TV Recap: “Alien: Earth” Episode 4 – Secrets, Tests, and Manipulations

After Wendy’s collapse at the end of Episode 3, Alien: Earth returns with “Observation," an installment that shifts from survival horror to unsettling experimentation. Wendy is revived in Prodigy’s lab, but her bond with the aliens grows stronger as Boy Kavalier pushes her — and the other hybrids — further into dangerous territory. While Hermit struggles to keep his sister safe, Morrow weaves his manipulative net tighter around Slightly, and Prodigy’s scientists discover just how intelligent their specimens may be.

Episode 4: “Observation" – Written by Noah Hawley and Bobak Esfarjani

Wendy (Sydney Chandler) is revived in the lab where she was created, but Arthur Sylvia (David Rysdahl) has deactivated her hearing as a precaution. Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) is in the room, telling Arthur and Dame Sylvia (Essie Davis) about the sounds Wendy hears that nobody else can.

Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) barges into the room with Curly (Erana James) trailing behind. He’s his usual arrogant self, even talking down to Kirsh when the synthetic attempts to explain what Boy already knows. He asks everyone but Arthur and Curly to leave the room, but their conversation doesn’t go far because Hermit (Alex Lawther) enters looking for his sister. Boy Kavalier introduces himself, asking Hermit how his new lung is. “You’ll never guess what we did with the old one," he gleefully adds.

Wendy interrupts, unable to hear anything, but wanting to tell everyone about the sound she heard in the lab. Hermit asks the men what’s in the lab, but Boy Kavalier ignores him, instructing Arthur to bring Wendy’s hearing back online. He messes with some dials until Wendy can hear muffled sounds. Arthur asks what she remembers before she lost consciousness. She remembers waking up and hearing a sound she had heard at the crash site: “like bugs rubbing their legs together." She followed the sound to the lab, where she saw Krish experimenting on an egg and heard it screaming. “The eggs?" Boy Kavalier asks. “No, the baby," Wendy responds.

Arthur promises Wendy that he can adjust her hearing so she won’t experience that again, but she asks him not to. “I think they picked me," she tells him. “They’re talking to me, I want to hear them." Boy Kavalier strongly encourages this, and Arthur adjusts the frequency of Wendy’s ears until she can hear it again. Boy Kavalier asks Curly if she can hear it. “No," she disappointingly admits, wanting desperately to be his favorite hybrid.

Boy Kavalier asks Wendy if she can make the sound she hears at a tone that humans can hear. She is confused at first, but he tells her that her voice i just processing, and maybe she can do some magic the way she did on screens to find Hermit. She puts her lips together like she’s trying to whistle, and out comes an audible version of the alien sounds. “Sure, you speak French, but can you do that?" Boy Kavalier taunts Curly.

Hermit and Boy Kavalier get into a fight when he suggests his sister be allowed to rest, and Boy Kavalier talks about the specific mechanics of Wendy. However, he backs off when Hermit insists that Wendy is still a child. At the snap of a finger, everyone leaves the room except Boy Kavalier. Atom Eins (Adrian Edmondson) steps out of the shadows to give his sage advice. He worries that if a hostile alien species is trying to communicate, it might be best to give them back to Yutani. Boy Kavalier disagrees. “Tell the brother he can stay, but he’s working for us," he instructs. “It’s my world, he just lives in it."

Wendy gives Hermit a tour of her room, showing him the drawings she made and letting him see how her bed works, which is more like a charging station. Wendy asks Hermit if he’s mad at her. “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at them," he responds, saying they wouldn’t let him see her when she was in the hospital, and he mourned for her at a funeral. He promised that if there was a way to have seen her, he would’ve done it. Later, we see them watching Ice Age 4: Continental Drift together.

On a rock on the island, Slightly (Adarsh Gourav) nervously waits for Morrow (Babou Ceesay) to “call." Morrow convinces Slightly that they’re both heroes and that Prodigy stole from him. He asks Slightly to get one egg back for him. As part of his manipulation, Morrow tells Slightly his full name - Kumi Morrow - and gets Slightly to share his full real name - Aarush Singh.

When Slightly returns to his room, Krish is standing there waiting for him. He points to the relief of the three monkeys on the wall - Mizaru, Kikazaru, and Iwazaru. He talks about the Buddhist teaching behind them, but how they are often interpreted as looking the other way when bad happens. Anxiously, Slightly asks Kirsh if this is a test. “That’s what being an adult is, a constant test," Kirsh responds. Kirsh asks Slightly if he saw something bad happening, if he would look the other way or try to stop it. “I would stand up for my friends," he says. Krish seems satisfied with that answer as he leaves.

Kirsh returns to the lab where a sheep has been put in a controlled environment. Tootles (Kit Young) joins him in observing as they release the tentacled eyeball into the environment, watching as it attacks the animal’s face and kills it quickly, pulling out its eye and dropping into the socket. The sheep’s vitals had flatlined, but came back in gamma wave pulses as it revived like a zombie, controlled by the creature. The original eye and tentacle body drops to the floor as whatever was inside changes hosts. “This creature is highly intelligent," Kirsh observes as the zombie sheep watches them. Boy Kavalier watches from outside the lab, tapping on the glass to get the sheep’s attention and trying to introduce himself, as if this creature would understand the power he weilds.

Arthur leads Dame off campus and into a bush where they will be out of reach of Boy Kavalier’s surveillance. He’s upset about Boy Kavalier pushing the hybrids and shifting focus to these creatures when they need to be testing the science in a controlled environment. He worries that they may have killed six kids to make AIs. She shelves the discussion until dinner, saying, “We’ll figure it out."

As Arthur walks away, Nibs (Lily Newmark) finds Dame Sylvia and alarms her when she announces, “I’m pregnant." Nibs gets upset when Dame Sylvia tries to remind her that she’s a machine, so she takes her to her office to talk. Nibs sits on the couch, petting a plush kitty, as Dame Sylvia tries to explain the biological requirements of pregnancy. It frustrates Nibs, who grew up on a farm and knows about reproduction, but also believes in Jesus and thinks her baby is divine. When Dame Sylvia brings up Nibs’ reported bravery in the field with the tentacled eyeball, Nibs gets agitated and lunges at Dame Sylvia in an inhuman way. Dame Sylvia tries to remain calm, getting Nibs to release her by offering tea and suggesting she try new flavor strips that were formulated for their hybrid bodies. When she goes to the tea maker, she presses a secret button to call for security. Soldiers arrive, and Dame Sylvia apologizes to Nibs, explaining that she forgot she has a meeting she needs to attend. She instructs the soldiers to tell their supervisor there’s a “Level 3 Event."

Atom Eins summons Hermit to a meeting, refusing to answer any questions about his friends, Rashidi and Siberian. Atom tells them it’s confidential, as is Wendy. “My sister’s name is Marcy," Hermit insists, but Atom says they aren’t sure if she really is his sister. However, they would like his help in confirming if he thinks the transition was a success. Hermit refuses, threatening to quit. Atom tells him he’ll be sent away with the next shuttle, and since Wendy is Prodigy property, he won’t be allowed to communicate with her anymore. He will also have to pay for his new lung. But if he works for them, he will work towards paying it off, and can help with Wendy. “I’m your man," Hermit responds, asking when he will be allowed to take his sister home. “There’s no universe in which you get to take her home," Atom clarifies, referring to Wendy as a prototype and property. Hermit insists that she’s still a human being. “Not anymore," Atom corrects.

Hermit’s submission is immediately rewarded. His troop is on Neverland, and he is reunited with Siberian (Diêm Camille) and Rashidi (Moe Bar-El) in the hallway.

Boy Kavalier intercepts Wendy in the living room, likening her battle with the aliens to defeating the crocodile and hearing the clock tick from Peter Pan. “It was hurting Joe," she answers about why she fought it, but Boy Kavalier doesn’t care about that. He asks what she thinks the creatures are saying. “You shouldn’t have cut them open," she says, sharing her opinion. Boy Kavalier manipulates her into submission by sharing that he doesn’t like brothers and isn’t sure they should let hers stay. “Please!" she begs. He promises to let her keep him if she helps him figure out what the aliens are saying. They pinky promise.

While monitoring the zombie sheep, Tootles tells Kirsh he wants to change his name. He feels more like a grown-up scientist and wants to be known as Isaac, inspired by Isaac Newton. Kirsh agrees that the name is a better fit for him. He goes out into the hall and sees Slightly heading towards the lab, bragging about his name change. Slightly nervously tells his friend that Arthur sent him to get something in the lab. But when “Isaac" asks what it was, he grows nervous and can’t say, heading the other way and saying he needs to take a walk to clear his head.

“You’re a very clever boy, you’ll figure it out," Morrow tells Slightly as the hybrid boy tries to tell him he can’t get an egg. When Slightly protests Morrow’s continued efforts for him to find a way, Morrow reveals that he’s sitting in Slightly’s childhood home with his mother, Meera Singh (Anjana Ghogar), and that his brothers will be home soon. “You know, Aarush, I really wanted us to be friends," Morrow maliciously says as the boy begs him not to hurt his family. Morrow gives him a new plan: Sneak a human into the lab and expose them to an egg. Slightly asks what will happen to the person he chooses. Morrow says they will have a bad couple of days, describing that Slightly will need to hide them while the face hugger latches onto them. Then he will intercept the person. “We love you, beta," Meera is able to say to her son before Morrow warns Slightly that he has 24 hours to pick a person and expose them to an egg.

Kirsh was listening in to Slightly’s conversation with Morrow. After listening to the call, we see him go into the controlled environment with the eggs, petting one of them and examining its slimy surface.

The other Lost Boys are enjoying some time outside together, forcing Hermit to try one of the flavor tabs, which to him tastes like motor oil. Isaac brags about computer chip libraries Arthur has that allow them to gain knowledge quickly, saying he’s used them to help Kirsh with scientific research. Curly asks Hermit about “The 5," something Boy Kavalier keeps mentioning. Hermit tells her that when the old governments fell, five companies rose up to fix the world and run it. He tells them how the ship belonged to Weyland-Yutani, who is asking the other companies to help get their property back.

Slightly walks into the group and is agitated by Hermit’s presence, complaining that it’s unfair that only Wendy gets to have a family member on the island since he also has brothers. Hermit agrees that all of their families should be with them, and that they should have had parties instead of funerals. Smee (Jonathan Ajayi) thinks they should all ask Boy Kavalier to bring their families to Neverland, but Curly and Isaac both think that would make him mad. Wendy gets up to leave, sharing that Boy Kavalier asked her to do something in the lab. When she exits, Slightly stares at Hermit as if contemplating a heavy decision.

Later, we see Hermit in his room, inspecting the stitches along his ribcage in the mirror. He doesn’t know that Slightly is outside his window in the dark, watching him.

Inside the lab, Wendy listens to the alien clicking sounds, which are currently speaking to her from Hermit’s lung, which is connected to a machine that expands and contracts it in a tube of fluid. Wendy hums a song to it, and something inside starts to move. A creature bursts out of the lung and breaks through the glass. A chestburster hisses at her, seemingly confused about what to do with Wendy. It hisses and clicks, but she makes similar sounds back to it. The creature ultimately seems to decide that Wendy is more friend than foe, letting her pet its head.

Kirsh watches Wendy pet the creature through the glass.

Next Episode: “In Space, No One..." - Tuesday, September 2nd, at 8/7c on FX and Hulu

An outer-space vessel in peril leads to a dangerous reckoning.