Episode Review: Alien: Earth Episode 2 - "Mr. October"

Welcome back to the blog readers. I know I'm behind on Alien: Earth (2025), but I made the decision to watch one episode a week. With that being said, I am a big fan of what that premiere episode did. From solid character work and a great starting point for what we could get, I found myself looking forward to this second episode, titled "Mr. October," written by Noah Hawley, and directed by Dana Gonzales. Would it be a knockout like the first episode was? Let's find out.

NOTE: I will be using spoilers for my thoughts, so DO NOT read ahead if you have not seen the episode.

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Like I mentioned, I am a fan of what the premiere episode did in terms of the worldbuilding and horror elements. I even found myself getting behind some of the characters like Joe and Wendy. But when I saw this would be a more contained episode than last, I got excited. And I got excited for good reason, because this was a damn fine near-hour of television. The performances of Sydney Chandler and Alex Lawther were both brilliant, and the horror (as well as the story) were as well.

I want to start this review by talking about the performance of Sydney Chandler. Like I mentioned in my review of the premiere episode, I did not know who she was as an actor, or that she is the daughter of upcoming Hal Jordan actor Kyle Chandler. So seeing what she did last week as Marcy/Wendy was fascinating, and she absolutely doubled down on what made her performance so good this time around. There is that childlike innocence that she needs to have (since she technically has the consciousness of a child in her), there is a fiery determination that makes her all the more relatable, and there is love that she displays for her brother. All of these make Wendy one of the better characters on television right now, and it may get her some Emmy love next year.

I next want to talk about the performance of Alex Lawther. Lawther is another under-the-radar English actor that has never really broken out in the mainstream...until now. Yeah, he was in Andor (2022-25) for four episodes. Yeah, he was in the show The End of the F***ing World (2017-19). And yes, he had a brief role in The Imitation Game (2014) (a damn good underrated film). But his performance in this episode as Joe Hermit was brilliant to say the least. I equate this performance to Cailee Spaeny's in Alien: Romulus (2024) but with a bit more subtlety. Most of this episode is fear and terror when it comes to dealing with the Xenomorph (that I have decided to refer to as Big Ugly for this show, he won't mind), but the ending is a masterclass in emotion.

Next up, I want to talk about the story of this episode, because while it is more contained than the premiere is, it still packs a wallop and has a lot of information in terms of worldbuilding and story advancement. We start where we picked up last week in the Maginot, with Joe Hermit and the surviving members of his Prodigy task force members making their way through the rest of the ship since it was locked down at the end of last episode. They find their way to the laboratory, in which they see a woman dead from some sort of asphyxiation and a man supposedly killed via surgery. They discover the man had a foreign object in his body, and Joe tells them it was "alien." Clearly the signs of a chestburster, which is how the Xenomorphs are created. They make their way down a level, completely unaware that Big Ugly is stalking them. They are able to get off the ship and get to an abandoned building that they have to jump from level to level. The two soldiers are able to, but Big Ugly makes its presence known and causes Joe to get bumped to a lower floor, leading him to take the elevator. He is unable to call for backup as communication has been jammed.

Meanwhile, on Neverland Island, Boy Kavalier is talking to Dame Silvia about being in an intelligence race against artificial intelligence and his desire to converse with someone smarter than him. Silvia hopes that this experiment does more for humanity than making people immortal, but Kavalier claims it is not about the money. Also, on a Prodigy ship headed for the crashed Maginot, Wendy converses with another child whose consciousness was transferred into a synth body named Slightly that she has a desire to save her brother because he is not like them. We flash back to the previous day, in which Joe is trying to get out of his contract with Prodigy to become a doctor on Mars since he believes he is the only surviving member of his family. Wendy, who has been watching her brother every day, is able to interface with the robot Joe is talking to and briefly communicate with him, before she denies his request to void his contract seven months early.

Meanwhile, Kirsh and the "Lost Boys" land in proximity of the downed Maginot, and Wendy is able to hear a strange buzzing coming from the ship. They all enter a tent, where Kirsh is talking to the military about what is happening and why the hybrids were sent. Wendy finds a monitor that reveals Joe still trapped in the elevator and storms off to find him, and Kirsh sends Slightly in to join her as he takes the rest of them into the ship for reconnaissance. Back on Neverland Island, Boy Kavalier takes a call from Yutani, who is looking to get her ship back and to get permission to send a team to recover the contents on board. Kavalier tells her that is not possible because the ship crashed in Prodigy territory and that would be considered a hostile situation. He hangs up and tells his assistant that he wants everything on the ship. Real fans know that that is a terrible, TERRIBLE idea that he will quickly regret.

All of the Lost Boys end up on the Maginot and Kirsh's group finds a plant-like creature in the corridor. Kirsh tells them that fear is for animals and that they are not animals as they discover the blood-sucking leech creatures that killed the soldiers Morrow trapped last episode, and another creature that animates a dead cat and acts as its eyeball. They are able to trap this creature when it sprouts legs and tries to attack them while Kirsh hooks himself up to the mainframe in the room to ascertain the kind of ship they are in. Wendy and Slightly have made it to the stairwell where they find Joe's bag and claw marks, where Slightly assumes this was a bear.

Meanwhile, Joe makes his way up to the top floor of the building where he runs into a new surviving member of the search and rescue squad. They knock on a door and it is answered by someone wearing costumes from olden times, who seems unbothered by the possible threat of an alien creature. This gentleman scolds Joe and the other survivor for interrupting his party and shuts the door on them. Joe notices Big Ugly hiding amongst the decorations outside the apartment while it takes out the soldier and makes its way into the apartment, wiping out the party in seconds. Joe makes his way into the apartment to take in the carnage before being ambushed by Big Ugly, but is saved by Morrow who shoots Big Ugly (then him) with a stun weapon that knocks both of them out. Morrow leaves Joe in the apartment and surrounds Big Ugly with a foam that cocoons him. As he makes his way to the elevator, more Prodigy soldiers arrive and try to get Morrow to surrender, but they cannot as Big Ugly breaks free of the cocoon and wipes the soldiers out in seconds as well. Big Ugly spares Morrow and runs off to kill more people.

When Joe comes to, he finds a side room that contains a baseball hit by "Mr. October" Reggie Jackson in the 1977 World Series, and reminisces watching that game with his father in another life. He turns around at the sound of a voice, revealing Wendy and Slightly in the door frame. Joe begins talking about his father, which makes Wendy smile, and the two of them reveal their synthetic nature. Kirsh does not care that Wendy found her brother, and wants them to secure precious cargo. Wendy coaxes Joe into joining them back in the ship. Slightly tells Joe that they were children whose subconsciousness were transferred into synthetic bodies and is too quick to reveal Wendy is the former Marcy. Joe is in a state of disbelief as he continues to test Wendy on things only his sister would know, and she passes each test, leading him to bury his head in her arms in an embrace. Suddenly, Big Ugly snatches Joe and takes him away, leading Wendy to run after him and leave Slightly by himself with some very obvious Xenomorph eggs.

I want to spend one more paragraph by talking about the horror elements of this episode. And yes, I will be talking about the creatures as well. In terms of the horror that we get in this episode, I am so glad we went more in an Alien (1979) direction than in an Aliens (1986) direction. Being an actual horror show gives this show a lot more credence and prevents it from being yet another science fiction series. I love the creepiness from the creatures (especially that eyeball-looking thing and the leech things) because these are different from the usual facehuggers and Xenomorphs we have been getting in Alien properties before.

Alien: Earth dials up the creeps and the scares for this second episode, which also features stellar character work all around. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.