Family Dynamics in 'Task' and 'Alien Earth'

Hello everyone.

It's taking it down weirdly.

TV and streaming podcast for the Alabama Take.

Looking at television through working class lenses.

Letting you know if a TV show is worth your time or if you've watched it.

Sharing our insights about each episode we discuss in the front half.

Front half is non spoilers.

We take a break.

The back half is spoilers based on the episode.

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This week on the podcast we are doing just two shows.

We are covering the second episode of Task on hbo.

Gripping drama.

If you haven't seen it, highly recommend it.

And we're also doing the middle section of Alien Earth on FX Hulu.

If you like science fiction, you can't miss it.

If you don't like science fiction.

Still some good things going on there.

We'll discuss those a little bit later on.

To help me sort through all this and to get my thoughts in order are my favorite co host Adam Morrow and Donovan Reinwald.

Here they are with me.

It's Adam and it's Donovan and it's me.

We're gonna continue our thoughts on the TV series task, not to be confused with the late 1980s cartoon series mask.

You know what I realized this week, Blaine?

A task is both the force and something you have to do.

Huh?

There's something there.

That's what the people come for.

It continues on hbo.

On the date of our recording, it's aired three powerful episodes.

We assume I'm only a degree of separation away from Mark Ruffalo.

You know that, right?

Through.

Through Dr. Matt Jones, who is down at the University of Florida.

And he has the distinction of being.

If you are watching the last season, maybe the last episode of the Wire, we spotted him, his legs a little goofed up.

He's in like a cast or something.

He's walking his dog as a teenager because he's from Baltimore and he was.

He worked with Wally Lamb for a while.

So he met Mark Ruffalo and they were doing not.

I know this much is true, but the other the Wally Lamb show.

And how do you know the doctor?

He was in my wife's PhD program.

A task is written by Brad Inglesby.

Pretty famous, I suppose, at this point for mayor of Easttown.

Also on HBO Task is Mark Ruffalo, as we mentioned, and Tom Pelfrey.

Opposite sides of the law in a Philadelphia Suburb we pointed out last week at this show is as much about family as it is about crime or crime drama.

Mayor of Easttown vibes prevalent with that.

It was as much about interpersonal relationships as it was about solving a crime.

I'd agree with that.

You know, it's the.

With great tragedies.

Right.

It's not.

It's not really as interested in the action.

Right.

As the dilemmas the action unfolds, you know, like, okay, well, I've got to bury my dead brothers, but the king says anyone who will do that will be executed.

What do I do now?

Same thing with this.

It's not the unfolding of consequences.

Such a foreboding way to chart a story arc.

The unfolding of consequences.

Is that what you said?

At least it's supping a bit from the cup of the tragic.

So far, yes.

With two episodes.

Well, three by the time we're out.

We'll sit on specifics.

Still enjoying it, though.

Thumbs up from this guy.

Did it get better for you?

Deeper, I'm thinking, because we've really almost hit the point where I was kind of wondering if some of the things that were not said in the first episode were going to remain unsaid throughout the series.

But I think we've hit the.

I'm sure there are other things to discover, but I feel like the second one really kind of laid its cards on the table with the relationships between people and especially the role of the dead, you know, in folks lives.

I was actually pleased that that wasn't teased out, but instead was yet another, like, facet on the behavior that we saw from characters in the first episode.

But it did not take forever for us to get there.

So that being said, I liked it and I think it's deepening.

I'm gonna be interested to see it come back to some of the themes of the first episode with Mr.

Task, Mark Ruffalo's character.

Wouldn't it be great if his character was Charles Task?

Charles.

Charles Task, FBI.

Name's Charles Task.

I'm here to solve crime and I'm.

Still really enjoying comp helpery.

Thank you.

I'd never.

I think I said last week he's pretty moody.

Not really.

I've not really ever seen anything that he's been in.

I think he's very good.

He is very good.

He gives a very solid, strong performance.

He seems real.

He does a good job of like, maybe this is not quite it, but someone who's almost befuddled by the circumstances in which he finds himself.

You Know, with his presumed wife or partner, leaving kids, he's got, you know, his brother's gone.

Is not.

Not that he's like hapless or anything like that, but a little over overwhelmed.

Maybe, as any of us would be.

Yeah.

So he's real.

I think the rest of it we'll save for specifics on the spoiler side of our show, which takes us to Alien Earth.

Uh, it's so funny.

Last week I kept talking about this show as if it was ending, but it has one more episode.

Sorry about that.

That may be why there's no news of a second season yet.

Anyway, sometimes they wait until the last episode's aired.

But Noah Hawley is the showrunner here.

He's no stranger to continuing a story with his own fingerprint on it, and he's doing so here with Alien Earth franchise, similar name.

Spaceship hits a future Earth, all hell breaks loose.

And that's your setup.

I am midway through.

I'm around episode five.

Still love the show a lot.

Yeah, we'll.

We'll talk about it.

Maybe in the spoiler section, the words criminal negligence come to mind at.

At various points in these episodes.

Because of the characters or that it.

Wasn'T the actions of the characters.

Yeah, I'm also enjoying it a lot.

I think one of the things that it's done through what I've seen with some degree of effectiveness is make you sympathetic for some of these extraterrestrial creatures that have found themselves upon our Earth, you know, which is a wrinkle we haven't really seen in the Alien franchise.

Agreed.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna.

It's a little different for Alien, and that's.

That's what you want.

You want a little of the same, a little of the different.

When you come into a franchise, something new.

Noah, if you're listening, because I know.

You'Re listening, this is Noah Hawley you're addressing.

This is Noah Holly.

I'm addressing.

It's Mr. Holly to you then, Mr.

Mr. Holly, whoever designs your sets, costumes, et cetera, give them about a zillion percent raise.

Whatever you're paying them, pay them double.

Yeah, I'm enjoying it.

As somebody who's seen the first Alien and think, like, it looks very much of a piece with that kind of retro, futuristic technology.

Blaine, I assume you're just enjoying it as great set work.

Right.

Like, it absolutely creates the world so quickly.

I do think it's a.

It's a great set.

It's great science fiction.

It's got themes that are interesting.

If you're a science fiction fan, you're gonna love it.

If you're a science fiction fan who likes to think a little bit about your shows or movies, you're gonna love this especially I do think that if you have critiques on characterizations are not fully developed.

You.

You may have a little problem with this one.

You could probably come in and say it's good but I'm just not connected or it's good or I'm a little bored because I don't care as much.

And that's because some of these characters aren't fully human.

Yeah, I was almost thinking too some of the characters are like archetypal is not quite the.

The right.

Is it?

But.

But like folks, this is not a spoiler.

If you look at the any episode description like the trillionaire that's funding them stuff constantly being referred to as the boy genius.

Like boy genius is like almost a type you like.

And he's almost a type of like rich disruptor person.

You know where it's like he's kind of in between.

Like he's not really an archetype but he's a little flatter because he's almost standing in for something in our society maybe.

Yeah.

He's certainly not one note but two or three note at best.

There's something to be said about that and which we may do so in spoilers.

Adam, you a quick, quick plug for sister Ray Davies.

You guys have been busy.

Before we go to spoilers, you, you've been.

Everybody order a record.

Yeah, you've been busy.

Tell us what's going on.

You got Rowan's video?

Rowan's a new single came out in the last week.

Yeah.

Good stuff.

Yep.

Another single come out in October.

Then the record comes in November.

Man, that's exciting.

Jump on board.

If you shared it with me.

I apologize but I didn't remember it.

Something I thought was really great from the Rowan's release.

That music video between like that was so cool and it looks so good for something connect.

Yeah I. I thought it was really cool.

I know it's something probably done in post or with a camera lens but it looks of a piece.

Yeah.

Well it's just genius work by this guy.

His work name is Inner Strings.

He does a lot of amazing stuff UK based guy.

But I mean he actually went to Lindisfarne and shot all of the footage that's not us is from so cool the island in question.

So.

But yeah he.

He did make it seamless I think is what you were saying, Donovan, between the two.

It was so cool, the transatlantic exchange.

Yeah.

I can say it's great because I had nothing to do with it.

Yeah.

So it almost looks like you were there.

You weren't.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

It was really neat as I think it was.

Mojo magazine had your shs to Newcastle joke locked, but it really locked and loaded and ready to go.

But to.

To see the.

Yeah, the.

The connection.

Right.

Between where y' all are and.

And what you're writing about, where you've been.

So cool.

It is cool.

Came together well.

It is cool.

It was gorgeous.

Of course, we.

We take time to praise and talk about Adam's music because he's our host, but it is good.

And you can pre order that album.

And it comes.

Adam, help me out.

Here it comes.

It's not black.

It's.

It's got like a.

You got options here.

Yeah, you get some options.

Well, the.

The standard will be a dark blue.

Yeah.

But if you order from band camp, they cooked up what they're calling a North Sea splatter.

That's the one.

Just like a green kind of thing.

I. I love that one.

I'm a sucker for those kinds of things.

I know it's not necessary for the sound.

There's big arguments that they.

You'll find some nerds who are like, oh, the only one that you want is the black one because it sounds the best.

No, there's no difference if there is.

I do not have nice enough equipment to hear it.

That's true.

And I don't.

I don't plan on purchasing nice enough equipment to hear it.

So that's.

That's my feeling as well.

Yeah.

As someone who spends a lot of time listening to high fidelity stuff in the studio, I can't really hear a difference.

And they look really cool, so.

Well, we're excited.

And you said another single in October.

Yeah.

Okay.

With a video.

Spoiler alert.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, then.

The actual album releases November 21st, 14th.

Seven days off.

Yeah.

All right.

Donovan is actually doing a full length film around the album.

So.

Do you like cats?

Do you like the ocean?

It's nice to take some time with Adam.

I know he's been busy.

He hasn't watched a lot.

He's actually going to bid a dew.

And then Donovan and I are going to break down Task.

I look forward to listening to you all once I've caught up on my.

My television.

How kind, man.

We'll see Adam later.

And then on the back half of our break is Task, episode two.

And middle chunk of alien Earth.

Up through episode five, you want to hear episodes of podcasts that you like, but they never crop up in the streams of your podcast app.

One way to fix that is to go to our podcast taking it down, leave a 5 star review, type a little note that explains why we're good, that we get television right or you like to hear what we say about TV shows.

And that helps boost us up into the podcast apps listings.

More people will see more episodes to come.

Thanks, everyone.

Okay, you hear that?

That's the music ending.

That's the sign for everyone that it's spoiler time.

It's time to discuss the second episode of the crime drama on hbo.

Task.

Mark Ruffalo.

He sits at a dinner table with his young daughter and older daughter and he hears both their arguments on why their son deserves a family member to speak at his hearing for killing their mother.

You know, this is fun times.

A sitcom.

Yeah.

Such a.

Such a normal family meeting.

They had to have a lawyer there.

They will have a lawyer.

And apparently Tom has an older daughter who from marriage.

Yes, almost a previous marriage, but it's not a previous marriage.

Yeah, the relationship seems, if I'm not misunderstanding, his daughter, not his daughter Sarah, who lives in Chicago, but his other daughter and his son were adopted.

That's right.

Their brother and sister, probably biological.

And they're both adopted.

Yes.

And it seems like based on something that she said, they were adopted.

Not as babies, but old enough.

She kind of mentions in her victim impact statement that she can describe how their life was before they were adopted.

Which doesn't sound good.

No, it does not.

No, it does not.

In fact, this episode is called Family statements.

It's good to open here you get a little bit more reason why Tom is an alcoholic, why he fills up a 32 ounce cup of vodka every day and drinks it.

I mean, my God, wouldn't you.

He's got an older daughter with a baby, she lives in Chicago.

She has to fly in.

He.

He's got her there to sit her down.

Let's talk about our son being in jail.

And oh, by the way, the son's in jail because he killed the mom.

Yeah.

Which I brought up last week.

I said I wouldn't be surprised if the son's in jail to kill the mom, the way Tom's reacting.

Yeah, you were right.

I didn't know that.

It's sad to hear.

I'm always curious about storylines with people with afflicted with mental illness.

So let me say I'm of Two thoughts here.

One is, I think there's a tendency to make people with mental illness seem very scary, whereas the truth is you're more likely to be harmed than to harm something.

If you have.

And many Americans have one.

On the other hand, I'm completely fascinated, and I don't know if they're going to explore this, but with the figure of, like, the family, the loved one, you literally.

It's not that, like, they lied to you, but, like, you can't trust them.

Not you're in the situation where you love them.

But as Emily says, I'm terrified he'll get out.

And that just seems like such a rock that's fake to be stuck in.

Yeah.

Just with this plot alone.

Much praise to the writers because.

Let's just talk about the layers.

Tom, former priest, gets married, has a daughter, then adopts a brother and sister.

Sounds like from a abusive home or at least neglectful.

Yeah, neglectful of some sort.

That son grows up to murder Tom's wife, his adopted mom, and he's in jail now, and that's kind of where we are.

But not only that, the adopted son very well, has some mental issues, likely due to neglect or abuse.

He is not the same race as Tom.

Mm.

And obviously, I thought that was a really good wrinkle brought in by Sarah, the older daughter, in anger and grief, and maybe her real feeling, saying basically, she wasn't your mother.

She wasn't really.

She could never be.

Not in so many words.

But yeah.

Oh, yeah.

She says it enough so that Tom flat out tells her, do not say that.

Yeah.

You know, we're at least in the second episode.

I think these characters are circling around.

It's an issue of forgiveness, which we've kind of talked about a couple times through different shows.

And I think the added wrinkle here is.

Is, you know, Tom, I think he's decided he's not going to make a statement.

That's his.

That's his right.

Like, that's his path.

Sarah is aghast that he might not get less than.

I think it's 15 years is the maximum.

Something like that.

Yeah.

And Emily might make a statement.

And I think they're all wrestling with the idea of forgiveness and justice and punishment.

But I think the added wrinkle here is if you forgive this guy and say, I don't hold it against you from where you came from, he might get out and he might hurt you.

You don't know.

Not that he's been created to be a villain or demonized, but you can sense this very real fear in the family members.

Smart on the show not to even show the young man yet.

Yeah, we don't even know him.

Also smart.

Tough to call a smart decision, but he didn't just have an episode and murder someone.

He murdered his mom.

Yeah.

So what do you do with that?

Well, that's up in the air, but we do get introduced to the Dark Hearts.

Huge gang and going to be a huge gang in the going forward.

So apparently this is a rival gang that.

And Robbie's been targeting them for cash specifically.

So Robbie wasn't just out to get more money.

There was a bit of recompense here.

Seems that way.

It seems that way as.

As.

Because we learn from a story what probably happened to his.

His brother Billy.

His brother Billy seems to be.

Seems to have known Jason Wilkes, that's the leader of the Dark Hearts in that area in the Philadelphia area.

And Jason Wilkes, a very tatted up Dark Hearts leader.

There were pictures of him and Robbie's brother.

So they've known each other well.

And they mentioned if, unless I completely misunderstood this, the guy who was beaten to death for a transgression.

They mentioned his name was Bobby.

And that's Robbie's brother.

Yeah.

If I remember correctly.

And then Maeve, you know, Maeve knows the names of the child that has been abducted.

The.

The parent.

The parents names.

That's right.

So I.

It seems like there.

It's.

It's very possible that Bobby was killed by the Dark Hearts.

And Sam's the kid who was taken in episode one at the very end.

Taken in.

Held in that gentle, paternal way by Robbie as he was taking him into the house.

And that's how the episode ended.

Episode two has Sam, you know, as almost a family member or at least a family friend.

We knew this was coming.

Where Maeve was going to be very frustrated.

Goodness.

There's another kid.

But she does take care of him nonetheless.

Yep.

You know, she's making him pancakes and.

And.

Or at least she's not making pancakes.

I think Robbie is, but she's helping him out.

Anyway.

He gets to pet the chicken, Gertie.

He loves the chicken.

Who.

Who wouldn't?

Yeah, I know.

It's a kind one.

Not all kind.

Not all chickens are kind.

They like to.

No, they're not.

So they're introducing characters.

I think they're doing so at a slow enough pace where it's a complex story and I think I've got it all.

Though it does have echoes of Mare of Easttown, where it really was like, the unspooling of the story was really based along the relationships of the characters to each other in good ways and bad ways.

I appreciate a well paced show, and I think the show is well paced.

While it is doing a slower job of unspooling things out, it punctuates it with like, enough, oh man, what's gonna happen now?

Moments.

Oh, yeah.

And it.

And it varies.

I think another thing it does, I think.

I think we made this, may have made it sound like overly dour, but, like, it's not just like, heavy scene, heavy scene, heavy scene, heavy scene.

Like, it does.

It has enough characters to jump around and show them interacting with each other in different ways too.

So it's not just sad kitchen table scene after sad kitchen table scene.

It's not an ignore Bergman film, guys.

But watch out for that kitchen table.

I tell you what, the.

The task force does get a tip, and it's actually Maeve anonymously, like you said, put the pieces together, and she's like, oh, wait, this is the missing child.

And she.

Her idea is to take him to the store right next to the Chuck E. Cheese type place.

She's gonna let him go in there.

She goes next door to use this iPhone that they found, call 91 1, leave a tip, jump back in the car, make sure he gets home.

But he's already coming up to the car.

Say, what could go wrong?

Yeah, he's back.

What are you doing?

What took you so long?

And she's got to get the hell out of Dodge because if she's caught with him, that's bad news.

She looks good, though.

She kidnapped.

Gonna be a lot of hard to answer questions.

Yeah.

If she's caught and she's not, luckily, she asked Sam to hide, and he does.

He's a.

He's a very behaving kid.

He's a tr.

He's a trusting little fellow.

Trusting guy.

To be put in such bad circumstances.

In the back of your head, you're like, he's not gonna go home that quickly.

Yeah.

But I thought that was actually a great piece.

Yeah, it was.

With Maeve and the task, you know, it just.

It really.

It was first off, it was exciting in itself as, like a scene, as a.

As a scenario.

And then we got to see how Maeve's mind is working.

Yeah.

And what the.

What the task force is.

Is doing or is capable of.

It seems they're able to summon resources pretty quickly now that this kid is missing.

Some true marks on high alerts, too, where the kid was you know, she.

She's got him.

She's tricked him so to speak to.

To get to the store because he's gonna get the Batman thing that he wanted to school the next day.

Yeah.

Was it for reading?

Was that the prize?

It was something like that, yeah.

He had.

His mom had promised him that he could have a Batman Lego set for.

That's what it was for doing well at school.

That's what it was.

It was doing well at school.

Yeah.

This kid, man, talk about supping from the cup of the tragic.

With Sam here, he's gonna have.

I am kind of enjoying the way.

Not enjoying, but appreciate the way that Sam's in such a place of temporary safety.

Yet his position is utterly tenuous.

Yeah.

You know, because obviously it.

It cannot stay this way.

You know, at some point they're gonna have to question do we keep him alive?

Do we keep him around cold?

Yeah.

More cold blooded person would already obviously not have brought him home.

But you can tell that Robbie is not.

Not Robbie.

Yeah, Robbie I've already completely lost.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Robbie.

Not a professional.

Gives the kid his own name, his real name, you know, Introduces the kid to his own family, you know, just not if he's gonna try anything nefarious later down the line.

He has not done a good job of setting it up.

And he's also not a professional in that when he opens the bag and finally sees that it's not money, it's Fentanyl, you know, he's really up shit creek.

Yeah.

What do you do with that?

You gotta sell it and you gotta sell it in the biggest chunk imaginable in order to.

To make any money.

I think this is kind of what I meant where he seems like a little bewildered by his circumstances.

Right.

Where I think from.

I mean, we're only two episodes in, but I.

In my opinion they did a really good job in the first episode of like, look, these guys are like, they're not stupid, but they're not like hard and kill.

You know, they're talking to peaches out in the open.

They're not hardened criminals either.

Yeah.

The show not only introduces the.

The local dark hearts leader, Jason Wilkes, but sort of the guy who watches over him.

The next up the ladder, Perry.

Yeah, Perry's the name of the character, but the actor is Jason McShane.

Yes.

Doing some good work with his eyes where he's put it simply, steely eyed.

He's.

He's staring down Jason.

No more mistakes.

You know, we can't, we can't fuck this up anymore.

And his introduction.

I don't know.

That actor really elevated the danger that can come.

I wouldn't want to mess with these.

They've done a good job of making me sympathize again, showing he's not a hardened criminal.

He doesn't really want to hurt anyone.

Yeah.

They've done a really good job of making me very sympathetic to Robbie and.

And you, like, you know, he's got kind of the classic.

Right.

Like, well, the drug, you know, it's stolen money.

Am I doing anything wrong by stealing it or.

It's illicitly got money.

Right.

So you.

You can kind of see how.

How he's justifying it to himself, for sure.

But of course, the danger, you know, by the same token, the danger so much more than that.

The law is going to get him.

Yeah.

And break his family apart.

It's that, you know, vengeance will be taken on everybody in his family.

It's a well done that.

There's family dynamics.

It's just two very different family dynamics on either side.

Yeah.

And both families navigating related losses of.

Like you kind of pointed out that first episode, Blaine.

I think that was really on the nose.

You know, Maeve's trying to fill in as a mom, his partner or her wife.

I don't remember if it's been established.

Robbie's is missing.

And then obviously we have the loss of the mother and the other family, too.

Yeah.

Not a lot for the task for task force to do, other than round up a few kids in this fake Chuck E. Cheese and have her say, well, which one's him?

Yeah.

We will return to task next week.

I feel as though episode three may be the one that busts at the seams.

You think so?

I could be.

Yeah.

There are seven episodes.

Seven.

Okay.

They're gonna be seven.

Three very well.

Could ratchet it up.

So we'll talk about that next week.

But instead, to close out our podcast episode, we're.

We're in the middle of Alien Earth, currently airing on FX and Hulu.

And like I said, I was.

I was assuming that its last episode was going to air last Tuesday when.

When our podcast had dropped, but no, it has one more.

It has eight episodes total.

And so I've watched up to five.

And what we'll do is we'll cover everything up to five, and then we'll do six, seven, eight next time you hear from us.

More detailed ideas here on this side of the spoiler segment of our podcast.

Well, you know, this show is a show that asks the question do you like things that rock?

In what way?

Well, you got to episode five, which I thought was a great centerpiece for the series, where we see what goes so horribly awry in the Maginot.

Uh huh.

It's just great.

So there's some significance in that.

It's named the Maginot.

Yes.

You want to talk about that a little bit, Being more of a war buff than I.

So the Maginot line was supposedly the unbreachable defenses that France had erected to guard against further invasion by Germany in the aftermath of the First World War.

And France found that it was woefully.

The German blitzkrieg basically completely sidestepped it.

It didn't do anything.

It didn't do what it was supposed to.

It didn't protect France.

And obviously France fell very, very quickly in the opening months of the.

The Second World War.

Yeah, they did.

And this ship's name, imagine O, which is, you know, playing on that idea that, oh, this will hold.

But no, it doesn't.

Yes, now I do.

I don't want to jump ahead too much, but I loved this episode, Episode five.

It's the easiest one for me to talk about because it was so self contained.

Yeah, it is self contained.

It's the one that goes back.

And I also believe a lot of it could have prevented.

Been prevented with the basic safety precautions of a middle school science lab.

Which is what?

Don't leave your fucking cup with no cover on it next to the unknown alien or you got no goddamn mask.

You got nothing.

Come on, people.

I wanna, I wanna back up one bit.

Yeah, yeah, let's see.

Do the hybrids, being children in adult bodies or adult synthetic bodies annoy you or ever play inconsistently?

I was afraid at the beginning that they were gonna annoy or, you know.

But as the show has gone on, I found I was not annoyed because who hates anything more than an annoying kid?

So much so that I'm actually enjoying.

Obviously some of the actors are really having fun.

Smee and Curly's relationship, where they're kind of, you know, they're friends, but they're kind of like there's a little.

There's like a little horseplay all the time with them.

Right.

It's working for me.

And I mean, well, you're around younger folks, but even then I am as a teacher, but even my 18 year olds, I'm like, they'll sometimes, you know, I'm at college sometimes they'll say kind of silly things.

I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right.

12 year olds really are pretty goofy, you know, 11, 12 year olds.

So, yeah, we're working for me.

And it also underscores just the depths of how much Cavalier doesn't care about their.

About their psyches in any way.

No, that's not their purpose to him.

And they're.

Yeah, they're.

They're, they're.

They're a test pressing, basically.

That's right.

They don't even need to survive because he's gonna.

He has.

The young lady who plays Wendy.

Yes.

Is probably the best of the.

As far as actors go, she's doing the best.

She's good.

Yeah.

What do you think, Noah, Holly's saying with Alien Earth about kids leading children and maybe even the future of that.

Yeah, with.

With.

Because that's what's predominantly.

Is in three of those episodes there, boy, Cavalier sending out the kids who've been transferred to synthetic bodies.

It made me think of.

This is way too big of a stretch.

And I don't think that this is what the show is saying at all.

But we, we do have a sort of business techno feudalism happening here.

And it reminded me of one of the points that the historian Barbara Tuckman made about the 14th century, the century of the Black Plague and the Hundred Years War and all these other things, is that in so many cases it was young people telling young people to do like.

There were almost no adults in the room.

We've got no one with a developed frontal lobe.

And I thought that's actually kind of a scary vision of the future when you have a leader who doesn't care and puts that much responsibility on children in ways that they're not emotionally or developmentally ready for.

I think the resonance there too is every, you know, every.

Like for so much of our military history, Right.

Like one of the things about Civil War, right.

Is on both sides.

How young, how really young a lot of the soldiers were.

In South Carolina, archaeologists are doing a project to.

I can't remember the name of the battle off my head.

Top of my head, but the battle from the Revolutionary War.

They've been able to pinpoint where it actually happened because they found a mass grave grave where American and British soldiers had been buried together.

They don't know much about these soldiers, but one of the things they do know is that one of them was a teenager.

You know, it's just the Children's Crusade seems to ripple throughout history and it's horrible.

I don't know how often this is happening, but with the Maginot ship, it's gone 65 years.

Yes.

That takes up a lot of adulthood time that would be spent with these kids.

Yeah.

Your whole family is gone.

We see that with Morrow.

That's right.

But your whole family is gone.

Even though you're communicating with them.

I think it's the chief engineer with his kind of clueless boy apprentice.

Says his sister's in her 90s now.

That's wild.

They haven't aged right because they're in suspension or something to survive the long trip.

But you go out knowing everyone's gonna be gone.

Well, that's right.

Well, I want to get to that Episode four observation is that's where Boy Cavalier moves from despicable to pretty hateful.

I love.

I gotta say how much.

I think, what a good job.

I think that Samuel Blinken, who plays Boy Cavalier is doing it just being like hateful, but then it's like extra things he'll do where he'll like point with his toes or something and you just want to throttle him.

Yeah.

He's being.

He's being selfish and self centered.

Very well.

He's playing Cavalier.

Well.

Yeah.

You know, there are moments even where there's a.

The series is a superhero horror show when Nibs attack Sylvia as she denies her pregnancy.

Huh.

You wonder, well, if they decide to get too angry with the adults with too angry with the humans, then what's to come of that?

I've often.

I mean, I don't know if this is going to come up, but you notice how often they're cleaning up something in the hallways.

Yeah.

And I don't know.

And we never really know what that is.

That's weird.

And I wasn't going to ask about it because I. I didn't know if you would have known.

I don't know.

Oh, wow.

But I kind of wonder if.

Are they cleaning up after other experiments?

Yeah.

Because these children are.

Obviously all they've done with them so far is tie them to them through bonds of like, loyalty and reward.

But now that Nibs is pushing the limits of that, she's dangerous and Dame Sylvia is scared of her.

Yeah.

And Joe, Wendy's brother has even ended up in a form of serfdom with his lung.

What sort of lung have they even placed in him?

Is a good question.

But Joe, he can't leave.

He has to do what they say or they'll take that lung out or Lord knows what.

Yeah.

What a horrible vision of a future society where literally everything is transactional.

Yeah.

Well, that's.

And, and how quickly are we hurtling towards that.

Exactly.

That's what I was gonna say.

Episode four, building into episode five.

Episode four is one where everyone seems to be watching or spying on everyone else.

Yeah, man.

This may.

This was the one where I mentioned.

I. I thought maybe I'm just easily manipulated.

But our.

Our character, who's literally an eye.

Our creature, I felt some real sympathy for.

For this fellow.

You know, when Kirsch is dispassionately observing him and they put us in the alien's point of view.

Yeah.

It's like, he didn't ask to come here.

He never.

We don't know what.

Or he.

I say he.

This.

This creature, it didn't ask to be brought to Earth.

It didn't ask to be stolen.

Kidnapped.

Just like, say, children are lost, boys are kidnapped.

How long did it take you to realize that the scientist married to Sylvia is the actor who played innocent Wayne lion in the most recent Fargo?

What?

Right this moment?

Yeah.

David Risdale.

But he plays Winelion in.

Oh, yeah, he does.

Huh.

That went over my head.

I did not.

Wow.

He's good, isn't he?

Yeah, I did.

I. I literally would not have told you.

I wouldn't like.

Their mannerisms are so different.

Yeah, well, I'm.

Holy.

Likes.

He used a lot of the same action.

Well, I'm.

I'm very impressed.

And he's obviously good at his job and as an actor and is maybe the only one on the island left with a functioning conscience.

Yeah.

That takes us into episode five, which is wittily titled In Space.

No one ellipses.

You know, that was the entry that went back to 17 days before the ship's crash on Earth.

And it wasn't all as immediate as it seemed when you first saw it.

Morrow had to take command.

We did see that, but he didn't do so just as the xenomorph got out.

But there was also some sabotaging of the ship that.

So that it would crash.

Per Boy Cavalier's plans, we find out.

Yeah.

A little bit more.

A little bit more nefarious because, I mean, it was fine, but I was like.

At the first episode, I'm like, ah, convenient that I hit an island in the middle of an ocean.

But without that, there would be no show now.

Well, I was going to say, but now we know it was steered to Hit Boy Cavalier's island as a character.

Although he is a kid, he did play it well where he was like, yeah, I don't know if we should send those kids.

Okay, send the kids in.

Yeah.

Yes.

It was Also an episode that took some time to explain to viewers that people who work on these ships are working class.

No doubt that's always been a feature of the Alien franchise, especially the first two.

Our first Alien, which this episode title is harkening back to the tagline for the first alien was in space.

No one can hear you scream.

These are all folks wearing jumpsuits.

They are the, the, the captain is at best middle management and not even there.

Right.

Most every.

Yeah.

Everyone's working class.

And, and representatives of the company.

Yeah.

Are.

They're, they're, they're kind of opposed to the crew.

Maybe opposed isn't the right word, but set aside from right, who else is.

Going to take away 65 years of their life?

Some of them away from family or brothers and sisters, and they're doing so together.

Dangerous specimens for a corporation that doesn't give a damn about them.

It's reminiscent to me of any kind of labor you see in our world.

Mining, the labor you saw in the Industrial Revolution.

Chemical plants today, factory work before it all jetted overseas.

Smelting plants up until 10, 15 years ago.

Yeah.

The product is irreplaceable.

The workers, we can always get more of them.

That's what we see in, you know, Mother.

The, the controlling computer has the orders obviously in there that the crew is absolutely expendable.

All that matters are the specimens.

Do all the ships in Alien franchise call it Mother?

Yeah.

Oh, didn't know that.

Yeah.

But you know what episode Fun, Fun Throwback, Episode 5 was an action packed episode that managed to make room for those interpretive moments of the crew pining for companionship or family long gone since they departed.

Even.

Even to the extent of the synthetic member of the crew having some like.

He will not stop staring at this one crew member.

That's creepy as hell.

It is really creepy.

But it's also the kind of like loss in isolation in space so bad that even the robot caught it.

I really wanted someone to punch him.

Mr. Terry.

Mr. Tang.

Tang.

That was what it was.

Yeah.

Mr. Tang.

That's okay.

He, he, he got taken out.

He did, eventually.

I'm not so sure that they're, you know, I'm gonna judge what's there, but if the show continues or if there's another movie, I think there's a lot to examine with, you know, pining for companionship or, or needing disappearing from Earth for 65, 70 years.

That's impactful and I think that it makes the xenomorph scares.

It could make them less Scary or more meaningful.

This is something that.

Going from the first Alien movie to Aliens.

There's just one.

Basically in one sentence there's a bit that makes.

Takes advantage of this to recontextualize what RIPLEY has experienced by being essentially lost in space for that long.

Yeah.

So it's, it's, it's there for sure.

Okay, good.

So Morrow has a family and he's a cyborg.

Yeah, he's a cyborg.

What do I.

Is that a possible thing?

So we got the explanation at the beginning of the series.

Right.

Synthetics are fully artificial human beings.

The hybrids are.

You know, they've downloaded a brain into a robot body.

Yeah.

This is, this is an augmented human being.

So it's still his body, but he's got.

Basically we see he's got like a multi tool in his hand.

Yeah.

Something's been built into there and he.

Is very loyal to.

It's a double name corporation.

And I'm forgetting Wayland Yutani.

Exactly.

Yes.

Because when he returns to them, that's one of the final scenes of episode five.

He talks to the granddaughter because he's been gone so long.

Right.

Really sadly.

Right.

It's like for Morrow it's like, it's obviously all he has at this point.

So is his steely eyed loyalist ways to the corporation also something that they implant?

That's a good question because I think it seems like it's coming from personal loyalty.

But I've been a little interested at how they're gonna examine this because other thread going through this series.

It seems like these synthetics are a little off the le.

Yeah.

You've got Mr. Tang who's like, you know, you, you expect like you just program a robot and it does whatever.

But you got Mr. Tang who will not stop staring at someone.

Kirsch is doing his own thing on the.

You know, he seems like he's got his own agenda.

Yeah.

I think that everyone's have less control than they think they do.

I've got three episodes left, but for now that I think that with the exception of Kirsch due to Timothy Oliphant's fascination.

Fascinating acting.

That the ship related stuff is more interesting to me.

Yeah, well, I think this stuff was more too.

It kind of benefited from being almost a little.

Almost part of a TV show.

But being self contained.

Yeah, it was, in a way.

Yeah.

And it had.

And it had great action set pieces and great, you know, creature feature stuff.

Yeah, it did.

And some really, some really gross moments.

Compared to the episode before which had A lot of the adolescents in their new bodies kind of saying that they are adolescents in new bodies.

Yeah, I think you can read something like, this is not original to me.

Right.

But like, for example, the X Men is a really great metaphor for like being a teen.

Right.

You hit puberty, you get these powers you can't control.

And so I kind of liked it because it's like, yeah, they're adolescents and brand new bodies.

Because all adolescents are adolescents and brand new bodies.

So they're.

These guys have that, but these poor kids have that but times a thousand.

And are they ever going to be able to grow up into their new bodies?

We don't know anything about their brains.

Their brain.

I mean, they're in a synthetic body.

Sympathetic bodies can't grow or develop.

Yeah, it works on me.

These kids are so sad.

It's like, it's.

And the way they've been used is like, is.

Is.

Is so sad.

Yeah, it works on me.

Just honestly, in the same way these specimens have been used.

Yeah, you're right.

The specimens do get more emotional pull than you would have expected going in.

I think part of it helps for me is that Kirsch looks like he is just analyzing every single person the same way.

Like, he's such a dispassionate specter.

Having the children be under that gaze and then putting the eye creature.

We know that it's intelligent under that same gaze.

You know, it's kind of like.

Okay, I get it.

You mentioned the creature attacks the xenomorph.

Yeah.

Which is.

That was very interesting.

I'm curious to see what's gonna happen.

Man, I tell you what, folks.

If you are.

If you do not have a strong stomach when the sheep comes onto the.

Yeah, when the sheep comes on.

Yeah, I remember you mentioning that.

And it was rough.

And it's sad too, right?

Because what's more innocent than.

So I.

This is my little breakdown.

I thought it was fantastic.

Because what's more innocent than a sheep, right?

Sheep can't really hurt anyone.

And we see this sheep really hurt in a really horrific way.

And then it turns and this thing, it knows it's being looked at.

It's watching.

And all of a sudden it's like, we don't know what this thing.

Like this thing was brought here and forced to go into that sheep.

This.

This creature didn't do anything.

It was all.

Use a sheep as a specimen.

You are directly acknowledging its biblical reference.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's what I was.

I was thinking too.

It's a.

It's a.

Literally, it wasn't a lamb, but it's a sacrificial lamb.

Well, sure.

Curse still gets the best lines saying, you know, Arush asks him, is this some kind of test?

And he's that's what adulthood is.

Solid test.

Good food for thought.

Very good food for thought.

This is the end of our episode for Adam and Donald, and I'm Blaine, and we hope that you pass all your tests this week.

How about that?

Talk to everyone next Tuesday, just in case you're wondering.

Wrapping up Alien Earth.

Next episode of Task, which would be for us, episode three.

And maybe an extra thing, but.

But we'll hold off on that.

See everyone later.