Episode Review: Alien: Earth 1x4 - "Observation"

Welcome back to the blog readers. There is no more doubt in my mind after what I witnessed last week: Alien: Earth (2025) is turning into a massive win for me. All the characters are likable (in their own way), all the horror works, and the story is engaging as hell. I cannot wait to see what happens next. Luckily I do not have to wait long, since we now get to talk about the fourth episode, titled "Observation," written by Noah Hawley and Bobak Esfarjani, and directed by Ugla Hauksdóttir. Would it be as good as the last few episodes? Stick around to find out.

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

---

These first three episodes have been better than I could have ever imagined. Let's face it, another sci-fi show not taking big risks could end up in the shuffle, but not this show and not this world. Noah Hawley has made a rich world even richer, and I am so happy to say that this fourth episode is utterly jaw-dropping with how good it is. Sydney Chandler is becoming a star in front of our eyes, and the disgusting things we see in this offering becomes kind of addicting.

I need to start by talking about the performance of Sydney Chandler. I have mentioned in reviews prior that Chandler is giving performances that could be viewed as excellent, and she has really impressed me so far with her range. As I alluded to in the previous paragraph, the daughter of Kyle is becoming a star in her own right, because the performance she gives in this episode as Wendy is stunningly good. Emmy-worthy even? She has so much range in this role, from concerned sister to existential crisis, and every emotion that she is able to display she pulls off flawlessly. I just mused about it, but there is a slight possibility she gets some Emmy love for this show.

And finally, on the side of performances, I need to call out my boy Adarsh Gourav for his in this episode. Side note, I forget I'm a week behind when I'm about to type this episode because the gut reaction is to type "this week's episode." But back to Gourav's performance, I am falling in love with this guy as a performer, and his performance as Slightly is heartbreaking this week. I mentioned in my review of the third episode that he pulls off the child aspect of his character so well, and I am absolutely doubling down on this statement this time around. Because not only can he pull this off, he can pull off all the emotions that come with it, especially fear and dedication to family among others. Gourav really has surprised me in these last two episodes, and I hope he continues to kill it for the remaining 60% of this show.

And now we have to talk about that bonkers story, with an ending that is going to shock a lot of people. We begin in the aftermath of the previous episode in where Wendy collapsed after hearing chatter coming from the Xenomorph eggs. She is woken up but without hearing, and surrounded by Dame Silvia, Boy Kavalier, Kirsh, and Arthur. Joe, recovered after receiving a new lung, greets his sister but is dismayed when he hears her hearing is offline. Silvia and Kirsh are sent away as her hearing is brought back, and she explains what happened. Arthur is hesitant about Wendy having this ability, but both Wendy and Boy Kavalier want her to hone it, with Wendy saying she believes the aliens "picked her" for this and she wants to be able to hear them if they are talking to her. Kavalier asks her to mimic the sounds she heard, and she does it perfectly, horrifying everyone but Kavalier (who looks on all giddy). He lets them go but tells his assistant Atom Eins that they are living in his world and not the other way around, and reluctantly allows Joe to stay.

Meanwhile, Wendy shows Joe her bedroom and her "bed," and she asks him if he is mad at her for not being able to see her when she was dying, but he counters and says he is mad at Prodigy for not allowing him to see her, and this quells the feelings a little bit. He also tells her he is here for her now, and they reminisce about watching Ice Age (2002) together. Also, Morrow is still talking to Slightly, who is still a bit reluctant about helping the cyborg, but he is expertly able to manipulate the hybrid into helping him by making the task of stealing the eggs into a moral dilemma (it technically isn't stealing if it was stolen from Morrow). Morrow is also able to get Slightly's real name, Aarush Singh, out of him. Slightly returns inside, as Kirsh and Tootles are conducting an experiment. The eyeball monster is put in a cell with a terrified sheep, and it immediately kills the sheep, takes out its left eye, becomes its left eye, and takes over the body of the sheep. Kirsh muses at this creature's intelligence, as it fixates on Boy Kavalier.

Arthur takes Dame Silvia, his wife, aside outside and expresses concern for Kavalier and the hybrids, saying that he does not believe what they are doing is science, and he still sees the children in these bodies. He wants them to keep their protocols in place as they are interrupted by Nibs, who claims she is pregnant. Dumbfounded, the two exchange a look as Silvia takes Nibs into her office to try to calm her down. There, Silvia tries to tell Nibs that she cannot be pregnant because of their makeup, and Nibs is having none of this conversation, because she angrily gets in Silvia's face while talking to a stuffed animal. Silvia has already called security and has them escort Nibs to her room, urging them to place a "Level 3" event on her and secure her in her room. Meanwhile, Joe is questioned by Eins, who tells him Wendy cannot leave the island since she is property of Boy Kavalier, and Eins also tells him that if he quits (which he threatened to do), he will never be able to speak to Wendy again. He reluctantly stays on knowing he needs to work for Kavalier now to "pay off his new lung."

Later that afternoon, Kavalier hosts Wendy for a meeting, where she laments him for cutting open the facehugger, claiming that she cannot tell what the aliens were saying, but they could not have liked it. Kavalier tries to use leverage to get Wendy to work for him too, claiming Joe can stay if she agrees to help them communicate with the aliens. Meanwhile, Morrow calls Slightly back and knowing he could not do what he asked (when he meets Tootles, who wants to change his name to Isaac, after Newton), uses his mother to get Slightly to work with him. Slightly agrees, but Morrow changes the task: bring a human to the eggs and allow a facehugger to complete its process, allowing a Xenomorph to be implanted in the human, and bringing the human to him after the facehugger falls off. Kirsh had been listening in on the conversation, getting a sense of what happened, and this comes after having a conversation with Slightly about loyalties and "hearing no evil." He watches as Wendy enters the lab and witnesses the baby Xenomorph break free from Joe's lung. It stares her down and when she repeats the chimes and chutters, it even allows Wendy to touch it as the episode ends.

Alien: Earth continues to surprise me with stellar performances, stellar story, and a twist at the end that will leave you longing for more. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.