This episode confirmed they don’t have FTL travel yet, when Atom Eins commented that a hybrid might be the one who invents it. So either the 2-year mission of the Nostromo violates the in-universe rules, or it was foreshadowing that FTL is imminent.
No it was just bad writing and can’t be anything else. The writers either don’t understand or don’t care about the vastness of space (as is almost universal no pun intended in TV/movie SF). The star system from Alien is specifically named as Zeta Reticuli, which is 39 light years from Earth, for instance. There is simply no possible way to contort Alien-movies travel time into anything less than a multiple of light speed in real-world terms, so you just have to cover your ears and pretend you didn’t hear that incredibly stupid line.
The distances of the nearest stars to Earth, displaying their rough locations relative to the Earth and each other.
Arthur should have known the first rule of rescuing someone: Don’t become the next victim. He rushed into a dangerous area with no planning, no help, and no real idea where the dangerous alien creature was. He didn’t even try to tell the other kid to go get help. Did just about everything wrong that he could have done.
I’m sure she cares about the project, not so much the actual kids.
I haven’t seen anyone else comment on this, but this whole program is coded as metaphorical child abuse, predominantly sexual in nature. They isolate the kids, and tell them they’re “special”. They manipulate Wendy into helping them get the new kids on board with the program, “Can you be a big sister to them?”, classic grooming behaviour. Now we see her trying to pass off a major violation as “I was just trying to help, why can’t you let me help?”, as if involuntarily erasing someone’s memories is like doing the dishes for them.
No question that she cares about the project more in any case. More than her husband as well. To me the conflict between things that she cares about is what keeps her interesting. I interpreted her as rationalizing her behavior to herself, trying to convince herself, even more than to Wendy.
Anyway. Even if she has zero authentic concern for the children, her ability to manipulate them is needlessly undercut by throwing Nibs back with no cover story supplied to Nibs herself and the others (not only Wendy) for her memories being gone. It doesn’t fit as malicious compliance and the character is a more skillful manipulator than that. Not dumb.
Not sure it is coded as child abuse - pretty straightforward out there. The children are property to be used as their owner sees fit. But pretty much everyone other than The Five are.
How do they already have such (acknowledged) history with each other? The characters are great but I must be missing something that explains how that old bad blood metaphorical dick wagging makes any sense.
I really want to know what’s up with Kirsh. My fear is this is some kind of “Synths have a secret conspiracy to get rid of humans” BS. That would be lame.
It wasn’t personal bad blood between them. I saw it more as the global competition for artificial supremacy – synths vs cyborgs vs hybrids – paired with the W-Y vs Prodigy competition.
Until we learn more, I assume it’s just the same racist hatred instilled in warriors for centuries. Morrow was indoctrinated with it and Kirsh was programmed with it.
My thought was, “Wow, mecharacism!” They each see the other as inferior, and this is an argument that goes back a relatively long way.
Malicious compliance makes sense here. Morrow is correct that hybrids might make his kind obsolete. He may need to comply with the directives but he is free to only comply with them as given. He’s fine if the hybrid program fails and more curious as a matter of science than eager for it to work. This is an experiment. He is now observing and measuring.
I thought it was neat that the Flys seemed to be eating the Synth fluid. I have always assumed it was something artificial but organic so that was a cool if horrifying touch.
The tray of fly food was rocks, pieces of metal, and old circuit boards. They have a different idea about what “organic” is than we do.
Oh, good call. I missed that.
Also I I have to retract my opinion that Eyeball is not sentient (or was at best like Chimp in intelligence). This episode confirmed otherwise.
I have no doubt Eyeball is the smartest character in this show. Low bar, I know…
Some sentient eyeball-octopus hybrid parasites just want to watch the world burn.
Yes, this was a disappointing ploy by the writers—not believable for the character. Contrived stupidity to make the plot go. Same with Arthur trying to get Isaac out of the Fly pen with no help. Same with Isaac, a child, being told to feed the dangerous aliens with no help or oversight (though that one MIGHT be explained by Kirsh’s malicious secret plans, presumably to infect Earth with those dangerous-to-humans aliens).
But Phryne failing to have a cover story for Nibs’ amnesia was just….stupid.
Anyone very clear on the details of Morrow’s daughter?
My understanding during the episode was that she was doing well, wanting to go to Harvard and could likely get in but W-Y would only pay for a corporate education school. Then a notice that she died in a fire. But after the show I read people saying she died of a chronic disease that they were going to cure her of. Not rewatching to find out if I just missed something.
My reason for asking is that I wonder if something happened that had them just decide to kill her as the cost effective option, which might be discoverable by Morrow. And motivate some change of path for him.
Her death in a fire seems a bit … convenient… after her complaint that she can’t go to a real school.
If you missed that detail, I did, too.
We bailed twenty minutes in to the most recent episode. We just couldn’t take another hour of mood replacing plot and affectation instead of character development. I assume they all did something incredibly stupid again this week?
Well, all except the sheep. She’s playing the long game.