Expanded Insights into the Alien Franchise's Biology
Hulu and FX’s Alien: Earth expanded the franchise’s biology in Episode 3 by exposing a previously unseen embryonic stage of the xenomorph.
Setting and Timeline
Set in 2120 — after Alien: Covenant but before the original Alien — Alien: Earth is the first series in the saga to take place on humanity’s home world. That timeline placement has allowed the show to probe deeper into xenomorph origins, a thread which came to the fore in the latest installment.
Episode Highlights
In the episode, the Prodigy retrieval team recovers specimens from the wreck of the USCSS Maginot and transports them to Boy Kavalier’s island base. There, Kavalier’s crew, guided by the synth Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) and supervised hybrids, begins dissections and analysis.
The team saws open an ovomorph and extracts an active facehugger. During a live autopsy, Kirsh removes a small, writhing organism concealed inside the facehugger — an embryonic creature the episode identifies as a tadpole stage.
The synthetic then submerges the specimen in a vat of water to o...