‘Alien: Earth’ Episode 7 Deep Dive

Summary

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

Podcast: House of R, The Ringer

Hosts: Joanna Robinson, Mallory Rubin, Rob Mahoney

Date: September 17, 2025

---

Overview

This week on House of R, Joanna Robinson, Mallory Rubin, and Rob Mahoney conduct a classic triple deep dive into the penultimate episode of Alien: Earth, “Emergence.” Unfolding as the first in a two-part finale, the episode is packed with thematic resonance, philosophical musings on identity, emergence, and mortality, as well as harrowing moments of sci-fi horror. The hosts dissect character arcs, character deaths, tangled loyalties, and the mounting carnage, while tracing the show’s influences and exploring parallels with the wider Alien franchise and Peter Pan mythology. The discussion is rich with humor, camaraderie, and plenty of milky synth banter.

Spoiler Warning:
Detailed spoilers for Alien: Earth Episode 7 and the entire Alien cinematic franchise are included. The hosts have not seen the finale at the time of this recording.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Thematic Deep Dive: "Emergence"

(06:16–07:20)

• The hosts start by unpacking the episode’s title, “Emergence,” relating it to both philosophical and biological concepts—where something becomes more than the sum of its parts.
• Mallory: “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?”
• Rob: Suggests emergence applies most to character Wendy, as the hybrid who has evolved most, and also literally references the xenomorph chest-bursting scene.
• The group notes several emergences—Wendy’s self-actualization, the birth of the chestburster, and Morrow’s militia surfacing on the island.

2. Facehug Watch & Grim Forecasts

(03:19–04:56)

• The trio engages in a running bit, “Facehug Watch,” speculating who will be facehugged next, while lamenting a shrinking number of expendable characters as the carnage grows.
• Mallory: “The xenomorph took care. Our little friend the xeno lung is growing up and developing an appetite for all sorts of man flesh... I feel a hug. We've hugged our last face for this season, but there are hopefully more seasons to come.”

3. Penultimate Energy: Set-up With Carnage

(07:20–08:20, 10:40–11:03)

• Both Mallory and Rob note how the episode has a propulsive, “part one of a two-part finale” urgency, already full of high-stakes mayhem, not just setup.
• Rob: “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 like supposedly the buildup to the big finale, that makes me feel like we got some real fireworks in play.”

4. Isolation, Death, and Cynicism

(08:20–09:54)

• The hosts loop back to last week’s existential question: do we all die alone? Arthur’s fate is placed in this context.
• Rob: "He did die alone because we all do... Maybe he and the chest burster in a way are, you know, two skeletons holding each other in the buried ruins of Pompeii. Except one of them happened to kill the other. One of them, you know, the volcano is Vesuvius."
• They further highlight the cruelty and cynicism pervading the show, including Dame Sylvia’s complicity and neglect.

5. Mailbag Moments & Listener Theories

(12:11–19:13)

• The team answers several listener questions, including why Morrow didn’t use crucial surveillance to implicate Boy Cavalier; puns like “Teenomorph”; and a theory casting Kirsch as Tinkerbell from Peter Pan, based on his fae-like hair and mischievous sidekick energy.
• Mallory on Kirsch/Tinkerbell: “It's not 100%, but I do like this. I particularly like the hair note.”

6. Production Insights From the Official Podcast

(19:04–22:37)

• Joanna shares tidbits from the show’s official behind-the-scenes content, such as the deliberate set design (vents in every room—a classic Alien staple) and the use of soft furnishings in Dame Sylvia’s office to highlight her creepy moral contrast.
• They discuss the recurring theme of corporate debt and ownership—how Prodigy City is likened to a company town—a motif tracking from Fargo and Noah Hawley's other works.

---

Character & Plotline Groupings

A. Slightly, Smee, and Arthur – Tragedy & Responsibility

(23:39–63:43)

• Slightly’s failed attempt to hide Arthur’s face-hugged body kicks off a heartbreaking sequence.

• Smee’s confrontation with Slightly: “You did this to Arthur.” Slightly: “You would have too, if he had chosen you.”
  [30:13]

• The children struggle with guilt, denial, and desperate hope—Slightly clings to Morrow’s minimization: “He’ll have a bad couple of days... but I’ll make sure they’re comfortable.”
  [34:15]

• Arthur’s awakening, portrayed with devastating tenderness by David Rysdahl, is a highlight:

  • Joanna: “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.”
    [47:05]
  • Arthur’s final moments underline the series’ rarity of true empathy, contrasted with the show’s otherwise brutal worldview.

• The chestburster scene is handled with particular horror and emotional impact, both for characters and audience.
  [54:11]

  • Rob: “If you just played somebody this clip... they are indistinguishable... from the way that everyone else reacts in the Alien universe. This is the one moment where everyone is brought together, is when you see this fucking thing come out of somebody's chest.”

• MEMORABLE QUOTE:

  • Arthur: "Those of us who love you."
  • Joanna: “And it's just Arthur himself alone. And then... there's no place for that.”

• Arthur’s body, after the grisly chestburster event, is graphically dumped by Morrow’s commandos, adding to the cruelty.

  • Mallory: “[This] was the cruelest and most horrific thing Morrow had done yet.”
    [66:19]
  • Slightly and Smee’s friendship endures as a fragile tether to humanity.

---

B. Kirsch, Boy Cavalier, and Synthetic Supremacy

(35:10–45:20)

• Kirsch remains mysterious, both “inscrutable” and potentially driven by synth superiority.

• Joanna and Mallory debate whether Kirsch’s seemingly petty, emotional actions are truly “human” or a reflection of synth agenda—or both.

  • Mallory: “I think... the ambiguity has been delicious to this point. I do think we... are expecting and hoping to get more clarity in the finale about what is exactly driving all of his decisions.”
    [37:21]
  • Joanna: “You know, my favorite Prometheus scene being David, like, watching Lawrence of Arabia. There is like a yearn there for... something but. But often perverted or often... mis-executed.”
  • Rob: “Any designed algorithm contains human error and human flaw and human programming.”

• The hosts explore the contrast between Arthur’s raw, emotional death and Kirsch’s cold calculation—“the heart versus the circuit board.”

---

C. The Hybrids, Wendy Marcy, and the Crisis of Identity

(84:27–93:33)

• Wendy Marcy’s realization that she and the hybrids are not invulnerable (“We’re premium. We can’t die like this—oh, I can die like this”) marks a key turning point.
  • Mallory: “It's not just confronting the... fact that, like, there is vulnerability... it's confronting the lie. It's confronting the falsehood of the entire pursuit, which is then shattering.”
    [87:22]
• Nibs’s existential anxiety over memory, identity, and autonomy is highlighted: “I've got all my mind. What's in me. Nobody's messing with my insides. Isn't that right, Mr. Strawberry?”
• The hybrids’ debate who qualifies as “us” in the “Last of Us” scenario—a key thematic motif—does the “us” include only siblings, only hybrids, or xenomorphs as well?

---

D. Morrow, Commandos, and the Corporate Machine

(65:35–70:47)

• Morrow’s hero/villain ambiguity reaches new depths as he reproaches Slightly for failing his “mission,” in a hollow, callous way.
• The commandos’ casual disposal of Arthur’s corpse is seen as a sign of the utter dehumanization wrought by corporate structures.
  • Joanna: “I don't want to pick a side... but only one of them dumped Arthur's body like that. So I guess I'm Team Prodigy.”

---

E. Boy Cavalier, Corporate Parentage & the Synth Secret

(73:42–76:17, 109:42–113:35)

• Boy Cavalier’s insufferable, Tywin Lannister-esque (“I’ll send him to bed without any supper”) approach is noted as both rooted in insecurity and a product of being patronized by mentors (“someone else made me feel that way, so I now need to turn that around and project that out into the world”).
• Discussion includes fan theories about Adam (the butler) as a secret synth (“Atom Ains”—a play on “one” in German) and possible connections to Boy’s own family/synthetic origin.
  • Mallory proposes: "What if Adam and Dame Sylvia were Boy Cavalier's parents and he killed them, and then he uploaded their minds into hybrids?"
    [113:12]

---

F. Eyeball Jockey, Xenomorphs, and Queen Discourse

(114:07–117:26)

• Eyeball Jockey, the beloved parasitic sheep-mind, emerges as a fan favorite. The hosts joke about shipping I-Jockey and Boy Cavalier (“It’s Iboy... Cavalier. They’re going to be in one body. I'm really excited.”).
  • Listener Andrew’s Email: “I love the Eyeball Jockey more than any character I've loved since Sansa Stark... Initially seems like she just wants to find a partner to call home, a fleshy eye socket or Joffrey... Will eventually rise to her rightful place as a queen of the realm.”
    [116:20]

---

G. Violence, Viscera, and Synth-Milk

(79:04–80:06, 122:47–130:08)

• The hosts revel in the viscous, gory reality of Alien Earth—synth milk, chestbursters, “milking” synths, and the unforgettable jaw-rip by Nibs.
  • Rob: “Milk just. Nibs gets shot and starts milking a little bit as one does.”
  • Clearly, this is the “milkiest” episode to date, with the finale previewed to outdo even this.

---

Standout Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Rob Mahoney (09:26): “Maybe he and the chest burster in a way are, you know, two skeletons holding each other in the, like, buried ruins of Pompeii... Except one of them happened to kill the other.”
• Joanna (11:03): “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 like supposedly the buildup to the big finale, that makes me feel like we got some real fireworks in play.”
• Mallory Rubin (32:31): “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.”
• Mallory (39:34): “What's it like working for a company that made you obsolete?”
• Rob (84:28): “We're all in the milk together.”
• Mallory (122:59): “Not since History of Violence... have I seen such incredible jaw work.”
• Joanna (125:08): “Is Nibs dead? She gets shot in the milk. She keeps going and then she gets zapped by... electricity can't be good...”

---

Notable Timestamps

• 06:16 – Interpretations of the episode title, “Emergence.”
• 30:13 – Smee and Slightly’s confrontation: guilt and the meaning of “chosen.”
• 47:05 – Arthur’s final moments and the emotional impact of his death.
• 54:11 – Chestburster scene: trauma, horror, and child reactions.
• 65:35 – Morrow’s most brutal moment: calling out Slightly at Arthur’s corpse.
• 73:42 – Boy Cavalier’s patronizing management style and insecurity.
• 79:04 – Synth milk and the group’s “milkiest” discussion yet.
• 113:12 – Speculation: Is Adam (the butler) a secret synth? Daddy issues.
• 116:20 – Listener’s fanfic: Eyeball Jockey as the new Sansa Stark.
• 122:59 – Nibs’ jaw-rip and questions about her fate.

---

Conclusion & Final Thoughts

The House of R panel agrees: Episode 7 is one of the show’s strongest, successfully fusing sci-fi horror, emotional depth, and philosophical inquiry in a propulsive build-up to the season finale. They are especially eager for the finale’s promise of even more blood, milk, and mayhem. The hosts praise the show for its thematic complexity—emergence, identity, the cost of survival, and the never-ending cycles of corporate abuse and violence—and the cast’s standout performances.

Mallory (134:10): “Pack your lactaid for the milkstravaganza that is the Alien Earth finale...”

---

For Further Engagement:

• Write in with questions/theories: hobbitsanddragonsmail.com
• Keep an eye out for upcoming interviews (Mallory with James Gunn) and Battlestar Galactica deep dives.

---

[End of Episode Summary]

Transcript

[Joanna Robinson]

This episode is brought to you by Happy Egg.

[Mallory Rubin]

The recipe for a better egg starts.

[Joanna Robinson]

With how the hen lives. Happy Egg Hens spend their days outside on pasture, running, stretching and flapping their wings in the sunshine. That freedom leads to rich, tasty orange yolks and a difference you can see and taste. Happy Egg makes every plate happier. The proof? It's inside the shell. Visit happyag.com Spotify to crack open Happy.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's a historically hideous season.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's our 100th ugly house.

[Rob Mahoney]

And if these walls could talk.

[Mallory Rubin]

Do you cry a lot? I do.

[Rob Mahoney]

Ugliest house in America. Season premiere Wednesday at 8 on HGTV.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hello, 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&Rob Mahoney, the third R. To talk about episode seven of Alien Earth. Mallory Rubin, how are you doing?

[Mallory Rubin]

Mr. Strawberry says off we're never going back. That's right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hell yeah. Ramoni, how are you doing?

[Rob Mahoney]

I was doing quite well, but hearing this is going to be one of the last triple house of ours. Like do you, do you guys have some please to put me in a pod with a facehugger that I don't know about?

[Joanna Robinson]

Don't worry about it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Finales are always active.

[Joanna Robinson]

Don't worry about it.

[Rob Mahoney]

What could possibly go wrong?

[Joanna Robinson]

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 Rubin is going to be chatting with. Has already chatted with at length with James Gunn about Peacemaker. So really exc. Excited to listen to that interview. I've heard nothing but glowing things about it from Malia herself and I don't think that's true. She just said you had fun. You 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. We're doing Hooked. 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 Prestige TV podcast all my life as well as. Yeah, Mallory's got her. Got your viper shirt on, right?

[Mallory Rubin]

I do. Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Look at that.

[Mallory Rubin]

I wasn't sure if we'd have time for another Search between pods. I couldn't risk it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, good. And then also we've got the ongoing task coverage that's happening every Sunday with Bill Simmons, Rob Oni, and yours truly. Spoiler warning. Alien Earth Episode 7, 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.

[Rob Mahoney]

Absolutely.

[Joanna Robinson]

This penultimate episode of Alien Earth. This episode.

[Rob Mahoney]

So 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?

[Joanna Robinson]

Ooh, I think it's like at least three.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Three.

[Rob Mahoney]

And then a cracked one.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, three that still have their.

[Joanna Robinson]

Who. Who would you.

[Mallory Rubin]

Who would you put in?

[Joanna Robinson]

Who would you put it? Top of. Top of face hug watch.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know what? I would be disappointed if we didn't get a false start where a face hugger 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 bod if you're not going to have any, like, mistaken identities?

[Joanna Robinson]

He's like, I'm gluten intolerant. I can't eat this. Exactly.

[Rob Mahoney]

I simply couldn't.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, sorry. Of course, dairy. I dairy avoid it. No milk for me. Okay. Mallory, do you have anyone at the top of your face hugger watch list?

[Mallory Rubin]

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 maul and maim. And like, the xenomorph took care. Our little friend the xeno lung is growing up and developing an appetite for all sorts of man 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

This episode hasn't gotten to single snack.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm worried, waiting to get in the mix. Have we seen the last of the blood slug Aztecs? I don't know. So, like, how many more starring moments is the facehugger gonna get. Given that there's one episode remaining and this was a very face hugger centric pursuit.

[Joanna Robinson]

I feel a hug. We've hugged our last face for this season, but there are hopefully more seasons to come. So, you know, episode. Yeah, go ahead.

[Rob Mahoney]

I do hope we have heard the phrase ass chicks for the last time. I wouldn't mind seeing them. I just, I need that out of my brain.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's a Mallory Rubin special and you will hear it again.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay, that's from Mr. Like episode six, Blue Lord over here.

[Rob Mahoney]

But I don't know what to tell you. Like, that's just what was happening in the text.

[Joanna Robinson]

All right. Episode seven, Emergence.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Directed by Dana Gonzalez, who is a frequent no Hawley 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 attempt at 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?

[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.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't know, I mean, Nibs is pretty surprising in this episode. A lot of growling.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know what? Totally fair. Just a more formidable opponent than anyone would have would have banked on earlier in the season. But I think this is absolutely speaking to Wendy first and foremost and of.

[Mallory Rubin]

Course to the tiny babies xenomorph exploding from Arthur's chest cavity. That was another emergency of many.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know what, you're right.

[Mallory Rubin]

Emergences of. Of all sorts in this television show.

[Joanna Robinson]

What a morrow and his pals emerging from the water. Literal emerging, happening and philosophical emerging happened, I should say. Hobbitsanddragonsmail.com if you have any thoughts or feelings about emergence or anything else that has to do with this episode. We had 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.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes, ma'.

[Joanna Robinson]

Am. We missed you last week. So let's start with you. Overall thoughts on episode seven. How are you feeling?

[Mallory Rubin]

I had a. Had a good time. I had fun at the movies as they say, you know, I had fun on my, 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 realized 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 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 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Quick question for you, Mallory. 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.

[Mallory Rubin]

I, you know, I, I, like both of you would, would be invested in helping a colleague trapped under a bookcase. Of course, regardless of my answer to the. So let's get that 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.

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh, for sure.

[Mallory Rubin]

But when we die, I'm sort of like, that's probably a wrap.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, follow up question for you, Rob Mahoney, who has been somewhat ill since you made that statement of we all die alone the last time. Deeply ill. Yeah. 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 burster inside of you, you have someone close to you when you die, how do you feel about that?

[Rob Mahoney]

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 inescapable truth of our time. Maybe he and the chest burster 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. Is, you know, the volcano is Vesuvius.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. All right.

[Mallory Rubin]

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.

[Rob Mahoney]

Tough.

[Joanna Robinson]

Really tough. Really tough. His dame. His. His. My dame, dearly. I mean, a true villain as far as I'm concerned.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay. Has she thought about Arthur?

[Mallory Rubin]

She was looking at some photos.

[Joanna Robinson]

Those same vacation photos.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, if only she had lovingly been stroking something else with a proper farewell.

[Rob Mahoney]

Whoa.

[Joanna Robinson]

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.

[Rob Mahoney]

Two kinds of goodbyes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Ramahoney, Episode seven, Big Picture Thoughts.

[Rob Mahoney]

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 setup. 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 like supposedly the buildup to the big finale, that makes me feel like we got some real fireworks in play.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 different interested parties traversing the island. How will these plotlines converge? So I really liked this episode. I still have a few questions and comments and concerns, but I really liked 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 this, it is action Y, 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.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think the very reason do we think this is. Are we hearing from ak?

[Joanna Robinson]

Toodles from beyond the grave.

[Rob Mahoney]

Wow.

[Joanna Robinson]

Reboot and restore.

[Mallory Rubin]

Restore. They figured it out just in time for a mail back. Guys, we have a special guest here. Today on House of Our. 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? Halo'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. As soon as it's open, you will have no interest in it.

[Rob Mahoney]

Of course.

[Joanna Robinson]

Very alien on Brand Moment to involve the cat inside of this recording. Hi, Halo.

[Mallory Rubin]

Halo, say hi to Joe.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hi.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, then everyone else, but it's your beloved Joanna.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's true.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sorry, I got so excited. He's never in here during a pod.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's a thrill.

[Rob Mahoney]

We're breaking new ground.

[Joanna Robinson]

What do you think Halo thinks of Isaac's question about whether or not shouldn't Morrow have footage of Boy Cavalier sabotaging the Bageneau to bring to arbitration last week?

[Mallory Rubin]

Thanks. Thanks for asking. Isaac, whether or not you are also toodles. This is a. 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 Yutani, I have the data. And she's like, I don't want it. I want the specimens. And then he's like, the specimens are my life. And we get back on that focus 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. In the boardroom, in the arbitration scene. Why is he not, like, by the way, I knew you were involved.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 zoom calls that existed.

[Mallory Rubin]

Over years, maybe not having the proof to offer up, but why isn't he mentioning it?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, he watched.

[Mallory Rubin]

He watched it. He knows.

[Joanna Robinson]

That is odd, right?

[Rob Mahoney]

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. If he is kind of convinced that the slightly plan is like reasonable enough to 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 Kershaw's plan has now baited Moro and Weyland Yutani 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, so Rob Mahoney is like, please, for the finale, give me more arbitration penetration. I would like to see it.

[Rob Mahoney]

If I'm already on record, just get the eyeball jockey in the room for it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Put your whole body back on the table, boy. Cavalier. Okay, Craig, this one is a 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, Ramoni.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Given the like runaway success of the Animorph book series, are you willing to enter a new career as the author of the Teenomorph book series?

[Rob Mahoney]

You know, people have been asking me this, Joe, and I'm happy to say.

[Joanna Robinson]

So hot right now.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's really my calling and I'm willing to take on that mantle. You know, Teenomorph is right there. I also saw, you know, some people pointing out in light of the righteous gemstones, the teen just Teenomorph comp 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, I feel confident that Mallory here, that would not have slipped past us.

[Mallory Rubin]

But it's just very, very memorable moment in recent television history. Just astonishing stuff from our guy.

[Rob Mahoney]

Fucking love Teen. Just.

[Joanna Robinson]

Last but 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 Zack, if that is indeed how you pronounce your name. Here's Zach's theory for Kirsch as Tinkerbell as a Tinkerbell comp.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay?

[Joanna Robinson]

He's a non human sentient who exists thanks to quote belief that is Science, intellect and a result of human agency. He appears as boys Peter's loyal sidekick, but as a defiant streak and does mischief. The spiky anime Billy Idol hair, very fae. 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. Don't let that Amazing.

[Mallory Rubin]

His email made the cut.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 curse's Tinkerbell idea here?

[Mallory Rubin]

I like it. I think you guys really nailed the observation last week that while we are certainly inclined, as I assume not not only many viewers of the show, but certainly listeners of this podcast aren't amaz. Take these comps that they don't quite fit as tidally.

[Rob Mahoney]

No, they do not at the end.

[Mallory Rubin]

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 plenty 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 comp as well, or that this character could go here. So it's not 100%, but I do like this. I particularly like the hair note.

[Joanna Robinson]

And the hair.

[Rob Mahoney]

The hair note is the waggle I.

[Mallory Rubin]

Dismiss because to me that's just pure Timio. It has nothing to do with anything.

[Joanna Robinson]

Else, but it could come in to casting. You're like, wow, we want someone who has a fae like waggle them. Yeah. Who. Who can. Who can rock those hips? It's. It's Timmy out. What do you think, Rob?

[Rob Mahoney]

Does Tinkerbell waggle? You know, if you're. If you're flitting about, do you need to waggle? And. Well, I mean, Timmy doesn't need to waggle either, but he does it. It's just a part of who he is.

[Joanna Robinson]

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. That's a. That's a. It's a flit and a waggle at the same time.

[Rob Mahoney]

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 up. A waggle of personality.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Yeah. Who among us? Personality waggle. All right. And last but not least, I just want to run race through a few fun facts I learned from the official pod this week that made me go. Hmm. First of all, the production designer, Andy 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, he said he made Dame Sylvia's room the most menacing room. Not having to do with event thing. This is 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, hippie, 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 conversations and ideas that are being generated here. He wanted that to be the sort of like, creepiest dichotomy on the island.

[Mallory Rubin]

So 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think color palette wise, we've got like soft orange, brown, stuff like that for sure.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

But there is like a. Throw a knit blanket over some brutalistic art, like, brutalist architecture kind of vibes in there that, yeah, it is discordant. It is upsetting. It is, I think, true to what Dame Sylvia has become. Like, she's. She might be number one on the characters who suck most on this show. Like, there. There's just an element to her complicity that I think kind of transcends everybody else right now.

[Joanna Robinson]

The sequence where Curly is, like, curled up next to her and she's like stroking and being like, darling, it's all gonna be okay. I'm like, this is. This is worse than Boy Cavalier being like, well, there goes another 6 billion. Like, at least he's upfront with his. Exactly. All right. On the. On the Sylvia, Arthur and Dame Front Essie Davis and David Rysdal improv 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. And 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 Jo 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 ownership in debt inside of our sort of corporate run culture as. 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. In the 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, 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.

[Mallory Rubin]

So, yeah, fascinating to take something that you normally play with in one, 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. So 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. A shattered corpse adrift as a 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.

[Rob Mahoney]

What do you think?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I think as a general rule, I will not be enlisting any children. 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 knees up against his wall as just an arm tucked out from under his bed was just the perfect visual and emotional 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? I gotta hide something, right? Like, I don't want to take my. When I was a kid, I would. I didn't want to take my vitamins. I would put them in my pencil box and then tuck that, like, under bed or in a desk drawer. 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's where it's where monsters belong, right?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Fun fact about me and Rob, I'm curious if you ever hid something as a child. Famous, famous Robinson family lore is that we used to do this, like, 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 never called it. And like, years later, they found all of these math papers that had just been, like, rolled up by and stuff down into the couch by me. Joanna Robinson. So that's what I hid when I was a kid. Math. Rob, honey, any. Any smuggling, hiding?

[Rob Mahoney]

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. From here to eternity.

[Joanna Robinson]

That being said, like, Slightly underneath Slightly's bed is not a void. Right, Arthur? Is there. There is a sort of, like. Bellows wheezing gurgling snuffling sound gurgles wheezing.

[Mallory Rubin]

Continues squelching muffled grunts the official subtitling for that stretch, which is amazing, that.

[Rob Mahoney]

Was also how I sounded when I had Covid, for the record.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 obstruction 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.

[Mallory Rubin]

Was just like a very sweet and sad.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sweet and sad in the sort of like, corporate prodigy bottle. Molly Rubin. What did this? As Slightly sort of tries to slide the facehugger out of the way to get the straw in.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, it triggers on the facehugger's part the classic, this is my body now.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

The tightening to 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 is like, absolutely not. Get your hydration materials out of here. This is my body now. And you are no longer welcome to.

[Joanna Robinson]

Silence away from me.

[Rob Mahoney]

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, 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. I'm not trying to choke on this juice too. And as we establish, like, the facehugger is doing some things with your airway, apparently. It's like it's going for the lung, we think.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

As. As my favorite foodie. Well, here's my question to you. Were you to be fasa? God forbid. But were you to be fesa? Do you have a request for our final meal that we try to shove past the face hugger? So you just have, like, one more taste before you go.

[Mallory Rubin]

Or just wait till the face huggers off and enjoy a proper meal before it explodes out of your chest in.

[Joanna Robinson]

The, like, five minutes that you've got. Yeah, yeah, it does.

[Mallory Rubin]

It does go. It's a Whataburger.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh, my God. Is that what you want?

[Joanna Robinson]

Is that your final meal?

[Rob Mahoney]

Whataburger. I would love a, you know, a honey barbecue chicken strip sandwich from Whataburger 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 exact circumstances.

[Mallory Rubin]

Here's what I want to request formally of you two, my dear pals. Cut open some part of my body. Not cutting the face hugger. I don't want any acid dripping into me.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay?

[Mallory Rubin]

Cut open, like a. Like a. Like a something on my palm and just sprinkle some old bay seasoning into my blood.

[Rob Mahoney]

Jesus Christ.

[Mallory Rubin]

I feel like, send me home.

[Joanna Robinson]

On the heels of this tremendous Emmys weekend for the pit, I feel the challenge of, like, can I perform a trach on you?

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Avoiding the coils of the facehugger in order to get the old bae, sort of, like, into your esophagus. I think I can do it. Okay. Thanks so much. All right. Pleasant.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, this is great. Joe, do you want a barbecue sauce made out of, like, a plum picked from your yard?

[Joanna Robinson]

It's a great question. I don't know. I think just, like, hydrate me with a Topo Chico, and I'll be. I'll be throwing.

[Rob Mahoney]

There you go.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'll be delighted.

[Rob Mahoney]

Honestly. Topo Chico might have the exact level of carbonation required to kill. To kill the alien gestating inside.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think it'll be, like, ooh, 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?

[Mallory Rubin]

Right?

[Joanna Robinson]

And just, like, demands to be let in immediately clock Slightly, 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 Smises, and Slightly says you would have, too, if he had chosen you. This twisted idea of being chosen.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Mallory, did that stick out to you? What did you think about that?

[Mallory Rubin]

Very much so. I thought this whole opening stretch was really great. We've all loved Smee and Slightly as a duo and as individual characters. And so I thought just like having Smee seek Slightly out that kind of, like, intuition of young friendship that we're never busy line. When you have, like, Tootles with his lab work and Wendy with all of her important chittering and chattering and clicking tasks, and Curly on her various missions to be teacher's pet or lab 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. Literalization of a hybrid phase of existence.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, Smee's the personality hire, right? He's like, there to, like, make you laugh.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, I, I just, like, can't wait to see what. I really hope that they. That Smee makes it out and, like, has a more active plot line 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, 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 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. Like parents. 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, 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 all for Wendy and the Lost Boys throughout the entire season. And obvious 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 Smee, it's like, well, being chosen isn't always good. Sometimes it means you're chosen to do something horrible.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, well, especially.

[Rob Mahoney]

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 were made to them are just crumbling over the course of this episode.

[Joanna Robinson]

So despite watching Arthur just, like, gurgle and snuffle and slurp around, right. Slightly sticking with this idea that he'll be fine, we just need to get him to the beach and he'll be fine. 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.

[Mallory Rubin]

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 Marrow and to me and Slightly in the eg, they know the monster comes out. But that's ultimately only step one. Right. When Mario's like, you've seen it, Xenomorph. 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 chooses. Well, they'll have a bad couple days for sure, but I'll make sure they're comfortable.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

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.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 that I did try to keep Arthur hydrated while.

[Mallory Rubin]

This was giving some juice.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 Kirsch says sarcastically, sassily, however you prefer to interpret it. Yes, sir. And that's when we have Kirsch inter intersect with the boys as they are trying to move the body through the hallway. Kirsch stops them. Slightly starts to sort of, like, desperately explain. Kirsch is like, yeah, yeah, I know. What are you doing? I know. I know all that.

[Rob Mahoney]

He's seen the video. He's been on his iPad. He's seen the social breakouts.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sure has.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. You're taking a circuitous route to the beach. You gotta go down the elevator. This is the level you have to take. You're gonna 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 is curtains for Arthur. Arthur. Sylvia. Right. 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 chest burster? Like, one that didn't come out of a lung, one that isn't bonded to Wendy. Marcy, like, what do you. 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 episode for Kirsch that I. I feel like I want a few more hooks inside of. Rob, what's your interpretation of what's going on here?

[Rob Mahoney]

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. There he is into some of the pageantry of how this has all unfolded. The why he wants another chest burster or why he is interested in that alien specimen in particular, I don't quite know. Because, like, it's clear he doesn't have a lot of 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 how inscrutable that character is.

[Joanna Robinson]

Malorie Rubin.

[Mallory 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 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. 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

I know you just said synth supremacy, but it did sound like Sith supremacy, and so I got really excited about it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Mallory always speaks in absolutes.

[Joanna Robinson]

We know she's wearing the red for a reason.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is an anti Sith podcast. But, yes, Synth supremacy, 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 Kirsch, everybody is going through a test of what they will do when pushed to the limit or pushed to make a big decision. And so for Morrow, I love the chat that you guys had about and was not at all surprised that you guys loved the elevator exchange. Of course. That was just fantastic. And loved, 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 like, to have playing in his mind all of the. The slights from Boy, but also Morrow's words of like, yesterday's model, the incredibly irrelevant robot.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

What's it like working for a company that made you obsolete? It's like.

[Joanna Robinson]

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, a David scientific curiosity from Prometheus kind of idea of like, when, when they ask, like, what happened to Isaac Science. Right? 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 Moro building up to this thing. But I was like, is that how a synth behaves? Or is a synth like, I am single mindedly focused on science or my instructions from my programmers, or this, that or the other thing? Do you know what I mean?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. I think again, it kind of all feels like it's in the mix to me because I think, think Kirsch 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's. 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 present in him too. And how could it not be? So I think that's interesting.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think that'd be really interesting. And I'll be curious to see how this 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 lack of seeming. Lack of reaction here. 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 Rizdal was talking about how, you know, we'll talk about Arthur and his paternal interaction that he has slightly in Smee in a second. But this idea of, like, Kirsch 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, love 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. What is the contrast to almost the heart, the now tattered and torn and shredded heart of Arthur Sylvia versus the cold calculation of a Kirsch. You know what I mean?

[Rob Mahoney]

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, like, I want to get into David Rizal's performance. Like, it's so. 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 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, I do think there is a judgment that you get from Curse 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. 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 a want to show that they are right, show that their way of thinking or existing, like being a sin is an existential battle in a human world. And I think there's always gonna be that oppositional kind of force with them.

[Joanna Robinson]

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, you know, very like wall esque sort of like yearn for something but. But often perverted or often mis. Misappropriated or misunderstood or mis executed.

[Mallory Rubin]

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's exhibits the standard human hubris. I think the fact that he might have certain human tendencies. I need to show this person I'm 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. It doesn't. 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. Like 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. Is he gonna 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.

[Rob Mahoney]

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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Why ruin a perfectly, perfectly nice jet flight when you're, you know, when you're playing Peter Pan? Why are you stretching?

[Mallory Rubin]

Relax. Nothing you can do.

[Joanna Robinson]

Ok, let's go back to the boys. So the boys are in the jungle. They're. They're hiding from prodigy men. And as they hide.

[Rob Mahoney]

Joe, I got to, I got to ask you about the prodigy men who stroll by two adult children and a, and a. Basically a 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 Sally and Smee out there. Just pretend you don't see him. Like just, just walk by.

[Joanna Robinson]

That would be nice. Nice to believe, but I think militias on both sides are not showing themselves to be the sharpest souls on the island this week. Okay, so what I liked about this is that, is that the boys in their hiding, the camera also loses track of Arthur. So when we turn around, Arthur is just gone. We get the face hugger flop down. And like artists, like artist who plays Slightly. His shrieks.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

One of my favorite things that I've ever seen in my life.

[Mallory Rubin]

Both.

[Joanna Robinson]

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?

[Rob Mahoney]

Whoa.

[Mallory Rubin]

What is that?

[Joanna Robinson]

What's that? What's going on? What's happening here?

[Mallory Rubin]

Really good.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm curious what it was like. 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 all three of us are huge David Risdal fans? Yeah. What was it like watching our guy Arthur, knowing that anticipation, that ticking clock of when is the chest going to burst? Mallory, what was that like for you?

[Mallory Rubin]

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.

[Joanna Robinson]

It.

[Mallory Rubin]

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. I 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 gonna happen.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

Working for Boyd Cavalier, a prodigy, ultimately. But, you know, he tried to, like, extend a helping, nurturing hand. And you just know that that hand is gonna be trying to contain pools of blood and cartilage and bone in mere moments. And it was brutal.

[Joanna Robinson]

It was tough.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm glad we got it, though. Like, I was just fully prepared for a future in which his body was smuggled off island in a pod. Never saw, like, an awake, cogent David Rysdal again on this show. That would have been a bummer. And so from the moment he wakes up, like, I. Like, this is why you cast him, is for this. For this moment, among others. And I'm curious, like, whether this was initially conceived as part of this character. Whether something that developed from some of those conversations you were talking about Joe with him and Dame Sylvia, like.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm.

[Rob Mahoney]

Going to say, the primary concern of Alien Earth. Earth, I think, as ideas. Like, this is an ideas forward show and philosophy, like, philosophy Forward show.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

The secondary concern is alien horror.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

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 Rizdal in this world, not unlike Fargo, which is a cruel, unsparing kind of show and world all its zone, 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 poll, 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. Like, I. 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 is. I'm blown away by what he brought to this episode. I'm sad that we're losing him. But, you know, he bursted with the best of them.

[Joanna Robinson]

So what he says.

[Mallory Rubin]

So.

[Joanna Robinson]

So he's got this real, like, community gas leak year befuddlement as he first wakes up, right? And he's like, we had a fight, me and my Dane. I have to leave for a while.

[Mallory Rubin]

Me and my dame is just guys.

[Joanna Robinson]

I know.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm so sad.

[Joanna Robinson]

I know.

[Rob Mahoney]

Did they reverse engineer Dame Sylvia's name so he could say me and my dame?

[Joanna Robinson]

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. Then 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 and stuff like this. 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 was almost like. And this is where we touch on, like, One of the stickier sides of Peter Pan, but, like, there's a whole plot line with the native, you know, group that live on the island of Neverland. And one of the, like, various important parts of the Peter and Wendy 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 Lost 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 Weyland Yutani 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 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 a really interesting moment.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love that it was that. Or have Boy read another passage.

[Rob Mahoney]

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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Exactly, Exactly. All right, so then we get this beach scene that you guys have been referencing already, right? Where Arthur said, 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. Alan Grant, Jurassic Park. Positive masculinity. As far as I'm concerned, Smee 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 gotta 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 chest bursting scene is Veronica Cartwright in the original Alien. The, like, 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, like, where'd the monster go? Right. Like, I did all that of this. I have clearly killed Arthur and I had to have this monster. That was the point. And so he's just like, looking, you know, the. The chest person is gone, looking around. Just skitter right away. Just slithered and skittered out of frame. Totally gone. And then, so the horror of the misaligned reaction, right, slightly, is still just sort of like one track. And then the horror of the, like, overhead shot of, like, Smee still processing it slightly, is already just, like picking up Arthur's corpse and pulling it along and saying, we. We have an appointment. You know, we. We have to get there. We have an appointment to make. What'd you think of that, Mallory?

[Mallory Rubin]

This was among the highlights of the season. This. This stretch and their. 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. I mean, this would be the thing that having witnessed this, right?

[Rob Mahoney]

Totally.

[Mallory Rubin]

What an atrocity. I think, Joe, to your point, the centering 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, like, 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 short, in short order, protect and defend and say you can't harm. But here he's like, how could you let this happen? You said you were gonna help me. What did you do? And Smee is like, you told me this was.

[Joanna Robinson]

What did you do? Right?

[Mallory Rubin]

Be okay. Like you said this was gonna 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love your point. I love the, like, the indication that you're making, though, that is like, then when they confront moron, 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 hurt him. These are the rules. He is my best friend and the rules dictate you are not allowed to touch.

[Mallory Rubin]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think the reason you get that is because obviously Moro lied to him in the first place. Arthur's gonna be fine. He's gonna have a rough couple days. Ultimately, he's gonna be cool, some green juice down him. 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 you can help is by putting an alien in your belly and going with, like, this, these militia soldiers. He's not going to do that. Right, but SMEs are going to do his hand.

[Mallory Rubin]

Back to the building. They shoot him. He knows that he can do nothing.

[Rob Mahoney]

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 Curly kind of clinging to the lie from Dame Sylvia that everything is gonna be okay. It's not. She doesn't believe it. No one believes it. Everyone knows better. But, like, 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

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. 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 say, do what the corporation says in order to stay in or protect them. That's like the message she's telling herself, but it's ultimately not true. There's Jo, who we have thought a lot as, like, he was gonna 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 kids? I don't know. Maybe it could just be the two of us. We'll move faster. Like he's moment. He's not those of us who love you. Right. And so it's just Arthur himself alone. And then.

[Rob Mahoney]

I know.

[Joanna Robinson]

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, right? No, there's no place for that.

[Rob Mahoney]

So 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 with. 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?

[Joanna Robinson]

I wish he would, for one, just.

[Rob Mahoney]

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.

[Joanna Robinson]

I tell you what it was. Is Ky jelly.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh, well, there was a lot of it.

[Mallory Rubin]

The like pre calm, you know, like initial little, like pulling before the full burst was just beyond the pale. It was beyond the pale.

[Rob Mahoney]

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 we talked about kind of the second wave responses from Slightly and Smee. 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 chestburster 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Unless you're a synth and then you'd Be like, yo, nonplussed. Okay. David Risdal in the official podcast was talking about how. And this was about episode six. So he had. 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 animatronic so that they can, like, press a button and it taps its talons or squeezes.

[Mallory Rubin]

Absolutely not fail on you.

[Rob Mahoney]

And he says there's also one going around. I don't know if you guys have seen this on Instagram, but somebody made a facehugger CPAP machine.

[Mallory Rubin]

I saw that. Good stuff.

[Rob Mahoney]

I mean, just great work.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's like, I was smeared in KY jelly. And I don't know why. Like, why do you have to smear them in KY jelly? For the face hugger, like, authenticity. Usually, like, they're sweaty. I would. I would imagine like some sort of glycerol sweatiness. But, like, okay, so he's like, smeared in KY jelly. Has like a fa. He's like. He's like, I got a head. Terrible nightmares. I got a bit of ptsd. 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 f. Face hugged. So. 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 hugger to drop off or something like this. But he's like, they gotta do all these setups across the island with Rizdahl and, like, reattach the facehugger to it. And that's. That's tough stuff anyway, which I love.

[Mallory Rubin]

Because it's like, it's very much entwined with 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. Like, it's a false beat of hope.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Mallory Rubin]

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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

It can, I think, connects really nicely to what Joe was saying about. Because I really agree. Joe, I think 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 toward 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 gonna be okay. Really. It's not like this is a universe or a story where the people who have like less pure motives are gonna be making it through their day. I think they're gonna have flora, fauna, spikes through the chest or eyeball jockeys in their cranium probably.

[Joanna Robinson]

I would say he's the only human that acts that way. I think you could make an argument that Wendy.

[Rob Mahoney]

Sure, sure.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wendy's like, we have to get the other kids. Wendy who's like, hey, xenomorphs are people too. For sure. You know, like of the humans. Of the humans. Totally, totally. Okay. So the boys of 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 Rysdal, we've already praised you a lot. But I gotta say, his corpse acting 10 out of 10, no nuts. 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.

[Rob Mahoney]

Swiss army man esque. The way he is a full arm character in this show still.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah. Daniel Radcliffe wishes. Loved 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.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's good gear.

[Joanna Robinson]

I was so what are we doing wasting stressful. It's polluting. Don't you need that? But I. But I guess your explanation is like they have no plans to go back out the way that they came.

[Mallory Rubin]

But still in the transport, I'm like.

[Joanna Robinson]

You'Re just dropping high tech gear in the water. I was very.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's amazing we got to a place in this fictional universe where five corporations rule the world. People are just like old tech.

[Joanna Robinson]

Don't need it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Give me the next model.

[Joanna Robinson]

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, 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 the 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 Smee. So, like, that mentality versus the cold Corporate. 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. 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 Arash Gaurav for his performance.

[Rob Mahoney]

He's really great here.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, I did everything you asked me. True. And then, and then, and then Babu Sise, who we've also praised, is that Retro wouldn't be standing over Hollow Corpse like this. Just, like, devastating.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 a side 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.

[Rob Mahoney]

The fact that they could have just left the body, but they kind of go out of their way to dump him.

[Mallory Rubin]

Gotta feed the crocodile, guys, I guess.

[Joanna Robinson]

So, Mallory, what do you think?

[Mallory Rubin]

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 spheres. 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 the you're acting like a child. You know what grownups do and they make a mistake, they own up to it moment.

[Rob Mahoney]

Because for context, Mel, this is a man who watched his entire crew die by alien when he could have saved at least, like, Four people.

[Joanna Robinson]

He would take responsibility for that.

[Mallory Rubin]

He own it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, I had to do it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. It's like there's the kind of like, is that what grownups do Aspect of this, where we watch these grownups flail constantly, but also. So 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 Mara 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 operating in such stark contrast to the way other people are behaving. Because what 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 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. You don't have to do this. You don't have to do this. You might think there is no way out. I mean, to your point, what was Arthur really going to do? But, like, he was going to try.

[Mallory Rubin]

He was going to go through that match and get shot immediately. But what an end it would have been.

[Joanna Robinson]

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?

[Rob Mahoney]

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 Morrow credit for this. He. 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 explaining himself or blaming anybody. So, like, 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Rob Mahoney]

This very specific button to press with a kid. That is a Twisting of his humanity in that way.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love that you're putting that in a parent space. Which is, which is right. But also I was thinking like then I wouldn't be sitting over a hall of corpses. Very like horrible bosses. Like you have not, 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, this sort of just heartless, like I don't care who you are as a person, but I asked for this piece of ip right? And you have not delivered it to me. So.

[Mallory Rubin]

And isn't it like appropriate for both of those things to be in the m 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 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 for to. 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 and for him to choose to prioritize that was like so crucial.

[Joanna Robinson]

We also know you're my mission just secretly means I love you.

[Rob Mahoney]

So it's a direct translation, canonical and marvelous. But to get that 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 Moro talking to each other, but especially now that everything is gone onto shit right now. Get up to 20% off select online storage solutions put heavy duty HDX totes to good use, protecting what's important to you. The solid impact resistant design prevents cracking and the clear base and sides make items easy to find even when the totes are stacked. Find select online shelving and tote storage up to 20% off at the Home Depot. To organize every room in your home from your garage to your attic, visit homedepot.com how doers get more done.

[Joanna Robinson]

All right, let's zoom back in time to the Isaac aftermath. Right. Our listener hunter pointed out the sort of Old Testament significance 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. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah. 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. Right. Boy is doing what I call the Obi Wan Kenobi impatient hop that we get in duel of the fates behind a barrier that you want to, like, get through 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 gonna. Is that. Is that gonna 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 he. 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 is this ongoing runner inside of this episode of the kids being naughty, which we'll come back again to with Kirsch 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, famously on stage, adopts this dodgy British accent. Right. Oh, what did he do? I'll send him to bed without any supper. Like, very funny moment, but.

[Mallory Rubin]

An interesting.

[Joanna Robinson]

Cutesy runner with the kids that I'm not sure fully lands for me in the button at the end of this, but this moment I thought was really good. And. And for everyone at home holding out hopes that Toodles might be restored and rebooted, the tech is not there yet. 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 boys responses. There goes that 6 billion. No more kids in the lab. Why were the kids ever allowed in the lab? Is my great question. Except Wendy. We'll talk about that. So, Mallory, what did you think of Boy Cavalier inside of this moment?

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay, so the notes 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. I was so struck by the way the xeno was sitting, like, sulky kid. And it looked like the, like, squares of 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.

[Rob Mahoney]

That was just like, you know what I'm talking about.

[Mallory Rubin]

That was really.

[Rob Mahoney]

I know exactly what you're talking about.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. The squares of the, you know, space looked like. 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 lab sort of heightened that. The. 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. Um, he is. So this is what Yutani said to Bo to Boy, right? Like, she was like, during arbitration, you know, I'll send you to bed without your supper. So I thought that was really notable. It's not like, he's just, I'm gonna 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 hotshot prodigy K. And adults were like, you're lesser. And he's like, actually, I have the creative power of a brilliant young mind. I'm gonna send you to bed with that supper.

[Joanna Robinson]

We didn't get your take on, like, 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 or not he felt like?

[Mallory Rubin]

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 abandon. 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 insight and 30% foot stuff was appropriate. So thank you for that.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're welcome.

[Rob Mahoney]

Again, it's right there in the text.

[Joanna Robinson]

Live to serve.

[Rob Mahoney]

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. It's. That was, 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 jockey in human form.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's not obsessed with all these guys. He's obsessed with one girl and all.

[Rob Mahoney]

One girl, sorry, gender neutral guy.

[Joanna Robinson]

One girl in all the world the flora fauna can go through. As far as he's concerned.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm, 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, I don't know if we're going to see Florophana.

[Mallory Rubin]

Let me, let me, 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 blood, I think flora fauna spiky prongy thingies.

[Joanna Robinson]

So I feel like that's their scientific term.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes, I, I thought, I thought so. I'm not a scientist.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's come on before but spiky prong. Yes.

[Mallory Rubin]

So I feel like that's a promise of a very violent flora fauna death still to come.

[Rob Mahoney]

We're, we're also running out of humans, you know, like who is. I guess there's endless red shirt militia members who it could kill, but not as many. I would like it to be a death of meaning.

[Joanna Robinson]

I know. And like the militia that's down by the dock, like the xenos just in the, just in the brush there. How much, how, how long are they going to survive the opening minute?

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm going to say 30 seconds into the next episode is my guess. And that's like, it might.

[Joanna Robinson]

It might not even be that long.

[Mallory Rubin]

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. And. But that would be interesting actually. Like, so there's no. I felt this was. I don't. This was a lot.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't know the science because I'm not a scientist, but I don't know this. Like, 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.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Billiard ball.

[Mallory Rubin]

Not living brain. No, no, I think not.

[Joanna Robinson]

Not a living brain.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes. Right. Like the.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, yeah. That doesn't make sense to me. If at some point put the neuron neurons wave something. I'm not a scientist.

[Mallory Rubin]

Somewhere they have the nice pillow around their heads and then the lights go through the tubes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. And then they're there. Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

While we are all in the lab together, you know, just really getting into the. The nuts and bolts of how these, these beings operate. I'm sorry, I have. I still have a lot of milk related questions. You know, like, milk just nibs. Gets shot and starts milking a little bit as one does.

[Joanna Robinson]

Come on.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay. Even for you, that phrasing is appalling.

[Joanna Robinson]

Really bad, y'. All.

[Rob Mahoney]

This is what happened. I don't know what else to say.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

What is the milk doing? Like, what does it do within the synthetic body? Is it. Is it lubricating? Yeah, it's just keeping a moist. That's it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

And do they need to be. Does the milk need to be changed out? Do they consume? I think they. I think we see in. In like in 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. I just need to know how the milk works.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, great Questions, Hobbits and DragonsMail.com Please, if you have some insight into how the milk works, how the milk works.

[Rob Mahoney]

Whether the synthetics have brains.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, we need to know email for this episode. It would be how does the milk work? Gmail.com. but that's. That's not what we're doing here. It's interesting to me that curse seems like so unimpressed with the I did because like, we're all pretty impressed with what the I did here, which is A payoff of, of the earlier lab collab between alien species. And also Kirsch kind of misread this idea of misreading it of like he, 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, to, to good old boys office and 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 like I think it's interesting that, that despite having a good read on her intelligence, they're still not fully aware of all that she can do.

[Rob Mahoney]

Well there's knowing that a being is smart and there's not realizing that they're smarter than you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Rob Mahoney]

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. Your sorry what she wants you to do. I think even Kirsch is behind like maybe, maybe this is one of those areas where even someone as 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 Kirsch doesn't have the human wisdom to understand that he can play be played.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I think this feels like a.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hybrid mind in order to practice in theory.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think this feels very connected to like how, how Joe was kind of bundling all of the, the, the Kirsch 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, that like it only 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like keeping it close to the vest.

[Mallory Rubin]

Propping Boy up to be in another perilous situation you've just been itching for that eyeball will be in Boy's head.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, no, no. That's been my dream. That's been my dream.

[Mallory Rubin]

You are getting your dream fulfilled.

[Joanna Robinson]

There is no question. Based on Samuel Blinken's beautiful, gorgeous giant peepers alone, I want that eyeball inside of Boy's head.

[Mallory Rubin]

I want that.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's also what Boy wants at this point. That. That's his dream.

[Joanna Robinson]

Phrasing. I want the tentacles playing his vocal cords.

[Mallory Rubin]

Getting it.

[Joanna Robinson]

I want that.

[Mallory Rubin]

You are getting it in the finale. I will be shocked now if that doesn't happen in the finale.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's all I dream of. No, but what you've been wanting is for Kirsch to shove Boy in front of one alien species over another. And if it's not, why not?

[Mallory Rubin]

Why not?

[Joanna Robinson]

Why not an eye? Why not an eye?

[Rob Mahoney]

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. Happen like that. Whatever human being the I jockey inhabits, he was tearing up at their interaction at the thought of like, I have finally reached the mountaintop with this hyper intelligent being they were having.

[Joanna Robinson]

You can give me three. Actually only two digits more into PI.

[Rob Mahoney]

With the stink of sheep shit in the room. He is swooning.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 dispass. Kersh dispassionately says, science, right.

[Rob Mahoney]

Happens to all of us.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wendy Marcy is floored. This is the, 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 I. This is a real like the last of us, you're not immune from being ripped apart, Ellie moment for Wendy Marcy of just sort of like, like there's one thing knowing that you're synthetic, that you can leap up, you know, a, a, a, 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 splayed out before you. And this is similar, I think, to Nibs, you know, trying to confront what is inside of her, what is going on inside of her and her physiognomy 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, the, the viscera, the milky viscera of, of Isaac is another sort of Rubicon for her to cross of just sort of like, I'm out of here. This is it for me. And I was thinking about.

[Rob Mahoney]

I just don't know why I get my hand slapped for milky viscera but. Or for saying milk, milking, but milky above the pale.

[Mallory Rubin]

You welcomed it.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm just saying, look, we're all in the milk together. You know, that's where I'm at with it.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 Malie's earlier conversation, it's not a one to one comp on all these characters. So this moment of confronting your 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 shudder passing over the sea. But on the sea, one shudder 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 on 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. But this idea that 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 gotta go. Time to leave. And also I'm gonna 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.

[Mallory Rubin]

Fantastic passage that really further unlocks all of this because I think it's a good reminder that that point of clarity, the, the to die will be an awfully big adventure. To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. Choose your tail. Right?

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

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 we're premium, the you're special, the you're 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. The. The fact that, like, there is vulnerability, that there is 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 onto to understand the choices that you've made or that other people made for you if that is taken away from you? And think like the. I love that you invoked Nibs, Jo. Because it's. 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, Nibs'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, et cetera. I thought that the fact that 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 gotta go. But what does Wendy hear when they then go? It's that speech from Kirsch. You used to be food. That one. Right? But in the animal kingdom, there's always someone bigger or something smaller who would eat you alive if they had the chance. That would. 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 just that Tootles died. It's the Tootles died in exactly that way. The fly made toodles.

[Joanna Robinson]

Food.

[Mallory Rubin]

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 the plain truth of it in the face. There's always someone else who can make that what you are. Again, horrifying.

[Joanna Robinson]

And that's. 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. That like Noah Holly talked about, right? We are the dominant race. And then we encounter in this idea that, like, and. 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 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. 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 laws, 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. Is. 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 experience taken from the stars and brought to our little rock.

[Mallory Rubin]

And if there's no reboot, restore, then the stakes are there. That might actually be a wrap. Can't just be reloaded.

[Joanna Robinson]

And things matter because they end. I always say that.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay, Ramon, 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 food chain within Prodigy itself, kind of characterized through what we saw with Nibs, which is not necessarily one of, like, 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. Like, 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

And this is also us. This is a great point. And is 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. These things actually do matter and have an impact on me is. It is a growing up moment. No matter. 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. Jo feels like, I really agree. Real ineffectual presence inside of this episode. And I love Alex Lothar and I feel like there could be so much more going on. But like. And maybe we'll get that in the finale. But like, he's just like kind of a footnote in this episode. What do think you.

[Rob Mahoney]

Maybe this is me giving him and that character too much credit. Because 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

What do you think, Mel?

[Mallory Rubin]

It's entirely possible. I think it's just not the. I think it is. He's like just the least developed and successful character on the show. Huge bummer.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like, I think we. I think what you're. To what you're identifying, we are bringing our expectations to it undeniably. But if we had not never seen him before, I think we would still be like, this Joe guy is just kind of a dipshit.

[Rob Mahoney]

Also sucks.

[Mallory Rubin]

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 gonna walk out in front of. 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Turn the trackers off.

[Mallory Rubin]

You still need me. You still need your big brother. I have some utility. I drew some comforting presence. I drew a map. The map I still can't get over or believe was real. It was just like. I'm like this. How many days have you been working on this crazy? I basically just said, like. 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. Like, I was waiting for that to.

[Joanna Robinson]

Destroy central trying to weaponize. And it's just like, yeah, now it.

[Mallory Rubin]

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 is 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's not just that. It's, like, touching. Sorry. It is. 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. 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.

[Mallory Rubin]

They're.

[Joanna Robinson]

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.

[Rob Mahoney]

No, I mean, how much is a pro. Xeno. Xenos or people to agenda Regressive.

[Joanna Robinson]

Not regressive, but just.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think he's. He's very right about that, I think.

[Joanna Robinson]

But like this. Well, I don't know.

[Mallory Rubin]

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. Other people, even if they're not people.

[Joanna Robinson]

Creatures.

[Mallory Rubin]

And if you're gonna 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 defined.

[Rob Mahoney]

Go ahead, Joe. Sorry.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, no, you go ahead.

[Rob Mahoney]

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 at this cute little critter who you're raising and talking to. Like, maybe he could understand it. Honestly, was he, you know, what was slightly trying to feed the facehugger? We never really considered. Considered that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, I mean, that's. That's. Then I would have loved him for him to say that of like, it hunted me or it took me. You know what I mean? Like, remember me And. 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? But like, the way that.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then she could have been like, sorry, I forgot it was behind a closed door. Yeah, no one saw it.

[Rob Mahoney]

So did it happen or it wasn't that one. Remember, that's her definition. Fence and not this xeno.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hashtag, not all xenos. But, like, did we know that their last name was Hermit? Did we already know that? And I just wasn't paying attention. Okay.

[Rob Mahoney]

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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Just, like, his call sign.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And. And I did not understand that it was Marcy Hermit.

[Mallory Rubin]

I thought it was. I thought it was his call sign. At first, too. And then I think the only reason I. I realized it was his last name is because it's just listed as his character name on, like.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. I think I thought that was, like, Joe Slash Hermit or something like that. Anyway, that's their last name. 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 bootleg bootlicking to the very last, is just sort of like, they want. They have our best advice. Boy would never do this. 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. 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. 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 Us scenario here? What. What pot am I in? Am I with Nibs? She doesn't seem right.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm with Mr. Strawberry. Personally, I'm always Mr.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 Z. Xenomorph. But then earlier, when she does call the Xenomorph, the Xenomorph kills all the men. And. And then the Xenomorph come towards. 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. And the Cooing and the murmuring with her hand out in front of Joe and in front of Nibs to be like, eyes on me, Zeno, you and me.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is my best friend. You can't touch him. Like, I. I am. I'm protecting these people, but because she is the. The. The protector. And this is the issue that Joe has where he keeps trying to be protector.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's true.

[Joanna Robinson]

And this is not something that he is suitable for anymore inside of this new world.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know, I thought the. The scene with the gray 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 the fact that Wendy, in that moment can be like, yeah, I'm still here. I'm not bothered by seeing these graves. Nibs is having an existential crisis. But I am not. I'm just gonna. I'm ready to move on. And it seemed like of all the people, Joe was sort of being 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. To Wendy, slash Marcy, like, she's just always been here. This. This has just been a part of her life. And then poor, poor Nibs, 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 tame 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Mallory, what do you want to say?

[Mallory Rubin]

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 brush and the detritus that has settled on what should be, like, a maintained space. I thought that Joe saying Hermit, saying you let it out, was, you know, he's. On the one hand, like, okay, I. And that 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. It in some ways heightens the fact that he's like a person I knew is recognizable here. So they're more worthwhile to me. Then he has to confront want, 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 hiccup and Toothless in our notes. I had written in my notes, very Harry Buckbeak slash Aemond Vegar. Like, undeniably, it's giving that energy right where there is a. 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. They are 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

But even 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 xenomorph out of the cage, just murder so many people.

[Rob Mahoney]

So many.

[Joanna Robinson]

And, like, it's one thing, you know, the. 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, Sylvia, or boy Cavalier or all these other people, et cetera, et cetera. But these, like, lab grunts. Yeah. You know, the bold sprayers, they're not. Yeah, and that's. And that's just something that, like, Joe's like, we can't be on the same team. Right. I'm Not. I'm. I'm not with this. Okay.

[Rob Mahoney]

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. Every. Everyone else who's not a xenomorph, fuck him. You know? Like, that's a weird perspective to hold for a character in this world.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. I guess it all comes back to that sort of, like, last of us clannish idea of, like, who's the us? And for Jo, it's like a clan of two. Yep.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

I guess now he's, like, expanding it to include his army pals. Right. But, like, you know, and for Wendy, it's like Jo and the. Though she doesn't seem to even look for slightly in Smeeb. Let's just hope that that happened off screen. I don't know.

[Rob Mahoney]

Doesn't even seem like she really wants convince Curly that much. It's like, okay, I don't want to take Curly.

[Mallory Rubin]

Please don't tell. Just like, please don't. Please don't rat 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 sicko fan territory with Wendy and boy, but, you know, a lot of, like. But the BO 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 this 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 othered groups is, I think, a compelling turn in the story.

[Joanna Robinson]

Bad news for boy. All right, let's go now to Secret Synth Corner with Joanna Robinson, wherein I realized via closed captioning that Adam's full name is Adam Ines. Now, this is. You know, this has. It's not. This has not. 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 Ainstein. Atom Ains means one in German. So this is like Atom 1, Atom 1, Adam 1a, 1a I. Whatever you prefer. I'm just like, this guy is a synth. That's how I feel about the name Atom Ains. And you're gonna have to try really hard to convince me otherwise because that's how I feel about this guy. And, and added layer to this, our listener Jen wrote in about Adrian Edmondson, who's playing the aforementioned Atom Ines, is that he was on a. You know, he's sort of like a UK legend on this show, the Young Young Ones, which I've never seen but I am aware of mostly because of his co star Rick Mile, I am aware of and other things. But he plays this like punk rock, like, bright orange mohawk pierced, like 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 as this like robotic, Jeeves esque, you know, upper crust. What does he say? Like, I must renew my concerns. Figure 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?

[Mallory Rubin]

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. 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 like, right?

[Joanna Robinson]

Why should I care about that?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, because like he works for Boy, who makes sense and 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 maybe 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 chance or someone could be surprised by that. But I'm like, the characters who could learn that, what would it mean to them to know it?

[Joanna Robinson]

I would say the person who's had the most meaningful interaction with him is Jo. Right? This idea of, like, he's talking to Joe, He's. He's blackmailing. I'm not saying this is gonna 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 latched onto at the moment of, like, is he talking about himself? That's the only sort of satisfactorily payoff I could think of. And I'm not sure that that's that interesting. So, yeah, like, I am 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 is revealed in the alien. 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, Robin.

[Rob Mahoney]

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 Kirsch is deviant in his behavior enough that Adam feels like the safe synth by comparison. Right? It's like the old. The safety in 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 in terms of their behaviors and their patterns. That could be interesting, but that would be interesting in a season two way, not in a season one way.

[Mallory Rubin]

I have a kind of a harebrained 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 mind if he's not. If he's one, because he's not a synth, but he's a hybrid.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hybrid.

[Mallory Rubin]

That would be interesting to me. Specifically, what if is Boy Cavalier's father? Like, we've been talking about these headlines about his speculating about his dead parents, what happened with this car accident? 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 gonna say in the canon that the idea. I don't know, something like that would be interesting.

[Joanna Robinson]

I like this idea that it's connected to because to your point, there are various threads that were like, how are we gonna 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 gonna pay off? And if it is related somehow to this, like, secret synth reveal? Yeah, that could be really interesting. That's a great. That's a great connection.

[Rob Mahoney]

In the spectrum of TV daddy issues, turning your dad into your obedient, like, Jeeves robot is, like, that's straight to the mountain.

[Mallory Rubin]

They're just.

[Rob Mahoney]

As far as I'm concerned, guys, they're.

[Mallory Rubin]

Just tossing a ball.

[Joanna Robinson]

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. The menacing clip, clop. I just love this sheep so much.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's great.

[Joanna Robinson]

The character design, the malevolent cast of the face, the clip. The clip. Clop of the hooves as it goes forward. The bleeding, which, again, the bleating that, like, really feels to me like a step towards. I can talk now.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, yes. 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 moun. Joe, did this feel to you like, the shitting? First of all, I will say I thought this was an iconic scene and 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 bunch of body still that the I Jockey has not killed that sheep but rather is like do you when you're dead you as you die it's been eating strong. Barathan taught us they never tell you.

[Joanna Robinson]

How they themselves 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. Can you pull the eye back out and that thing is still alive? I don't know.

[Mallory Rubin]

Bodily functions seem to be intact. Do Zombies take take dumps?

[Joanna Robinson]

It's the Phil K. Dick follow up that we've been.

[Mallory Rubin]

Do zombies take office dumps?

[Rob Mahoney]

Hobbitsanddragonsmail.com let us know.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do androids dream electric sheep and do zombies sheep take dumps? I would watch one for the philosophers.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know.

[Joanna Robinson]

Rahoney, what do you want to say about this love connection we're seeing between your your best friend the Eye Jockey.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Boy Cavalier?

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

But you love yearning. You don't love the yearn that's happening.

[Rob Mahoney]

Here for for Boy Cavalier, the yearn feels one sided. You know, Boy is yearning for sure downright I. Jockey is shitting on the floor.

[Joanna Robinson]

So she's nagging. She's nagging and it's working.

[Rob Mahoney]

She's definitely nagging. He's into it. If that's where the finale is going, I don't want any part of it.

[Joanna Robinson]

I gotta 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 Stark. And as I was thinking about why these characters resonate with me, I realized it is because they are the same.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh my God.

[Joanna Robinson]

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. Her captors acts as heroic backup during her friends 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. Toodles. Ramsay unafraid to immediately confront Big Bad. Even though physically outmatched Xenomorph, Dany will eventually rise to her rightful place as a queen of the realm. So wow, thank you so much for that incredible on brand email, Andrew. And I think we should all be prepared to bend the knee for. For Queen I Jockey. Long may she reign. I'm pretty excited.

[Mallory Rubin]

Queen of the North.

[Joanna Robinson]

Queen of the North.

[Mallory Rubin]

I can see the werewolf leaves stitched into her coronation outfit now, Joe. I can hear. I could, you know, whether it's Boy or another character saying like, they're loyal beasts. I can fucking hear Eyeball Jockey saying they were. Now they're starving.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm in.

[Mallory Rubin]

You're in.

[Rob Mahoney]

This is the one character who, if Eyeball Jockey died, I would be the most devastated like if season one ends.

[Mallory Rubin]

These are your two favorites. Boy and I like, they. They're not both making it out.

[Joanna Robinson]

Let two be.

[Rob Mahoney]

They might be both making out though. Again. This is what Boy wants. This is what he wants.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's Iboy. You know, I. 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.

[Rob Mahoney]

It will be horrifying and I can't wait.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. Morrow versus Kirsch the re. Rematch.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

The Prodigy unit just captures the chest burster like nbd. No big deal. This is menace.

[Rob Mahoney]

Come on, people.

[Joanna Robinson]

Across many films and franchises and they're just like one toss net out on the island and they've got the chess versus in that. That aforementioned Weekender containment unit.

[Rob Mahoney]

How did they even find it?

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't know.

[Rob Mahoney]

It was in the tall grass triggered.

[Mallory Rubin]

By a sensor as it like skittered across Skitter traps.

[Rob Mahoney]

Skitter traps everywhere perhaps.

[Mallory Rubin]

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. To mind with like, why was the handle of the cage broken when Isaac went in? Was there sabotage at play? But also, could it be like, this facility is not built to handle monsters. These are 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, like evading them on Riverland seems right, though. I don't know. There was like the kind of like lost beechcrafty yellow machinery that they.

[Joanna Robinson]

It was like overrun with mines.

[Mallory Rubin]

They passed it. Yeah, it was really covered and rusted out. And made 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 sensors would be functional.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, they just have, like, motion sensors. The tracking is off on the synths, but they have motion sensors everywhere. 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. Morrow busts in, is like, I got this. And then is quickly surrounded. Kirsch is like, it's sass o'.

[Mallory Rubin]

Clock.

[Joanna Robinson]

Here we go. Drop your weapons. Nobody likes a sore loser. Finders keepers. All of this. All of this shit from Kirsch.

[Rob Mahoney]

So good.

[Joanna Robinson]

Maro 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. V. Kirsch confrontation? Okay. Mario looks concerned that we won't.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is what I was asking about earlier. Like, I are. We 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.

[Rob Mahoney]

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. I think he's smarter than that. And yet he walked into this trap. That's the thing that's happening in real time 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.

[Mallory Rubin]

I hope not.

[Joanna Robinson]

I agree.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's. That's it falling.

[Joanna Robinson]

Let us have one more Kirsch Morrow confrontation before all.

[Rob Mahoney]

And crank the bitchiness up to 10. Like, we just need it full volume, full speed.

[Mallory Rubin]

But a lot of stuff is. There's, like, everything with Wendy and. And Joe and the xenomorph that she could communicate with 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 Joe.

[Rob Mahoney]

Sorry. Sorry. Who knows? Who knows just what's a what now? This is going to be quite a finale, y'.

[Joanna Robinson]

All.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, man. Very easy to imagine Boy Cavalier trying to put eyeball jockey in another. In a person so that the vocal cords can activate Delight Joe briefly. They can have the conversation on the mountaintop and then eyeball jockeys 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 Morrow and Kirsch? There's only one episode left, but there's got to be. There has to be another beat. There has to be.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think so. I think so. All right, let's just wrap up this Wendy, Marcy, Xenomorph, Nibs at the. At the doc. We've already talked about some of this, but I just want to say, first of all, I've already mentioned. I just need to mention it again. The Nibs growling. Give it all to me. Big fan of it.

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh, yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Want all of it. You know, Mr. Strawberry says, fuck off, we're never going back. Which Mallory opened the pod with. Absolute iconic moment. The jaw rip.

[Mallory Rubin]

Disgusting.

[Joanna Robinson]

Not since History of Violence, where there's. Wherein there is a flapping mandible that haunted my dreams for, like, the following decade have I seen such incredible jaw work.

[Mallory Rubin]

I went to Golden Compass here, Joe. I mean, that's polar bears, but still.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 no Hawley and Babu Sise, we were briefly taken into the wrong sort of waiting room and it said, like, episode seven. And then the actress who plays Nibs's name, Lily Newmark. And so Molly and I both were like, what is Nibs getting up to an episode 7 now? You know that someone definitely has to interview her for episode seven. We were so excited to find out. It's the. It's jaw ripping time. That's. That's clobbering time from nibs. Great stuff. Mrs. Strawberries in the water. I have some questions. Is Nibs dead? She gets shot in the milk. She keeps going and then she gets zapped by.

[Rob Mahoney]

Sorry, she gets shot in what?

[Joanna Robinson]

In the milk.

[Mallory Rubin]

You two both need a timeout. And I can't believe I'm the one who has to save you.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 the these various evil or malfunctioning hosts have been chugging milk. It's A thing that they do. And so at one point, one of them chugging 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. Was to use Rob's term, milking. And then she gets zapped.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And all that. All that wet milk plus the electricity can't be good.

[Rob Mahoney]

No.

[Mallory Rubin]

Fried some circuits.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's fried. She's frothing on the ground. Wendy. Marcy, what did you do? What did you do? A real great, like, cliffhanger Zeno POV from the bush, like, part one and part two moment. Um, Is Nibs dead? Is this it? Is it curtains for Nibs?

[Rob Mahoney]

It better not be.

[Joanna Robinson]

Have we. Have we mastered reboot and restore in the last couple hours? How are I feeling?

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm hoping she's just napping with the electricity, you know, like, it sent a jolt to the system. It's a turn it off and turn it back on kind of moment.

[Joanna Robinson]

And maybe she's, like, sleeping with the fish is napping with the electricity.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think that's a wrap on Nibs, guys.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, that's it for Nibs.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. It just seemed too. We lingered too long on the twitching 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 gun that took down a xenomorph. Granted, only temporarily, but, like, that's a heavy jolt of electricity.

[Joanna Robinson]

And this is a.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is a synthetic being.

[Joanna Robinson]

The only thing that I am holding out hope for. And this is just perhaps because I love Nib so much and I want her to come back. You know, like, let's fetch Mr. Strawberry out of the. Out of the water and just dry him off and then just, like, dry off and. And. And remilk Nibs or whatever needs to happen to resurrect her. I don't know. But that being 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 hybrids. So it's possible that their electro guns are. Are only shooting stunning forces. So what that does in combination with, like, gushing milk, I don't know.

[Rob Mahoney]

I just. I love a jaw rip or a throat rip, depending on the property. I love to see a Deeply disturbed girl in a robot body coming into her power. And it would be a real shame if this is the last we see of Nibs.

[Mallory Rubin]

I will miss Nibs dearly as well. I do sort of, I mean, I really hope that we don't lose Slayly and Smee, but I do sort of worry slash, wonder if, like, reboot and Restore is just being saved for Wendy and like, no one else is going to be making it again. How much 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think it was very showy.

[Rob Mahoney]

If she is dead. I mean, is the relationship between Wendy and Hermit now kind of irreparable? Because, like, that would be her brother killing her sister effectively.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right? Here's what I wish we had had to better understand, underline this conflict. If this was, 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, Marcie is having all of these conflicts. I need the Nibs Marcy relationship throughout the season to have been better established because we get the like Marcy with the kids at the beginning. But the 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 had been, that that track had been better laid throughout the season. Like, Nibs could have been her particular favorite for one reason or another, because she's the most vulnerable because of the, or whatever.

[Rob Mahoney]

Like, you know, a caretaking relationship. Like, either that or we need Mr. Strawberry developed as a full fledged character of the cast. And sadly, neither of those things happen.

[Joanna Robinson]

And if we wanted Mr. Strawberry webisodes between now and season two of Alien Earth, I would gladly receive it.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, I think we're losing more children's toys into the water in the finale based on the bobbing doll's head that was featured in a episode opening Flash forward a couple weeks ago so more children's toys will start suffer here. I, I, I, 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, 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 for 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, like, proximity to Nibs and that closeness, 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. This was the most tender I felt toward Curly. Like seeing Curly go wrapped up with Dame. Like you said Joe earlier. Like, toodles, 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 female.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's your moment. There you go.

[Mallory Rubin]

We all got there in the airfall.

[Rob Mahoney]

Just the milkiest episode.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, probably not. At the end of the day, I feel like the finale will end up being the milkiest episode and thus of our podcast. But like, you know, when, when Curly 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 Curly 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

For Curly, 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.

[Joanna Robinson]

I will say this. When Wendy's like, curly, you have to promise you won't tell.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And she's like, okay. I was like, that bitch is narcing immediately. And she did it. As far as we've seen so far, some.

[Mallory Rubin]

Some conflict. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

She hasn't had to hold the secret in front of boy yet, which is. Is much more dangerous. But I was just like, this narc is going to tell on you right away. And she, she doesn't. She's just scared.

[Rob Mahoney]

And I'm sorry, are we positive that she didn't?

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, that we've seen so far.

[Rob Mahoney]

That we've seen. And I think otherwise I would think the militia might have better things to do than sit inside a boat. Like, there are xenos out on the.

[Joanna Robinson]

Loose because his friends Were like, stop asking these suspicious questions about the boat, where the boats are. Right, yeah, we know what your plan is. Don't do it.

[Rob Mahoney]

So when he goes missing, an army with them, you know, they're also like.

[Mallory Rubin]

We saw what Arthur 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. Is something that could have made its way in another. To them in another form. I think that it's interesting if this is one more price that Boy Cavalier has to pay. That Curly is basically like, I worship you. I want to learn from you why you choose me. Very. We have some notes still on how she was basically like Wendy and pick me, but still. And then boys like go push buttons in the corner like, you learned French. But can you do this? One more price he has to pay for treating everyone around him like complete shit.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

In the Anti Corporation coalition, we welcome even the pick me girls. You are welcome to join us.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know, especially in a world where I'm kind of. I'm kind of over Wendy's worldview in a lot of ways. You know, like she. She is. She's making space for the xenos. I haven't heard her say one thing about a blood slug. I haven't heard her say one thing about an acid fly.

[Joanna Robinson]

Xenophobic. In a certain sense.

[Rob Mahoney]

This is reverse xenophobic, really. You know, it's every other alien she. She knows.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's.

[Rob Mahoney]

She's speciesist.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. It's fucked up. Incredible critique. Anything else you guys want to say about this episode of Television? Episode seven?

[Rob Mahoney]

Loved it. Apparently not milky enough. We'll see in the finale. I 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. I thought the xenomorph out in the jungle just slaughtering soldiers looked awesome and threatening 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.

[Mallory Rubin]

Running all the drills at the combine. Not confined to a tight hallway in a. In a ship, a lab. I thought that was great too. Really fun.

[Joanna Robinson]

Absolutely understand what that means. I do actually.

[Mallory Rubin]

You do now.

[Joanna Robinson]

Just took me several years of being on this podcast. I get it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh man.

[Joanna Robinson]

All right. Well then pack your lactaid for the milkstravaganza. 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 Mally Rubin talk to James Gunn about Peacemaker Season 2 on this feed. We are so thrilled and honored to have that. We are thrilled and honored to have Mali Rubin over on the Prestige TV feed to talk about Battlestar Galactica.

[Rob Mahoney]

Hell yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

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 Ramga Powell for everything. Thank you to Carlos Chiriboga, thank you to John Richter. Thank you, thank you to Rob Honey Mallory and of course for the clipping the incredible social media moments that just captured your hearts. Jomi at Dinneron. We thank you all. We're back next week but also later this week on this feed by.

[Rob Mahoney]

Well, the holidays have come and gone once again, but if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now, you call it an early present for next year.

[Joanna Robinson]

What do you have to lose?

[Rob Mahoney]

Give it a [e-mail] Switch limited time.

[Mallory Rubin]

50 off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required 45 for the 3 months, $90 for 6 month or $180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy.

[Joanna Robinson]

See terms.