearse a scene, see how it played out. And I immediately thought it was just so bold, so strong, and it really became such a great character moment for Boy K. And I was just like, this is gonna be really memorable tv. So I was just like, you know what, let's do it. Let's go bold and let's try it. And at least for me, it's, you know, it's one of my favorite scenes in this episode. So I'm glad that I took that risk.

[A]

While Oogla was making bold and risky directorial decisions, another crew member had been tasked with building really kind of the whole infrastructure for the show's entire premise. Every Alien movie has had its own look and feel, but Alien Earth has to be literally down to Earth, which is a world that's only hinted at in the movies. It has to be familiar, but also new, kind of capturing nostalgia for a non existent and poorly remembered future. So that was the challenge in front of production designer Andy Nicholson.

[D]

So futuristic cars, I didn't want to do them because I don't believe there have been very many futuristic cars that have looked good. So I just said to them, well, maybe the city's so hot and sea levels come up so much that the streets are just mostly rivers. There will be some vehicles because we do have to have vehicles for the troop transport and stuff. But it's old technology, cars. Nobody's really. Everybody's given up on having electric cars. They just got crappy things that run. Boats don't have to be futuristic because they have to be boats. You're not going to try and make a science fiction boat because they really haven't changed much for the longest time.

[A]

So did the idea that you were filming in Southeast Asia influence this idea of the rivers?

[D]

We hadn't defined that it was going to be Bangkok at that stage. I did a pre scout to make sure logistically it would work and also that visually it gave us what we wanted. Noah sent a kind of a couple of page design brief of ideas about bringing the organic to science fiction and also his view of the future where it's a lot hotter and sweatier. And so that was a very important part of it. I saw what was great about the location in the fact that the patina of Bangkok. Yeah, it's incredible the parts of Bangkok that aren't modern. And it worked with no. Noah's idea for the future being, you know, a place where the seas have risen and it's. And it's very humid.

[A]

Okay. So there's basically three locations in the show, right? There's the Maginot, which is the spaceship. There's the secret island research base, that's Neverland. And then there's Prodigy City in the building there. So where'd you start?

[D]

My first conversation with no was all about the kids, the children, what they meant. And in our call, I mainly talked about what Neverland had to be because it was a, you know, neue wanted to be a joyful place, but it was also a sinister place. And there was about the balance of making it sort of that anemic. I took a lot of references from photos of children's hospitals, which, because of the color palette they use and because of the look and the style of the furniture and it's all friendly. There might be murals on the wall, but yet it's still a hospital like that.

[A]

Tell me if I'm right about this, because the sense that I got of it was that the building is sort of brutalist and scary, but then the furnishings and the decor are kind of FR and happier the outside of it.

[D]

I just wanted to come up with a very identifiable architectural form that was semi submerged in the landscape. We Were doing a lot of stuff on stage, so I didn't want to have endless views. And that also made it more claustrophobic. And keynotes I took from the incredible design of Alien. And ideas were, every room's not secure for creature invasion because they all got big vents. Every room, when you look in there, has an air vent. So if you're human, you can't get out of the room. But if you're an alien or a bug or, you know, all of the nice things we come to meet in the show, you can go everywhere you want to.

[A]

People have gotta learn to design for alien invasions. Come on. Like, never seen one of these movies.

[D]

I mean, for the big alien, it was fine. I mean, they just tend to bash everything down. But for all the small guys, we'd overlook that. Even in. Even Boy Cavalier's office has got vents in the walls.

[A]

Can I ask about a specific piece of furniture? I want to ask about the huddle couch with the multicolored, the sort of orange and white, which was like, oh, that's my charm.

[D]

Conversation pitch.

[A]

Yeah, the conversation pit.

[D]

Yeah, I really wanted to do a conversation. I mean, this was for Dame Sylvia's office. That is the most intimate, but also had to be in the most scary rooms. And then it was a kind of a therapy room, a playroom. And also some of the most sinister lines of dialogue between Boyd Cavalier and Dame Sylvia and between Dame Silva and Wendy, all happen in there. They're utterly terrifying in terms of their deceit and in terms of what she's physically saying and their callousness.

[A]

The hearkening to the 1970s aesthetic as like a retro aesthetic at that point. Right.

[D]

The aesthetic throughout was, look at what those first two films look like. Look at what the interiors are, look at the design. I mean, in Alien, you don't see any Earth stuff, but all of the furniture, all of it is from that period. But it was what they. You know, the first film particularly wasn't a huge budget movie. It's what they bought in that was supposed to. Futuristic stuff of that period. So they were contemporary of that period. Futuristic leaning tables, chairs. It was kind of a vision of the future, which we didn't go to.

[A]

It's a fascinating problem and problem solving approach. Because it's like the thing that happens at Disneyland, Tomorrowland, right? Is that they build a thing that looks futuristic and then it lasts for a long time, and then it doesn't look futuristic anymore.

[D]

I don't know a film fan or a designer who's not totally in Love with what Alien looks like as a spaceship. And it's an absolutely classic piece of science fiction set design. It's not only appropriate for the show, it was groundbreaking in terms of what it did, in terms of the way the sets were built and what I learned about that through research, which was a fascinating part of the thing for me. Between getting the job and starting it, I just spent all the time I could finding out as much archival stuff about the sets that I could.

[A]

Well, let's talk about those sets. You're talking about the Nostromo, which is the spaceship in Alien, and the Sulaco, which is the spaceship in Aliens. What did you find out in your research that you could pull into design of the Maginot?

[D]

I think the way I approached that was, was very much as if you're doing a historical period film that you look at what the design was in the Star wars at the time and you go into it and use the original. One of the original art directors wrote a book. One of the things he talks about is the corporate nature of the inside of Alien set and how all the sets should feel like a McDonald's of the time in terms of their sort of plasticky. They've got all fixed furniture and stuff. So we took that as the element. And you know, this is a Yutani ship. It so is the Nostromo, so is the Sulaco. So what is it that are in there that much like buying, you know, three different models of. Of BMW will have the same switches in them and similar seats because they just do that. This is what the ship does. And those repetitive elements were things we started looking at for detailing. And in terms, if you're mass producing ships, then they're going to have common features in them. I mean, there's a ton of Easter egg elements taken from both ships.

[A]

Give me an example of one of those Easter eggs. What's something that, like, I might have missed, but that was important to you when you built the set.

[D]

What was great was I found out when we're talking shipping containers, and this is very nerdy, the shipping pallets that were used in Alien, they're a red kind of a dried plastic color. They've got bits of silver paint on them as well. And that's because previous to being used on Alien, they've been Star wars. And on Star wars they just used them for floors and they painted them silver. And they were. They were owned by a prop house in the UK and they just rented all of them after Alien. So the props company threw them out so now they're a highly desirable collectible. And I found a photograph of a guy selling them on ebay. He was standing next to it and I had all the measurements and everything. So we made thousands of those. We made them in metal for flooring, for the walls, for everything. And that gave us so much of the texture of the look of the interior. And also. And around Bangkok there are hundreds of very organized scrap vehicle braking yards. And we could get so many of the greebly bits that make up the engineering part of the set. There's so much of it that was there was easy to get and not expensive. So we could just get. Because the way you do a set, any kind of science fiction interior like that is you start off with the walls, you get in big elements, you use them in unusual ways. You paint in different colors. And if you get enough pieces from a car, you know bits of manifolds, bits of engines, carburetors, all of that kind of stuff, you put in big lumps and you plumb them together. Then you go back again, you go back again and find things that were very similar to the stuff that was used in the 1979 film. I know our prop master Thai prop master War, did a fantastic job of set decorator.

[A]

Well, we've talked a lot about the sets, but obviously there's a lot more that has to get designed. There's the boats and futuristic cars or I guess kind of not in this case. But one element that's always been key to the Alien universe, especially that second movie, is that military side of things. Can you talk about how you design the futuristic weapons? A little.

[D]

We decided that just much like now you have your own militia and your own militia would be using the top of the range military spec weapons. And I didn't see the point in defining the difference between Weyland and Yutani and Prodigy weapons because everybody can buy an M16. So that was sort of it in my head. And it also meant that you didn't have to agonize about design of the stuff. And also it's a great Easter egg in that you can buy repro versions of all of the alien and aliens weaponry. And so we were able to look at photographs of that to recreate it. And we could use them. And I don't think I'm wrong in saying that an aw lot of sci fi weapons since have been based on the look of those and how they work. And they're a classic piece of weapon design. I think.

[A]

While some people use weapons to fight their battles Others use words. Arthur and Dame Sylvia are a core relationship on the show. And in this episode, they have a philosophical disagreement so fundamental that it breaks their marriage up. It breaks their scientific partnership, and it screws things up so badly that it redirects the rest of the story from here on out. So we'll start with Essie Davis first, who we heard from in episode two to get her perspective on what's going on between Dame Sylvia and Arthur here and how the actors managed to make that relationship feel grounded in the midst of everything so weird going on around those characters.

[E]

David and I, as soon as we met each other, just instantly fell in love with each other. And we would actually improvise our relationship. Often we get together and have these quite long in depth conversations about work and Boy K and our children and what we're gonna do. But it was really grounding for the two of us to have this, like a history of a relationship that felt really connected because we're often in a workspace together, not really dealing with the fact that we're married. And so to have built that world together was really great. And it felt really important, particularly for the choice that she makes to stay working for Prodigy, essentially. Cause that's such a shock for both of them.

[D]

Yeah, they.

[A]

I mean, to be clear, Nibs has PTSD at that point, and they get given an order, right. Mind wiper. And Arthur says, I don't wanna. So what's Dame's perspective on saying yes to that order?

[E]

Well, it's clearly not what she would like to do. She would like to take the time to give Nibs some therapy and help her have processed that traumatic experience and get back into the capable, able brain of the child she was. Cause, you know, when they all first are sent out on that mission, I think Dame's quite interested to see how well they will cope with it, not knowing that there's gonna be aliens. So she's expecting them to have this quite rewarding experience of going out and helping people. But what they have instead is this very scary and confronting situation. And many of them are quite terrified by it. And. Well, wouldn't it be easy? Wouldn't that be great if we could just cut out trauma, like wipe it from someone's memory and that would be great, like just take the pain away, get rid of it.

[A]

Well, yeah, it would actually be pretty great if you could do that kind of editing, I guess. But it has narrative consequences, like, she's fine. Once that happens. The thing that freaks Nibs out is not the trauma. It's the fact that her memory can be altered so easily that that proves that she's not really human. You f. But then you give her something even worse.

[E]

We fix the trauma, but we gave her something bigger to worry about. Therefore, who is in control of her body? Who's in control of her? Is she a puppet? And, in fact, Arthur's right. What if it makes it worse because Dame knows the relationship of Atom with Boy and because she knows Boy's flippancy. Although she doesn't expect Arthur to get fired, she knows that they could just be kicked off this project and the children could be taken out of her hands. It's like, do you give up your life's work, or do you do as you're told? So I think she says yes, she will wipe this memory, hoping to then be able to find a way to nurture Nims further down the track.

[A]

And now, from the other side of that relationship, here's Damon Rysdal, who plays Arthur, Sylvia Dame's husband, on what's going through Arthur's mind at this point in the story.

[C]

I think Arthur's a transhumanist. He believes that these children. It's a new type of human that we're creating, and we need a new code of ethics for these humans. We have to honor these children that are now supercharged, and they're not just machines. And I think he's being surprised by how much he cares for them. His heart is growing and his confusion is growing, and he's like, this is much more complicated than I first thought it was gonna be. He starts to fall in love with these hybrids. They become his children, and with that comes the complicated morality of it.

[A]

I don't know what this says by me as a parent, but Kirsch has some parental moments, too.

[C]

He does.

[A]

It's not the I love you, dad, but it's still fatherly, definitely.

[C]

And it's like he's a Synth. So it's like this idea of, like, you are more than human and you should keep going, too. I think, like, Arthur doesn't understand there's only a certain place that Arthur can go with these hybrids. Like, he's limited, whereas with Kirsch, he knows what they can be and they can define their own future. And that's. You're right. Is fatherly. He's pushing them to grow and take this world because it's theirs. I think there is a conversation between Arthur and Kirsch, you know, about two fathers who are approaching it differently. And also what this show Is bringing forward saying, like, humanism puts us at the pinnacle, but now we're creating something that's maybe more powerful than ourselves. And that's scary. And it's gonna come with a redefining of what it means to be human on planet Earth and our children are gonna be more advanced. That's terrifying and also hopeful. And the show, I think, shows both sides of that.

[A]

I talked to S.C. davis, but I wanna hear from you too, what it was like to. To figure out that relationship dynamic is just as actors playing the scenes.

[C]

Yeah. When you meet another actor who's playing your partner, you kind of see what's naturally there. And I love that she was older and had more power and was the brains behind the operation. And I was more of the tech guy and, you know, Alien. The whole franchise is about power. And to see power dynamics within a relationship, I think is such a gift.

[A]

Because Arthur is one sort of step removed from the inner circle of decision makers. Whatever. He's less corrupted. So, like, he doesn't have visibility on all the things they're doing. But then when he finally gets visibility on it, he can sort of go like, wait a minute, holy crap, I didn't. This is much worse than.

[C]

I was exactly right. His life is simple. Make this work. And he believes in what he's doing. And from her perspective, I mean, Essie, I'm sure had her own, but she's trying to this impossible task of appeasing the man she's working for while also trying to do good. And I remember Essie coming to me being like, I feel like every scene I'm flip flopping. And I say, that's exactly right. And it's perfect for this character who has to be the go between, between the power and the science and, you know, trying to build the plane while flying. She's more of a politician than Arthur is. Arthur is more of a purist and an idealist and is allowed to be that because he doesn't have to live in the politics of the company. But that's a little bit of the arc. I start to question my wife and also question what we're doing. And that's the tension. You feel that through the first six episodes, and then it breaks in the sixth episode. The crisis of faith. Once we start overstepping these boundaries, the.

[A]

Crisis is a very small bore one in some ways, it's what to do about that specific thing of Nibs having ptsd and to say, we're not gonna treat this like we would treat a human. We're gonna treat this like we would treat a computer. A machine at best, a product at work. Cause that's the thing that turns out to be his line. His line is, no, we have to treat them like kids.

[C]

Yeah. We're just blasting through all these protocols. We're gonna erase this kid's memory, this hybrid's memory. That is so wrong. And we owe this kid something. And now my wife's okay with that. And I feel so complicit so that the guilt that Arthur's having. I've been a part of this machine, and I. And I can't believe that I've given my gifts to this. And if we're willing to take that first step, then we're really willing to control these things. They're not going to have autonomy. They're going to be under our thumbprint for the rest of their lives. It's a huge line for Arthur and a huge betrayal. And so I think our marriage is very much in question. My life was threatened, and my wife didn't stand up for me, and I'm now having to leave, and I'm leaving my whole life and everything that I've worked for and my all.

[A]

I mean, she chose Boy K, too.

[C]

She did. She chose Boy K. In that moment, we could have had a united front against this, but we. We didn't. We didn't stand up to this. And if Dame won't stand up to him, who will? I'm like, all right. And then realizing that we are woefully inadequate in how we've approached this and terrified at what we've created, the Frankenstein we've created and the. The man that we've empowered through this, and that's very dangerous. And then this. This young man comes in and is just worried about his sister. And I can't say that they're going to be safe. I've seen now what we're doing with Nibs, and they're all going to be controlled by this company in this conglomerate. I'm like, oh, yeah, it's bigger than me, too. And I'm part of this, and fuck it, I'm taking the ship down with me, in a way, in that moment, and I love that it says a Noah Hawley. Irony is that moment of kind of selflessness or doing the right thing leads to my downfall.

[A]

You know, it also matters that he thinks that Wendy is worth saving.

[C]

If he thought.

[A]

If he was of the mind that Boy Cavalier has, which is just like. That's just a laptop man.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Then he wouldn't Be saying that to Hermit.

[C]

Yeah, she's a human at the bottom of it. And. And boy, Cavalier doesn't care about humans either. You know, he doesn't. He has empathy for no one besides himself. Besides, like, he has this very high view that, like, he's just trying to push humanity forward in this, like, sense that if you get way too far away from real life human beings and what we owe actually life itself, which is like, first shot with a scorpion in the first episode, this idea, like, we always see it, these scorpions from the humans point of view, but the scorpion's also afraid of us. And so that. That question of, like, how far do we draw that circle of empathy? And do we owe these machines? Do we owe also the other creatures on Earth? Do we owe these aliens that come in more empathy than we've allowed them in the past? I think it's central throughout. I think it is an unanswerable question, but it's one that, that we as humans are gonna start facing in many more profound ways. But this idea that this is something new, it is still humans, and they're deserving of the same kind of dignity and self respect that we give to humans, even though we don't give humans very much dignity in this alien world.

[A]

You know, even humans don't get it. Yeah, but then he falls kind of into Slightly's trap in a way. And when he realizes he's in trouble because he's looking at an egg. Egg. An alien egg. Slightly says. Tries to explain himself by saying, they have my family. And Arthur says, I have a family too.

[C]

Oh, yeah. It shows that I do believe he's a human because I am pleading with my own humanity. You know, Adash has these, like, beautiful big eyes and, like, plays that innocence and then that hardness, and I'm just trying to get out of there and realizing suddenly, oh, I read this whole situation very wrongly. I don't know why he's talking about his family, but I'm realizing it's a decision on his part to lock me. And they're not open it up, up. And I'm being sacrificed. And. And so I plead with him, like, I have a family too. But yeah, it was a powerful, powerful moment of me as also as an. As a caged animal, as a scorpion trying to get out of his cage, you know, as I'm being fed to a predator. So it's this. It's past humanity. It's just kind of me as an animal trying to survive also in that moment.

[A]

And just as a. As A matter of nerd interest.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What's it actually like to get face hugged? Like to have a. If you have the face hugger on you, what's it like?

[C]

What? They're so. They're so great. There's so many different face huggers. So they have. They have one that you can breathe through. They have one that good? Yes, it's all good. There's. There's the ones that are animatronic. So like later on when it's wrapped around, they press these little buttons and it's moving and then they wrap it around your head so they tie it in your back in it's little. With these little rubber bands and it's really snug on there. And then it's ky jellies over the whole thing. So you're greased up. But it really. We did it for about a couple hours, you know, and I remember going to see Romulus a few months later and I had PTSD in the theater. Cause I just experienced that. Because you're imagining that for hours. Which. Yeah, I. You have weird dreams that night. But it's so. I love those experiences as an actor. You're like, when else will I be able to do that? You know, that's why you got into this thing in the first place.

[A]

Well, finally, let's zoom out, out a little bit. Remember, the hybrids aren't just a philosophical experiment. They're also supposed to be a product sold by a tech trillionaire oligarch who wants to get even richer by selling immortality. So the show sets up all kinds of interesting, thorny questions about control and ownership versus autonomy and humanity. Let's bug co executive producer Migzi Pentano about these tensions.

[F]

If you think about space exploration as like another step in manifest destiny, then you're looking at people who claim wherever they get to first. And so if by right of discovery find some creatures, then those creatures belong to them 100%. So Weyland absolutely 100% owns at least those individual creatures. But Boy Cavalier is savvy enough to be like, oh, well, there are quarantine regulations that I can use to my advantage to keep these creatures for longer than I would have. It's funny because this is such a nitty gritty conversation about just the idea that Boy K is taking as much advantage of Yutani as he can. And when it comes to property and when it comes to damage, what is owed, what are the considerations? There's a bit. When Yutani and Boy Cavalier have their first conversation, she opens with it's been a very expensive day. And he's like, yeah. And as an afterthought, he goes, not to mention lives lost. She's like, yeah, sure, the human consideration always comes second to the financial consideration.

[A]

So the xenomorphs are under our kind of whatever millennia old human centric ideas about ownership property. But that's something that Wendy kind of takes issue with. And since she's the one who can communicate with the aliens, she points out that they didn't ask to be there. So what does that say about Wendy's approach to that human centrism?

[F]

Look at it in sort of two ways. One is from the autonomy perspective, which is like, yeah, they 100% didn't ask to come here. These are creatures who have no idea sort of what world they're on and they're going to do what they do, which is to rampage and ravage. But on the other hand, you have to remember that Wendy is a child essentially and is ascribing a level of autonomy that maybe doesn't really exist. And I think one could argue that Wendy is projecting somewhat her own sort of insecurity about whether or not she's human onto these creatures.

[A]

All right, I feel like a dope because it didn't even occur to me that she was just wrong.

[F]

Well, again, I'm not giving solid answers. I mean, it could be that she's right. I mean, there's, you know, know it's not like the noises that they're throwing back and forth at each other are subtitled.

[A]

I want to go back to the idea of whether the hybrids themselves might be property on the research island. They're taking the Silicon Valley move of like, we're just doing interesting science. Damn the regulations. It's a yes place, not a no place. You know that basically there's no problem that technology can cause that it can't also solve.

[F]

Sure.

[A]

It is a way of looking at this. Like on Neverland, all scientific research is going to cause a lot of problems and then maybe even solve them and then sell the solution solutions as a subscription model.

[F]

Yeah. There is a point where Adam Mines talks to Herman and he says, we've gotten you a new lung and it's not free. You do this for us and we sign this contract for you or we'll bill you. And that kind of crushing debt is something that's like, I think is always a worry for humans now and it's in the future. I think it's basically what the government rules with, is the idea that you are always under the thumb. Every major city in the world, Prodigy territory or Whaling Newtonic territory, all of that are basically just think of them as company towns. And that's it. You know, the moon's a company town and you can buy things at the company store or elsewise, but it's going to be more expensive and you're, you know, it's. It's pretty intense that way. What's funny is that's not obviously the main thrust of the story, but the fact that that just pervades everything in our story is pretty disgusting.

[A]

I hadn't thought of it as Hermit's lung being a subscription model, but yeah, that's kind of what it is. His life is threatened in a technical legal sense if he doesn't comply with the company's wishes. So they don't own his body the way they own the hybrids, but they own an essential part of it that's keeping him alive. And that sets up a creepy or disgusting. As you put a power dynamic between every citizen and Prodigy.

[F]

I think the reason that empires fall or autocrats go away is because there is a recognition at some point along the way when somebody's rights are being trampled that this can't stand anymore. And there's always a resistance and it's always going to be when the goal is for the elevation of the individual at the expense of the many. And if the many suddenly starts to include these superpowered hybrid beings, you have a hard time ahead of you. If you're Boy K, if you're building this thing and bringing it into life, if you don't do it in a moral way, it's going to burn you in the end.

[A]

It's especially interesting in the context of mind wiping Nibs. Right. That's like an inciting event that sparks the sort of revolution is when they assert their ownership over not just the body, but the mind.

[F]

One of the thrusts of the show when it's talking about finding the humanity within these things that were created in this sort of corporate landscape, what you're looking for. Sometimes when you're finding the humanity of something means you're finding the sort of morality in it. Boy K created the hybrids. Does that mean he owns the consciousness within? There are arguments to be made that he doesn't and there are arguments to be made that he does. But just morally, I think it's just against this spiritual law to rip somebody's sense of self away from them. And I think that's. Yeah, that is for sure will have some pretty intense consequences. In the future. For Boy K, it's always going to be. I do think that the lack of morality, it's the stuff of good sci fi, sort of the downfall of the person that sort of brings that into the world.

[A]

That's all for this week's episode of Alien Earth, the official podcast next week. The sheep is an eyeball monster now and Boy K is into it. Wendy knows what Dame Sylvia really thinks of the hybrids and she is not into it. And what has slightly gotten himself into. Also, can we agree that Kirsch is the only character on the show who's actually seen an alien movie and internalized its lessons? That's all. Next time. Digging into episode seven of FX's Alien Earth. Hey, if you could hook up Alien Earth, the official podcast with a rating, a review or a follow, we'd be into it. Wherever you're getting podcast at, I'm Adam Rogers and I'll meet you back here next week.