TV Recap: "Alien: Earth" Episode 1 - Neverland Isn’t Just for Kids Anymore

FX’s Alien: Earth wastes no time establishing itself as a bold reinvention of the classic sci-fi horror franchise, blending corporate intrigue, extraterrestrial terror, and an unexpected dash of fairy-tale inspiration. Series creator Noah Hawley’s premiere episode, “Neverland," doesn’t just introduce new worlds and lifeforms — it reframes the central question of survival through the eyes of a child, with shades of Peter Pan woven into its DNA. From the cold corridors of a doomed Weyland-Yutani research vessel to the unsettling beauty of Prodigy’s hybrid research island, Episode 1 sets up a sprawling conflict where technology, humanity, and the meaning of “forever" are all up for grabs.

Prologue

“In the future, the race for immortality will come in 3 guises: Cybernetically enhanced humans: Cyborgs; Artificially intelligent beings: Synths; and Synthetic beings downloaded with human consciousness: Hybrids. Which technology prevails will determine what corporation rules the universe."

Episode 1: “Neverland" – Written by Noah Hawley

It’s 2120. Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s deep space research vessel, USCSS Maginot, is nearing the end of its 65-year trip. When we first see the ship, it’s nearing Saturn, still four months away from Earth. The human crew comes out of cryogenic sleep for a bit. They talk bout how five companies control Earth, and how the newest one, Prodigy, is owned by a boy wonder.

Chief Nagg (Sahajak Boonthanakit) announces that Maginot’s communications are down, the log files have been corrupted, and the ship is hemorrhaging fuel. He assigns Weyland-Yutani’s Security Officer Morrow (Babou Ceesay) and another synth, Teng (Andy Yu), to investigate a unit where they can shut down the power. Shmuel (Michael Smiley) suggests they cut the “little zoo," saying the specimens give him the creeps. One of the scientists, Chibuzo (Karen Aldridge), takes offense, and Morrow reminds everyone that the specimens are the mission. Shmuel grumbles about how many men were lost trying to get them.

We follow Chibuzo into the lab. A tentacled eyeball with irises and pupils in every direction watches her intently as she places a dead rat in a cylinder with a slug-like bug. The crew goes back into cryogenic sleep, but she continues to work. Morrow also sleeps, with Teng seeming like the only other humanoid awake. We also catch a glimpse of a facehugger in a liquid tube, seemingly dead, but one of its legs begins to twitch.

Down on Earth, we are introduced to Prodgy’s “Neverland" Research Island. A bald young girl, Marcy (Florence Bensberg), looks curiously at a scorpion in a biome as a synth, Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant), teaches her about the nature of predators and prey. Their conversation is interrupted by Dame Sylvia (Essie Davis), who announces that it’s time. Marcy is anxious, but Kirsh promises to be there when she wakes up. Taking Dame Sylvia’s hand, Marcy asks Kirsh not to kill the scorpion.

They walk down a hallway towards an operating room, passing a worker who seems to be spraying something on a blackened section.

Inside the operating room, Arthur Sylvia (David Rysdahl) greets Marcy and gets a first look at the synthetic body on one of the two beds. She walks over to it. “She’s pretty," she says as Prodgy’s founder, Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), arrives to see the transfer. He likens her to Neil Armstrong being the first man on the moon to her being the first person to transfer from a human body to a synthetic. He offers her a magic trick, snapping his fingers and making the digital ceiling turn into footage from Disney’s Peter Pan.

“I want my brother," Marcy says as Dame Sylvia instructs her to get on the table. “You can see him when you wake up," she responds. “But he can’t see me," Marcy replies, looking sad. The procedure is top secret; nobody can know. Marcy gets into bed and looks at her synthetic body. “She looks like a Wendy," she observes. The control room activates. Lights cascade under Marcy’s bed and into the synthetic, like uploading data from one device to another. Wendy (Sydney Chandler) opens her eyes.

Free of her former ailments, Wendy enjoys her new abilities in the natural splendor of Neverland. From high on a cliff, we see her answer Dame Sylvia’s call, jumping down and challenging her to a beachside race no human could win. Still a child inside, during a check-in with Dame Sylvia and Kirsh, Wendy says her emotions are “quiet" and that she’s not used to her adult body. Without hormones, Dame Sylvia is trying to simulate adolescence and the transition into adulthood, suggesting they speed up some of these simulations. While Boy Kavalier isn’t in the room, he watches the meeting from a monitor. Dame Sylvia gives Wendy a stuffed toy and announces that other children have arrived who need her help with the transition. “Can you be a big sister?" Dame Sylvia encourages her.

In a hydroponic garden, Wendy shows the other children what her new body can do, answering questions. When asked about her ailment, she tells them she was dying. “Now I’m the forever girl," she declares. One asks why only children can be saved, and Wendy shares that their minds are too big to make the transition. Another girl asks when they get to go home. “You don’t," she answers. Once again, Boy Kavalier is watching.

Just like Marcy, each of the new kids has their consciousness transferred to an adult synthetic body as scenes from Peter Pan play overhead. As they rest each night in their bedrooms, Boy Kavalier reads J.M. Barrie’s novel to the “Lost Boys."

Wendy uses the screen in her room to watch her brother, Joe, aka Hermit (Alex Lawther), arrive at the house where he rents a room from a family. He’s a medic for Prodigy’s soldiers. She talks to her stuffed friends. “They told him I died." Arthur Sylvia watches Wendy on the monitors, amazed that she can seemingly touch a screen and will it to show her what she wants to see. One night, the family Hermit lives with is watching Ice Age 4: Continental Drift, and as he watches with them, he has memories of his childhood, watching it with his younger sister. “Surrender, or face my fury," Hermit says, along with Captain Gutt. “Face your furry what?" Wendy replies alongside Sid. It makes them both smile. “Goodnight, Joe," Wendy says to him through the screen.

The USCSS Maginot approaches Earth. Something has gone wrong. “Collision imminent," the system warns. Morrow awakens in the safety of his Security Officer’s pod. At his computer, he completes a status report. He’s on the question of “crew status" when a crewmember, Zevari (Richa Moorjani), starts pounding on his door, begging to be let in. As he moves toward the door, his right hand transforms into a soldering iron, using it to reinforce his door, locking her out. “Crew dead," he responds as Zevari falls victim to a xenomorph. The alien then sets its sights on breaking into Morrow’s office. After sending his report, he opens the impact room under his office, hiding in it and soldering the door shut.

“Collision imminent," the ship’s automated voice repeats, until it starts a 10-second countdown to impact. The USCSS Maginot collides with a dock in the moon’s orbit, sending it hurtling down to Earth.

Hermit works out with soldiers on the roof of a base in Prodigy City. His friends, Siberian (Diêm Camille) and Rashidi (Moe Bar-El), ask what “the robot" said. “I gotta serve out my contract," he responds, looking disappointed. But any time for further explanation disappears as they look up at the sky and see a ship, the USCSS Maginot, speeding towards them. It clips a roof above them as it hurtles into the city.

Prodigy’s army moves out in tanks toward the crash. Hermit rushes into action with the soldiers to treat the wounded, trying to divert civilians rushing out of the building towards the medic tent. The Maginot’s ignition is still on, despite its front end being submerged into the ground floor of a building. The ground floor and first sublevel make it seem like a clothing store or factory. From a sublevel, they get a good view of the submerged ship. Rashidi, Siberian, Hermit, Cortez (Nut Devahastin), Hoyt (Lloyd Everitt), and Anant (Tayme Thapthimthong) enter the ship.

Morrow releases himself from the impact chamber, moving through the ship toward the cockpit, passing all the dead bodies. He leaves a message for Weyland-Yutani leadership that the status of the cargo is unknown.

On Neverland, Arthur Sylva conducts tests on the hybrids, discovering that they’re able to hear tones beyond human frequencies. On security monitors in the distance, she sees the commotion in Prodigy City. She manipulates a screen and finds Hermit.

Boy Kavalier is given an update by Atom Eins (Adrian Edmondson), his right-hand council. Wendy barges in, with Kirsh rushing behind to stop her. As the men talk strategy, Wendy says, “We can do it," and the men are curious why she wants to rush in to help. Kirsh tells them about Wendy’s brother, and Boy Kavalier marvels at how human-like Wendy seems. “I am human," she declares. He hurles a baseball at her and she catches it with inhuman reflexes, tossing it gently back to him. “Send them," he instructs Atom Eins. “Let’s see how they handle the stress." Atom Eins reminds him they’re prototypes and can’t risk losing one. Boy Kavalier asks Krish to supervise them, confirming from Wendy that she and the other Lost Boys can follow orders.

The other Lost Boys hanging out together in the living room, reminiscing about their old life - Slightly (Adarsh Gourav), Smee (Jonathan Ajayi), Curly (Erana James), Nibs (Lily Newmark), and Tootles (Kit Young). They speculate whether they can ever die as Wendy rushes in to announce that they have a life-or-death rescue mission. They suit up and board a ship to Prodigy City.

Marrow searches the Maginot, hiding when he hears “Search and rescue" from around the corner. Hoyt and Anant enter the lab in their search for survivors. They notice the containers with living specimens behind frosted glass, others broken and empty. As they inspect some of the human remains, they discover that one of the bodies was shot several times. Hoyt doesn’t notice a slug-like bug drop from the ceiling onto his shoulder, crawling under his shirt.

Hoyt and Anant leave the lab only to find Morrow holding them at gunpoint. He forces them to drop their weapons and get back into the lab, tying them to a pipe.

Hermit, Rashidi, Siberian, and Cortez explore the cryo chambers, finding some bodies dead in their beds. One woman’s stomach has been ripped open as if something burst from it. Based on the blood coagulation, Hermit estimates she’s been dead for a week. In another bed, they see a dead facehugger. They start to follow a blood trail away from one of the broken beds.

Hoyt and Anant call for help, but the other soldiers can’t hear them. Hoyt has a knife hidden in his boot, which he struggles to get out. But in the process, he upsets the bug, which makes its presence known. It strikes at Hoyt’s neck, quickly killing him as it draws a lot of blood into an expandable abdomen. Anant freaks out as Hoyt goes silent. Another bug lands on him, and he meets a similar demise.

During the flight to Prodigy City, Kirsh watches Wendy intently. He waxes about how humanity used to be food, explaining how human evolution put them at the top of the food chain. “In the animal kingdom, there is always someone bigger or smaller that would eat you alive if they had the chance," he concludes, adding that to be human is to die. “My brother is not gonna die," she insists. “Of course he will," Kirsh answers. “Injury, illness, old age, they all do." Wendy disagrees, vowing to save her brother.

Continue the story in our recap of Episode 2, “Mr. October."