Metamorphosis is a pretty apt name for the third episode of Alien: Earth, signifying some sort of change. There’s been quite a bit of change that happened this week, as the episode pulled back from monster mayhem and back into the intrigue and scheming of the corporations.

The main thing the episode’s title is likely referring to is the change in Wendy. After finding her brother, Wendy eventually goes toe to toe with the Xenomorph, armed with nothing but her little sword. The fight in question happens behind a barred door, so we don’t know exactly how an untrained child killed “the perfect organism”, but the end result was a decapitated Xenomorph, and a very injured Wendy and Joe. Both siblings need some level of aid to get better: Wendy needs a type of reboot, while Joe ends up needing a lung transplant. But Wendy wakes up having some sort of psychic connection to the xenomorphs. Why remains unknown, as to what significance it’ll have on the plot, character, and Prodigy as a whole.

While undergoing her reboot (for lack of a better term), Kirch has become the head of the collection alien division after he told Boy Kavalier of the danger for organics to be near these creatures, specifically citing the xenomorph eggs opening near living creatures. To get a better understanding, Kirsch operates on the egg and pulls out a facehugger. After knocking it unconscious, he then operates on the facehugger (goo!) to reveal that the creature has a larval stage and that it isn’t very picky about the type of host it goes for, as it quickly bursts into Joe’s old lung, which was hanging in a vat with artificial pumping keeping it going. Can a facehugger incubate a xenomorph in isolated organs? Or will they transplant the lung back into him? Can they metamorphose from the larva stage? Why does Wendy seem to have a connection to said larva, as her brain goes into overdrive when the larva is being extracted from the host, causing her to faint in pain. What did happen behind that door?

The most interesting aspect of the episode came with Morrow, though, I’d say. The cyborg (played by Babou Ceesay) is quickly becoming the most interesting character on the show, and his dedication to his job seems pretty obsessive. He reveals to Simply that he, too, used to be a father and tries to gain the boy’s trust. He’s suspicious of this Synth, which refers to its own parents in such a natural way that it seems very unsynth-like. While Morrow is very much trying to get back Yutani’s property (with Kirsh telling him, the ship landed on their side of the fence, so it’s ours now), I think he also now wants to try and learn more about the mystery project Prodigy is working on and appeals to the child’s own wisdom; that there’s value in friendship. Very curious to follow this thread.

Elsewhere in the episode, we see Curly vying for the favour Wendy receives from Kavalier, highlighting that Wendy operates on a more selfish basis, while she is driven more by the desire to learn and better herself, which in turn benefits Kavalier and Prodigy. Kavalier waxes poetic about the name of his own company, emphasizing that to be a prodigy, one must be a child from the get-go, referring not only to the hybrids but likely how he views himself. Nibs is going through some serious PTSD with the whole hybrid situation and seems to have a fear (or fascination) with the eyeball monster that almost got her last week. Lastly, worth noting is that the cleanup man shows up again, spraying down the walls of Neverland. I wonder if this will lead to any sort of major reveal, or if this will be a metaphor for the hubris of Prodigy itself, that despite how clean it looks, there’s always filth coming back up, or something to that effect. The episode ends with yet another needle drop, this time courtesy of Metallica’s Wherever I May Roam, which feels like the most appropriate song for the show thus far, and it’s also a certified banger.