By Juan Markos
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 09/19/2025
Alien Earth Episode 3 picks up right where Episode 2 left off, a feature I enjoy in shows. I plan to rewatch the entire series back-to-back like a long movie when all episodes are up. That’s one of the best aspects of TV shows compared to movies: they tell a more extended narrative.
In this episode, Wendy (Sydney Chandler) rushes to save her brother, Joe, nicknamed “Hermit,” (Alex Lawther) from a Xenomorph alien. She jumps into a deep cavity after him, driven by her human compassion. Wendy finds her brother trapped in a web inside a refrigerator. He warns her it’s a trap, but she doesn’t listen and sets him free just as the Xenomorph enters. They face a dead end, but the alien leaps onto the fridge. Wendy bravely stabs it from above, causing its acid to spill into the space around them.
The two siblings battle the alien, but Joe is injured and limping. They manage to corner the Xenomorph into an elevator, which shuts Wendy inside with it. Things look bleak for her, but Joe hot-wires the door, revealing the dead Xenomorph next to a dying Wendy. Has the Xenomorph finally met its match? Is Wendy becoming a version of Buffy? Will we see her face death over and over? Who knows? Joe lies weakened next to her, critically injured and possibly dying.
Meanwhile, Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) orders Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) to find Wendy. He sends Smee (Jonathan Ajayi) to locate both Wendy and Slightly. Smee finds Slightly, who hasn’t moved as instructed by Wendy. While they play around the alien eggs, they are confronted by Marrow, the ship’s makeshift cyborg captain, who is hostile towards them. They explain their situation, mentioning their friends and family, which confuses Marrow. He struggles with the idea of a machine that isn’t solely mechanical. He uploads his data onto the ship and attaches a skin-like transmitter to Slightly, played by Adarsh Gourav. Soon after, he’s confronted by Kirsh, but it seems Marrow senses him coming. Marrow leaps into a cavity, abandoning the alien eggs, and disappears. Kirsh and the Lost Boys bring back the injured Wendy and Joe. Is Joe now the property of Prodigy? Will Boy Kavalier save him, or turn him into a hybrid like his sister?
It’s Christmas for Boy Genius, and he’s excited about his presents. However, Kirsh warns him not to approach the eggs because the Xenomorph is a parasite that uses human bodies aboard the ship as hosts.
The Lost Boys are somewhat shaken from their first excursion into the real world. Nips is experiencing some post-traumatic stress from her near-death experience with an octopus-like creature. She’s questioning life and her existence, struggling with her fragile, child-like perspective. Slightly, who has been chipped by Marrow(Babou Ceesay), is now talking to him. Why doesn’t he share this with Boy Kavalier or anyone else? Marrow expresses a desire to be friends, and Slightly’s innocence leads him to fall for it.
The alien life forms are now being treated as Prodigy experiments. Kirsh dissects one of the eggs and extracts the Xenomorph, removing the parasite within it. The scene shows Kirsh introducing the parasite to Joe’s lung, which is somehow being kept alive. Joe’s body is now property of Prodigy and part of its new experiments.
Curly (Erana James) shows her dark side when she approaches Kavalier with negative remarks about Wendy, implying that she is his favorite. This indicates she’s competing with Wendy for attention. As the episode concludes, Wendy wakes up and begins to walk toward the lab where Kirsh is conducting experiments. Some of the eggs begin to hatch, causing a painful interference for her, reminiscent of the aliens’ typical connection to the protagonist. Why is Wendy affected this way? She collapses in the lab, and the episode ends—Is she dead again? Will the aliens hatch and take over?
The episode is titled “Metamorphosis,” but I don’t think it solely refers to the alien life forms. I believe it’s about how the Lost Boys are changing: Curly showing her darker side, Wendy’s connection to the aliens, and Nibs (Lily Newmark) contemplating her new life.
