In ‘Alien: Earth,’ No One Can Hear the Eyeball’s Warning

If you’ve been on the fence so far about Alien: Earth, then this week’s episode, titled “In Space, No One…” may convert you. A flashback revealing the events on the USCSS Maginot prior to its crash on Earth, the self-contained episode, directed by series creator Noah Hawley, plays like a mini-Alien movie. A saboteur, working with Boy Kavalier, disables the ship to force it to crash into Prodigy territory, while the creatures do what they always seem to do: Escape containment and wreak havoc. It hits that Alien sweet spot - trapped with monsters in spaaaaace - so well that if it doesn’t convert you, then it may actually push you further away from the show. A painful reminder of the powerful simplicity that put Alien on the map, in the midst of a show that is expanding on and complicating that very simplicity? Bold move, Hawley. Bold move.

Fortunately, one new element that Alien: Earth has added to the formula is proving to be an absolute winner: That eyeball creature! This week’s episode adds a few intriguing wrinkles to this fan-favorite critter, which may unseat the Xenomorph as the biggest threat in the Alien universe when all is said and done. Yes, I said it. Eyeblobby might be the show’s big bad… or humanity’s greatest ally.

We’ve known since episode two that The Eye (Trypanohyncha Ocellus, or T. Ocellus for short) was something to watch out for (pun unintentional, but I’m rolling with it) when it came wriggling out of a dead cat’s eye socket and launched itself at Nibs. It’s a deceptively frail-seeming alien, small in stature and made of nothing but a bunch of tentacles and an eyeball with multiple pupils, yet it moves with incredible speed and harbors a frightening intelligence. Even amongst the plethora of parasites on board, The Eye stands apart for its unique skill: Unseating and replacing its victim’s eye, then hijacking its nervous system to control the now-dead skinsuit.

What this week’s episode reveals is that The Eye is more different from the other aliens than we first imagined, and may even be operating separately from the other creatures on board. In the flashback, we see science officer Chibuzo working with the bloodsucking tick bugs while The Eye sits in a glass containment vessel nearby. When she isn’t looking, one of the ticks escapes and sort of, uh, splooshes some babies into Chibuzo’s space Nalgene? But The Eye was looking - it’s ALWAYS looking - and it bangs a tentacle against the glass as if to warn her.

Could little Eyeblobby be Team Humanity? Probably not, but it’s not exactly on the side of the other aliens either. Later in the episode, during the big climax, Eyeblobby has taken over the engineer Schmuel and seems poised to attack Zaverni… until the now-grown Xenomorph appears outside the door. Eyeblobby knocks Zaverni out, but doesn’t kill her, and even though Morrow tazes it, it still attacks the Xeno instead. What follows is a ferocious battle that isn’t as one-sided as you’d imagine. Eye-Schmuel holds its own against the Xeno, leaping onto its back and tearing at it with its teeth. And when the skinsuit fails, The Eye squirms out of the socket and leaps straight for the Xenomorph’s face, seemingly trying to invade its skull despite the fact that Xenomorphs don’t have eyes. It must fail, since the Xenomorph returns to take care of Zaverni later, but The Eye also survives the ordeal and makes it to Earth.

If Alien: Earth has shown that Synths are the only creatures the alien parasites have no interest in, it complicated that paradigm when The Eye attacked Nibs. Somehow, The Eye can, or thinks it can, hijack a synthetic body as well as a flesh one. But The Eye also attacks the other aliens, perhaps because they are competitive predators or perhaps for reasons we don’t yet understand. Why would it try to warn Chibuzo about her water, only to escape containment itself? How can it fight a Xenomorph to a draw? Why is it the most terrifyingly invasive creature this side of a facehugger and yet I still think it would make an adorable pocket pal? The only thing I know for sure is this: The Eye is my reason to keep watching Alien: Earth. At least until Hawley writes in a musical number, anyway. Where is my goddamn dancing eyeball number, Hawley?!