Things really start to come ahead in this week’s episode of Alien: Earth, the penultimate episode of this season. Multiple plot points end colliding, often violently, in this fast-paced episode of escape attempts and xenomorph carnage.

One such plot point was Slightly’s attempt to get Arthur and the incubating alien to the beach, where Morrow is to rendezvous with them on the beach. But of course, nothing is going well for Slightly, who has Arthur and facehugger stashed under his bed as if it were something he didn’t want his parents to discover. He naturally did a poor job hiding Arthur, and when Smee barges in and sees what’s happening, he’s a total mess. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: when it comes to the actors playing children, Jonathan Ajayi as Smee is the one who feels the most childlike, and he crushes it. Tiny details like holding onto Arthur’s hand really sell that this is a boy and a lost one at that.

Slightly is able to persuade Smee to help him, confessing everything about Morrow and his mother being held hostage and assuring that nothing bad was going to happen to Arthur. Naturally, we know otherwise, as the Xenomorph bursts from Arthur’s chest while on the beach. Slightly is furious and confused at Morrow, who assured him that no harm would come of Arthur, but clearly, that didn’t happen. So now there’s a second Xeno on the island, which is promptly captured by Kirsh and Prodigy. “Finders keepers,” Kirsh taunts Morrow before having him detained. I still wonder what his endgame is. He aided Smee and Slighty escape with Arthur, only to capture the alien himself and bring everything back to base. Seems like leaving a lot to chance, only to have the alien and the kids back where they were in the first place to begin with.

At the same time, Joe and Wendy begin their escape after the revelation of Issac’s death is made known. While they can’t find all the other Lost Boys, they are able to convince Nibs to come with them, with Curly opting to stay on the island as it’s the happiest place she’s ever felt. But in order to help facilitate their escape, Wendy elects to free the xenomorph she’s bonded with to cause a bloody distraction. Pretty cold stuff, Wendy. I was critical of the xenomorph design in the first episode, but I have to say that this one, which is a bit smaller and tends to hunch over more, looks a lot better than that one. Its greenish tint stands out from the usual black, but the H.R. Giger influence on the design is not lost whatsoever.

The trio eventually make their way to the boat, only to be ambushed by Progidy security forces, likely tipped off by Curly. But what we didn’t see coming was Nibs going full Terminator on the forces, ripping jaws off and causing bloody mayhem. This puts Joe in a bit of a bind, as the security forces are his friends and colleagues, but Wendy is his sister. Owing no allegiance to Nibs, he elects to electrocute her, short-circuiting her synthetic body, horrifying Wendy in the process. The xenomorph watched from the tree lines, but did not get involved yet, as Wendy didn’t call for it.

While a minor footnote in such a crazy episode full of chest bursters and jaws being ripped off, there was a quiet moment with the Boy Genius as he learns more about the octopus eye. He watched the creature on the security footage trap Issac for no real reason other than to have him perish, suggesting it understands the concept of causality. Kavalier asks the eyeball within the sheep if it understands what the next numbers in Pi are, with the creature slamming its hoofs down by the corresponding value. Boy is in awe, lamenting that he wishes such a creature could talk. Which, in turn, gives him the idea to try to get the eyeball into a human vessel. By cutting away to Joe after he said he had the ideal candidate, the show is strongly suggesting that’s who Boy has in mind for this next experiment. Considering both he and his sister share the surname “Hermit”, as in hermit crab, I think the show has been teasing that both of these people are destined to be either the crab or the shell, in a symbiotic relationship. In Joe’s case, he may be the shell if Progidy end up putting the octoeye in him.

Emergence was the shortest episode by a good ten minutes and was also the fastest-paced episode on the show thus far. But it set the stage for the finale, with a lot of these narrative threads coming to a head. Let’s hope that there’s some great payoffs and hopefully, some setups for a yet-to-be-announced second season.