August 27, 2025 • 55 mins
What’s that noise? OH, the baby was crying…wait, the baby? Jason and Rosie are continuing their coverage of Alien: Earth with episode 4 “Observation”, where we learn more about Wendy’s superpowers and the reality of her personhood now that she is company property of Prodigy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Warning. Today's episode contains spoilers for Alien Earths Episode four,
Free the Aliens. Hello, it was Jason Concepcion and I'm
(00:28):
Rosy night and welcome back to x Ray Vision of
the podcast. We we dive deep at your favorite shows, movies,
comics of pop culture, coming to you from iHeart. We'll
breathe three episodes a week, plus news on Saturdays.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
In today's episode, we are exploring Aliens Haunting. Fourth episode,
Haunting Haunting. It's going to make you ask some questions.
You've got to be asking a lot of questions about
the ethics of this technology on many different levels. So
let's dive in a lot to talk about this time around.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Okay, Alien Earth Episode four Observation. Wendy is waking up
after collapsing at the end of episode three. Dame and
Kersh are discussing her, but she can't hear them. They've
turned off her hearing, so she's not affected by whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
In immediately horrific situation. Yes, I kind of makes you
realize what they can do to you if you're in
one of these bodies.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So Kersh has figured out basically that Wendy is hearing
signals emitted by the xenomorphs she can hear, basically, she
can hear them, and he tells this to boy Genius
as boy Genius comes in the lab, but Boy Genius
is like, yeah, I figured that out already, kersh the
(01:48):
fuck of course, cursh jesus, I'm a boy genius. Get name, buddy,
uh And he's like, speaking of stuff and expectations, why
aren't you in the lab doing the job that I
fucking assigned to you? Now get out of here, And
then he rips on Dame saying, like, stop treating her
(02:09):
like a baby. She's a billion dollar synthetic prototype. And
everybody leaves until it's only Arthur, who who we found
out of this episode is Dame's husband. Shocker, did not
see that, did not see any chemistry between these two,
until it's only Arthur, Curly and boy Genius. Then Joe
(02:30):
comes in yep, and they you know, he's very obviously
worried about Wendy, and they're like, well, she can't hear
you right now, we turned off her hearing. And by
the way, i'm your boss, why are you acting like
you shouldn't be respecting me? And you're like worried about
your sister? And you're not showing me the proper me boy, genius,
(02:50):
your employer, your proper deference.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I'm like Joe, I don't know if he's seen like
a human boss for a long time. Bro, his boss
is little just y faceless robots, so he might not care.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
And like, as if to underline the point, is like,
by the way, how's the new lung I made you?
How's that breathing? How's that thing taste? Your other lung?
Your old lung? You're never gonna guess where it is.
It's in a vat right now, being used to as
a nest for a baby chest burster. And Joe realizes
now that the alien specimens are in the building and
(03:24):
he thinks this is crazy, as we all do. Arthur
and the crew slowly like bring up Wendy's hearing and
Joe tells her about oh, I underwent surgery, but he
doesn't really go into the new lung and all that stuff.
He very he downplays it severely, and he asks Wendy, like,
what happened. She says that after the fight with the
(03:46):
alien and she was brought back kind of like in
a state of suspension, some sort of like robot coma.
She's brought back to Research Island, but then she woke
up and heard the call of the aliens. She went
down to where she was hearing it and was lab
workers was experimenting on the aliens. And she then refers
to the chest Burster as the baby and says the baby.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Was screaming the baby.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So listen. One thing I love about this episode is
the way it made empathized with these terrible, horrific creatures.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Absolutely insane twist I did not see coming this episode,
but it actually makes so much sense because when we
actually look back at how whailing Utani, from what we've seen,
have used the creatures and have constantly been hunting them down,
and then someone like Michael kind of tried to create
a different version of them to you know, terror, kind
(04:43):
of terror formed the earth that he would take them
to like it. They have been being exploited throughout by
whaling Utani, which is just a crazy thing to say
because they're also monsters.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Void Genius is like so so happy. He is like
absolutely rock hard at this new discovery that his billion
dollar prototype is talking air quotes, talking to aliens, or
at least hearing an alien talk to it, and yeah, sure,
(05:15):
it causes her extreme pain and distress and locks up
her body.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Who fucking care to think of the diet foddy, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
It's a fa and Joe. So, Joe and Arthur are
like when she's like, oh, it caused me pain, They're like, yeah, yeah,
we'll stop that happening. And He's like, what stop it?
Are you kidding?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Why?
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Why would we stop it? Yea, her whole body belongs
to Prodigy, Like what are you talking about? Wendy settles it.
Wendy's like, wait a second, I want to I want
to continue to hear them, like I want to know
why they're speaking to me, Like what do they want
to say? And so they test her hearing and when
you find out that the alien signal is spread out
(05:54):
across like multiple frequencies all the way up to like
the highest ranges of Wendy's k ability, way way beyond
human hearing, like and and even I can't hear it
like other synthetics apparently can't hear it. Yeah, which raises
this question of did the aliens figure out a way
(06:14):
to tailor the frequency and the signal and aiming at Wendy?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Huh? Okay, I like that. I like that read a lot.
Let me. There was a really great discord theory about
this that was kind of blowing my mind. So it
was Josmick One who said, maybe if boy Cavalier worked
for whalen Utani when he was on his meteoric rise
(06:47):
to the top, perhaps he could you know, have gotten
like he has some of the goo, you know, and
if he touches the goo that we've seen, the black
goo that you kind of get from alien promethe, maybe
that was used in creating this version of the hybrid,
and that might be why they can hear Is there
(07:09):
some kind of alien wailan U Tanny connection here, because
it does seem weird the eight that Wendy can hear
it and nobody else can, even the other hybrids.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I guess we would need to know if there's because
it seems to me, like Wendy is, there's no organic
material in in Wendy like.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I don't not. From what we know so far, these
are alleged completely synthetialies.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Boy Genius asked Wendy to can you just like whistle
the sound like but obviously in a register we can
all hear it? She does it, Curly's jealousy is ignited
fanned by Boy Genius is like, aha, can you do that?
I wish as something such. I absolutely love pitting the kids,
like obviously it's terrible, but like.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Me too, and I also feel like I feel no,
it's it's great to watch. And I also hope that
Kylie will become part of Boy Genius's downfall. That was
like my biggest wish because he sucks. He's so so
good at sucking this actorate act that he's doing.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So yeah, this is Boy Genius's boy Cavaliers like villain
toured to force, Like this is some of the best.
I haven't felt this way about a villain in a
little bit like this was a he's a great villain.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I know it does. It was it was hinting at
Jeoffrey level.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's there.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I was like, it's not that yet, but it's if
you had the seasons, if we get more than I
feel like it could build up. He really he's a
he's a bad guy.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
A bigger, much bigger fan of the xenomorph than than boys,
which is, you know, thematically very alien. Okay, so you
know A Joe is like, hey, can we give Wendy
a break. She's very tired. He's like, she doesn't get tired,
she's android, but like, but then he eventually agrees, Okay,
let's give her a break. But you can tell like,
He's like, let me, let me put a pin in
(09:06):
that little conversation between me and Joe, who I don't like.
Boy Genius then asks Lobot for his opinion about what's
going on. Lobot is like, well, we must ask why
the hostile aliens are trying to speak to Wendy. Yes,
of course, Wow, Lobot, is that why they pay you
the big bucks? What incredible? And then Boy Genius tells Lobot, Lobot,
(09:30):
go tell Joe to remember who signs his fucking paycheck, okay,
and who owns the peace on his partent, I.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Don't know if Joe's can't pay that much pay I think.
I don't know if he's gonna give up Mossy for that.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Let's take a quick break to pay our bills and
we'll be right back. And we're at Wendy shows Joe
(10:06):
around her room and they're catching up a little bit.
Wendy wants then wants to know, Hey, Joe, are you
mad at me for, you know, for wanting to hear
the aliens and for you being tricked into thinking I
was dead? And He's like, no, I'm not mad at you.
I'm mad at all the people that lied to me.
I'm mad at Prodigy for lying to me. I'm mad
at Prodigy for not I'm mad at the fact that
(10:29):
they made it so hard for me to see you
and Dad when you were in the hospital. And Wendy
really can't seem to get her head around that Joe
wasn't able to come see her, but there was apparently
a war on which was the first we've heard of this. Yeah, interesting,
and he's among other issues. It just made it difficult.
(10:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I really like that Wendy is stressed out about this
because like in her mind, she wanted to get to Joe,
so she just got to him, you know, like with
us kind of and that understand like as a child,
she doesn't really understand like how he couldn't kersh uh.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Watches the tapes of Morrow. It's just getting more information
on the former security chief of the Magineo. Meanwhile, boy
Genius and we have to talk about this. Boy Genius
is reading Peter Pan on his podcast. Does he have
a podcast? He's sitting in front of a mic, a
nice mic, apparently a.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Pod a podcast, And also like why this one read
another book? My guy?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Well, you know what it was. I put this in
the group chat, but it is this is the episode
where I realized, Oh, what they're doing is Peter Thiel's
like obsession with Lord of the Rings and naming all
his differ free companies Palenteer a little bit uh, and
I forget what the other ones. It's like Pialenteer is
(12:05):
the currently most currently most well known one, but like
I think it's oh yeah, also Anderil and Mythrill. And
it's like, I think this is clearly that this is
like a version of oh, this very powerful man has
taken the exact wrong message from this very.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Popular fac series exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
I would just love to know more about Boy Genius podcast.
Very funny to me.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Are they going to release an episode as a special edition?
I would I want to know camera.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I want to like when it goes to the two shot,
I want you to see like Lobot sitting in the
other chair with a with his with his like baseball
cap on like backwards, very basic questions of like boy genius. Okay,
So boy Genus is doing his pod which again we
(13:04):
can't talk we can't talk enough about. Slightly is out
in the jungle with Moro talking in his head, and
Morow is basically like, here, okay, listen, you need to
go grab an alien egg and bring it to me.
Go get it. It's not stealing if you're worried about that,
because it is itself is stolen from me. I am
(13:26):
the rightful owner. You will only be returning stolen property
to its rightful owner, their owner. Therefore, this is the
right thing to do. And then to build this as
the grooming continues to build this relationship on a stronger foundation,
Marrow tells Slightly his real name, Kume Moro, and then
(13:47):
asks him his name, and his name is Rush and
he's from India. A Rush finds Kersh in his room
in a Rusha's room. Kersh is looking at this the
you know, the see no evil, hear, no evil speak,
no evil monkeys carved. He's like a carving of that
on his wall, and he's like, do you know what
(14:07):
this means? And they discuss the historical and ethical questions
at the heart of this saying, and basically what Kirsch
wants to know is, would slightly, Let's say I'm going
to do something bad. He says so slightly, I'm about
to do something that's going to hurt somebody, would you
(14:29):
stop me? And Tomorrow meanwhile, was whispering and slightly sad
like begiful, and then slightly says I would stand up
for my friends, which Kirsh says is the right answer,
although I'm still not sure how that connects to I
guess he's basically Kirsch's basically saying, be loyal. You didn't
see anything, you didn't hear anything, you don't say anything,
(14:52):
be loyal to the.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
People that made I think Cash's like I think Cash
she's getting like curious. I think that at the beginning
of this season he was very much like do your job,
like get things done. But I think that the arrival
of the different types of alien species and the way
that the kids are reacting to them, I think he
is finding his own curiosity again rather than this kind
(15:15):
of just acceptance of the boy genius. Once I felt
like this was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
As a burseoning potential alliance between the Synthetics and the
aliens against meat against humans. I saw this as basically saying,
when the rubber hits the road, who are you going
to listen to the others who are like you the synthetics.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
And me or.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Meat sticks like boy Genius Cavalier and Arthur and the
rest of them going to be loyal to if you
see me, let's see you say you see me put
my hands around Boy Cavalier's neck.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Right right, You're going to be a gon't be saying.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
In the lab, curse continues with these experiments. They expose
the sheep horrendously to the eye, and the eye attacks
it and pulls out the sheep's eye and then hacks
into its nervous system and is now using the sheep's body,
which I think remains somewhat alive right or maybe dying quickly, but.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Like like it's definitely the kind it's almost kind of
like the the Corterceps style, like it's taking you over.
It takes over your brain, but your body can still function. Also,
I have to say, this is going to sound really silly,
but I never the iyapus. I didn't expect the eye
to be such an important part. I thought that was
just how I lived. I didn't realize. So I thought
(16:44):
this was a really inventive and clever way of adding
a new type of creepy alien to the species.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yes, and one wonders, like how related it is to
the original black goo species various black goo created. Yeah,
Boy Genius again is like, you know, it's another rock
hard moment for Boy Genius. He's like he can't believe
what he's seeing.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
You can't believe this. He's like, this is incredible.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Kursh can tell from the brain wave readout that this
is a very very intelligent creature, very very smart, and
he studies it through the glass, moving around, like looking
at it from different angles. Lobot is like, you know,
if those things get out, and Boy Genius is like, great,
who cares, Like, we let's take the risk, no reward
without risk if it escapes to escape, like, we'll be careful.
(17:35):
But this guy is insane sight and and this is
really where you kind of feel that first, like, oh,
could Kursh could curseh And some of the synthetics say,
what's happened to the aliens is what happened to us
and this is bad and the aliens don't want to
(17:56):
kill us. They and they never try to hug our
faces or attack us. Well, NIBBs would disagree, but and
you know, maybe the time has come to free ourselves
of these human meat puppets. Boy Genius locks eyes with
the creature and like whispers stuff to a very very
creepy he wants.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
The funny thing is, I think, like I wonder if
boy Genius even has a tiny in the back of
his mind, like an itch on the back of his brain,
because I feel like, in this moment, like he's trying
to act like he has a connection with the creatures,
but it's like really clear that he doesn't. Yeah, whereas
we can see the sense and the hybrids, there's some
(18:36):
kind of connection that I.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Don't know that he is aware enough to see the
possible tensions brewing around him with the synths and these aliens.
But I do think, on a very cynical level, I
think that he heard I think he heard Curse say
this is a very very smart creature, and all of
a sudden, Boy Genius like wants to connect with it exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Oh my god, that's such a good point. Yeah, he's
still looking for that conversation.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Arthur takes Dame to a quiet spot outside the labs,
and all of a sudden, he has some very very
serious concerns about everything they're doing, most pressingly the alien
species now on this island, Like what can they do?
What are the dangers? We don't know? He's also concerned
(19:29):
that whatever the Lost Boys are supposed to be doing,
And this is interesting, how did you read this? Because
he's basically like, apparently the Lost Boys are built for
a purpose that we don't understand, right, we don't actually
know what the product line is designed to do. He
but Arthur seems very concerned that they're not ready to
do whatever it is that they are going to be
(19:49):
marketed as doing.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah, I wonder if it was like I just wonder
if he is upset because this is like not what
they're supposed to be doing. And I felt like when
they were talking about Prodigy, the name of it and everything,
the idea was going to be the brain body situation.
(20:12):
Then you can essentially have them just living in your
house as your child or as your relative who died.
But Boy Genius basically turned them into weapons the first
moment he had the chance, when they still had you know,
ten year old brain going inside their heads. So I
don't know, but yes, Arthur Dame definitely arguing married couple
(20:35):
at the center of this hilarious.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Now this brings up some interesting I think. Yes, so
they were talking about this, if this technology existed, and
you could upload people into a fully functioning synthetic body
and the and when you speak to it, it has
all the memories and the personality basically of the person.
If that was possible, I think it would be. I
(21:00):
don't think that you could legally call that a person.
You certainly couldn't call it the same person. Like let's
say it was a wendy situation where they died and
then you brought them back as this.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah, I think it's you would basically just say they're
an upload of a quncient.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
You'd have to classify them as something completely different, like
I think legally, Like imagine a situation in which they
upload you, but then the doctor runs into the room
where you're on the table and says, actually we were wrong,
Like you don't have stage four cancer. You're gonna live.
So now that both of you are alive, okay, you
could classify that other synthetic as like a different you know,
(21:38):
Jason two. But Jason two is still going to want
all Jason one's things. It's going to live in my house.
It's gonna want my dog, it's gonna want like all
the relationships that I have.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
And is that why they've only been making these with
femininely ill kids.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I think yes, because obviously if you do it to
a living person, it's the problems are severe and very
and very disruptive, and so legally, I don't think you
could call these I don't think you could call a
synthetic person a person. Like if it, I think you'd
have to call it a synthetic person. They'll invent another class.
But the other thing I was thinking is like, like,
(22:12):
what do you even let's say that technology did exist.
I don't even know what all the uses forget the
fact that like ethically and Morley to make these things,
it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
All the uses that I come up with that you
that you could use like now today, like right away,
are terrible. It's it's basically like, okay, you train it.
You take a highly trained Navy seal, right that you've
spent fifteen million dollars training them, You upload their consciousness
into these bodies, and then you send those out to kill.
And now the guy the Navy seal doesn't get PTSD
(22:47):
and doesn't get injured, and you just send these things
out to die. Die die, die die. That's one version.
Version two is like some sort of basically a haircut
of that's like some sort of like slave labor. You
take like highly skilled like mechanists and engineers and you
send them to do like crazy dangerous jobs like on Mars. Yeah,
which is like basically a blade runner or and this
(23:11):
is I'm sorry that this is what I thought of.
Let's say you get like a high value prisoner, you
upload their consciousness into a body so horrific, and that
body is not a person, does not have legal human rights.
You can torture that version of the person all day
and night until it dies. It should get like the
(23:34):
information you need. I think like those are like the
applications that I immediately come up with, and they're that.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
It's horrific but true. And I also think that you
make a really interesting point because also we've seen how
they can turn off Wendy's hearing and they can turn
it back on again, so I'm sure they can probably
also play with pain receptors and nervous systems spies probably.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
I think they would be incredible spies. You know, you
send them behind any you don't care if they get captured.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
You also can't tell physically again, kind of like it
was with Ash in the first Alien movie and onwards.
You can't tell that they are synthetic or that they
are not hybrids, you know, so that they are hybrids.
So I would say definitely, spy, assassin, any kind of weapon.
I'm also interested in the name of the company being Prodigy,
(24:24):
them only being able to do this to kids, and
obviously boy genius. There is some kind of thing about
the idea of like youth and how you can save youth,
and is there even a way I wonder, Okay, listen
to this for a crazy one. What if what they're
really trying to do is they do this version of it,
(24:46):
But what if there's a different version where they can
take an old person's consciousness, transplant it into a kid's
body and a kid's brain, and then put the kid's
brain into the machine. Because how you really need to
help old people extend their lives. So I'm interested to
know if there's a version of it where you are
(25:08):
kind of essentially.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Like a swap.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Us like a swap so that the kid becomes You.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Even need to take take kid's mind out, though you
could just like just write over it, you wouldn't I guess.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, no, that's what I mean, just right over that
and then you put it into the body, you know.
So I'm like, I'm intrigued because I feel like, to
really make this profitable, it's either weapons or life, kind
of making your life longer. And even though obviously lots
of people do have sick kids, the real people who
want to make their lives longer are these kind of
(25:43):
obsessive men who feel like they have this huge thing
that they have to keep working on and they must
always be able to stay as youthful as possible. So
I feel like the real money is in getting adults
brains into those bodies, which we know they say their
brains are too rigid. So I'm also interested in how
they are planning to make that work because I feel
(26:03):
like that has to be part of the money.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yeah, I feel like obviously you would send them to
do very dangerous things, but I guess I then would
need to understand like the cost proposition of how much
these cost like if you just.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Throw a billion human into space, yeah you can, it
doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Right, you can send one of these to like go
study the sun, right you know.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah exactly, But but like how much money are you
making from that? And how much money did it cost?
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, so it'll be interesting to see what these you
used to for. My sense is probably like war.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, war, I think is your number one. Right.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
They're probably gonna use these as his foot soldiers or something,
although what is the cost per unit? Like if each
body costs a billion dollars, then it's like why I
even do it? Just use poor people like they've been
doing for years. Anyway, Arthur basically says to Dame, listen,
I want us thinking about contingency play. These aliens are here.
(27:01):
The stuff with the Lost Boys is going in different directions,
like if this all goes sideways, we need to think
about getting out, okay yeah, And Dame is like, hey, yeah, yeah,
it'll be fine.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Nibs, she's not a serious passon, and like she has
not realized the seriousness of her situation until late.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Well, she's about to realize it now. NIBBs walks up,
and NIBBs is acting weird.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Which honestly normal day for Nibs. But she's obvious she's
always been struggling. Yeah, she's with this more than the others.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Listen, she's the she has the mind of a young person,
and she's been severely traumatized by both the process that
she's undergone that put her in this new body and
everything she's seen in the last few days. So she
comes up and she's like, I'm pregnant for real, Like
for real, for real, I am a baby. I'm gonna
have a baby. And Dame smartly plays along because when
(27:54):
Arthur's like, that's impossible, you don't have you're not a person.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Nibs I would.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Say, she doesn't get violent, but you could. She reacts
very negatively, and so Dame smartly plays along and she's like,
come to my office, let's talk privately. They go to
the office and NIBBs is like, very, very dedicated to
this idea that she's going to have a baby. And
by the way, she understands how babies are made, the
(28:21):
physical and biological process, and she's not at all convinced
that you need to go through all that to have
a baby. She's because she is having a baby. And
while all that stuff didn't happen. She's having a baby,
So what are you gonna do about it? Dame? The
penny drops for Dame that this whole project that they've
been working on is like rushing along without any kind
(28:43):
of heed to the potential consequences or disruptions that are
now happening. NIBBs then gets, you know, Dame, I think,
tries to be like, let's reason with you, Hey, would
you like to see the blueprints of your body?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
No, that's not what she needed.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Becomes violent now and NIBBs is super strong, as are
all these kids, and you know, puts her. She just
does not want to and she continues, she doubles down.
She's like, it's a girl, I think the baby, and
I'm going to name it Clarissa. And we get these
flashes of memories and we realize that NIBBs is haunted
by the confrontation with the eye creature in the lab
(29:20):
and that was horrifying, horrifying, and she doesn't it's so
horrifying in fact, that she does not want to talk
about it. She doesn't want to talk about She will
rather talk about anything else. She violently does not want
to talk about it. Like, she grabs Dame around the
neck and Dame plays it off, goes up, presses a
panic button. Guards show up, and then she's like, oh
(29:43):
my god, Nibs, I forgot I have a meeting with Boycovalier.
I have to go now bye. Yeah, the guards will
show you to your room, and NIBBs leaves with one
of Dame's stuffed animals, and Dame then pulls one of
the guards aside and says, we have a level three
security event. You know what that means, which I think
probably means we're wiping Nibs.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yes, that's what it feels like to me, is like
we're getting rid of her. Like whatever that means.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
She's gone, yes, we're gonna hold down the start button
for five seconds and then enter reboot mode, control all delete. Yes.
Joe goes to see Lobot for that meaning, and Lobot
is like, listen, that's what you got to understand. Wendy's
not your sister. That's a synthetic body with the brain
waves that are modeled on your sisters. Also, you work
(30:28):
for me. Also, everything you've seen and heard, even the
air you are breathing right now, is the intellectual property
of Prodigy Corporation, and Joe's like, well, I don't work
here anymore. Quit and well it says, okay, you can
do that, but that means you can never talk to
any of your friends that you made in.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Your your peers who you spent months and.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Wendy you will never speak to her again because she
is lockstock and barrel, the property of Prodigy Corporation. And
also like, what's up with that lung that we make
that we grew you?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Yeah, whonder where that came from?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So you can leave, but your credit score is going
to get nuked from orbit and will never be the
fucking same.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
So it's gonna be worse with that ever of mine
or something.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
I mean, if the class stuff really comes through in this.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, I also want to say, like, I think that
a lot of the stuff they've been exploring in this
show is quite broad and you can kind of read
into it however you want to read into it. But
this moment and the context of like the lung and
the new lung, and how having your body directly connected
(31:38):
to the corporation that you work for is really dangerous,
and how if you can't pay off medical debt then
you can end up with bad credit that would ruin
your life. Noah Hawley's being very direct here. This is
this is less a analogy than it is a direct comment.
And I think that's really exciting vibe And Yes, Common,
(32:00):
One of my favorite films I show with super producer
Common is Repo the Genetic Opera. It is definitely giving
that the idea that you could kind of reclaim a
lung or an organ that you didn't pay for. Yeah,
very very bleak stuff. And I kind of love that
Lowboy is the one who's giving these out as well,
(32:23):
Like boy Genius really just does not handle his own
business in any way, shape or form. This man is
like thinking about Peter Patten. Everyone else is doing the
damage control.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So Joe then wants to kind of change the subject.
He's like, Okay, well is that my sister? What did
you do? Or like what was the process? Like? Tell
me about it? And love that is, Like, well, first
of all, are you in or out? Like are you
do you work for us or not? Like are you
quitting and ruining your life or not? And by the way,
(32:55):
your sister, Wendy quote unquote or quote sister, she is
one hundred the property of the Project Corporation.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
It does look whether she is real or isn't real?
Is your sister or isn't your sister? She is? And
I do think something I think that's really interesting about
the show is actually, this is the kind of this
is the version of this technology that we've seen in
sci fi that I think is the most definitively you
(33:26):
can say that is your sister kind of situation because
even though it is brain waves just based on your sister,
that was a conscious choice your sister made to go
into that body, and now the body has her memories
that remember that choice. So I think we're in a
really interesting situation when it comes to sentience and agency
over the human body and who you are. But obviously,
(33:48):
like can a ten year old child even actually consent
to a choice like this or a decision like this,
That's where the things start getting really.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Mabsolutely they can't. Yes, no, no, the baby yeah. So
there is, however, a carrot too. After the stick and
Joe leaves the office, he sees his old colleagues Rachety
and Siberian. They're fine, and apparently the whole search and
(34:17):
rescue squad, all his buddies, are now based on Research Island.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Okay, Jason, I got my class hostages. Yes, I got
a question for you. Who is I was thinking about
this a lot of stuff. Who made that choice? Like
who is the real boss?
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Who is the.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
One who's making these decisions? While boy Genius isn't, Like
who was smart enough to know? Well, Joe's him. Maybe
we can use these people to navigate.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I guess Lobot is like the fix Law.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
The kind of real the real brains at the moment behind,
kind of keeping things under wraps right now.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah, And I think we're sjured. Does a very dangerous
job because he is colleagues work in a very dangerous
line of work, search and rescue, and anything can happen
to them, to that whole squad exactly. Wendy has a
meeting with boy Genius, and Boy Genius is like fucking
so obsessed with Peter Pan and like again it's it's
(35:12):
the very bunch Peter Teal and Lord of the Rings.
Wendy is. You can tell from this conversation empathizing somewhat
with the aliens something there is an emotional appeal in
that communication that they are sending that she is responding to,
and she says they don't like being experimented on, and
he's like, how did they tell you that? And he's like, well, well,
(35:33):
and she basically says, well would you want to be?
Like would you?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Which I have to say feels like foreshadowing to see
some good torture and experimentation on boy Genius sun Cereal the.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Sense and the aliens will rise up. Boy Genius then
asks like, why did you Tanny want them? And and
you know why? And she doesn't know, and he basically
now he raises the question of Joe, what do we
do about Joe? I don't like Joe. Joe is like
distracting you from your work, and shouldn't we send Joe
(36:09):
out of here because we don't need him? And when
he's like no, please, please, please, don't to send my
brother away, and then Boise's just like yeah, but like,
is does he really care about you if you didn't
come see you when you were sick and dying?
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Clearly was like watching and listening to this conversation her
eyes and knows all about knows that pressure point very well.
And he says, well, listen, here's the deal. You talk
to the aliens. Help me understand them and then we'll
keep Joe around. So that's a lot that's we're doing that.
We go onto the LA lab where the observation testing
(36:42):
of the eye is continuing. Toodles says, hey, I want
to change my name to Isaac after you know, Sir
Isaac Newton, and they're like, okay. Isaac runs into Slightly
and tells Slightly that hey, I'm going by Isaac now,
and it's like, you know, Toodles is like a kid's name.
I don't like it, and Slightly it's like, wait, well
(37:04):
you can change our names. Hold on as sad, and
he's also asking he's Slightly is also acting very very
sketchy cleuely come down here to.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Steal the literal voice in his head.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Right, and he's lies about being asked to come get
something and then leaves.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Okay, I'll ask you about this. This is another one
of my favorite theories that I've been seeing in the
discord online, essentially that Morrow is Captain Hook because he
has the cyborg arm and that's kind of his role
in the peter Pan of it all, and I thought
that was very interesting, especially now with this kind of
connection between him and you know, Slightly.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
I hate the Peter Pan metaphor so much, I know,
and the only thing that, the only thing, the saving
grace of it is in this episode, I finally realized
that the metaphor is less about Holly putting this metaphor
on it, although that's also an aspect of it, and
it's more that, yeah, boy Cavalier is obsessed with this story.
(38:05):
And so when moral Captain Hook, I answer, I don't
fucking care, and I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
I'm very interested. I like the idea that I like
the archetypes. I think they're fine. I think it's good,
and I'm but I'm also interested to see how boy
Genius is gonna respond to the kids taking these little
bits of agency, like renaming themselves, because that pushes it
out of his understanding of the book and what he
(38:35):
gains from the book, which is I'm just Peter Pan
and I'm going to be young forever, and he doesn't
really understand the point of the book, which is like,
you will never end up empathizing or loving people if
you don't allow yourself to grow. Well, I think so,
I think you're right. It's very it's very much more
about the book's connection to boy Genius than it is
to Horley.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Right, And I think that listen, I think that boy
Genius is looking at all the ways that these his
creation are developing, and I think that he is going
to obviously version two is going to have some different features.
They're going to be more controllable, more compliant, less unpredictable, probably,
like that's probably what he would be thinking looking at this.
(39:15):
So slightly goes out of the world to the woods
to talk tomorrow again. It's like, I can't get the egg,
and Marrow's like, well, what if I kill your whole family?
I'm with your mom right now. I always kill him.
And so you got to get that egg. But like,
I've figured out an easier way to do it. You
don't have to go get the egg. Just bring a
person down there and be like, oh, look at that thing.
(39:35):
Isn't that thing interesting?
Speaker 2 (39:36):
And get him in in that special position.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
You get him into the face hugger position, and the
face hugger will take care of everything else. Then you
just have to babysit that unconscious person for like twenty
four hours and every now nature will take its course.
Now here is I don't know if it's a loophole,
But it's interesting why can't boy Cat, Why doesn't Boy
(39:59):
Cavalier why is looking through Slightly's eyes or why doesn't
he get the daily recordings from Slightly's head and realize
that this is going on?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Okay, is there something because it is synth to synth?
Is there a way like.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
He's talking out loud?
Speaker 2 (40:16):
That's the crazy thing that we think carries like.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
I'm willing to I am willing to believe that Morrow
has encrypted the signal in some sort of way that
like Boy Genius Cavalier can't pick up. But the fact
that he doesn't wonder who Slightly is talking out loud
to is weird to me.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah, I think that's I guess. Also, well, I also
think like the other option is kind of like that
Boy Genius doesn't really do a lot of the looking
through people's eyes doing all that kind of stuff, that
stuff that like Kirsh does or Dame does. And I
think that if it just so happens that Kirsh is
(40:59):
the one, as we kind of see who's listening to
the whole thing, he I think his curiosity is peaked
to like, well, let's just see where this goes. Maybe
something different is gonna happen. Yeah, I think we will
learn more. I think than boy genius kind of feeling
like that out of his hands. I don't think he
does a lot of the handling.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
So that's a good question because they intercut this with
Kersh watching a monitor, and it's kind of unclear if
he is keeping tabs on this conversation or not. I
tend to believe, like you, that he is aware of
this conversation.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Mike got says that Kersh is kind of it's his
curiosity of like, well, okay, let's see what would happen
if someone put their face.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
I also think like he's thinking, listen morerow is information
about these creatures. I've been tasked with learning about these creatures.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Mm hmm. That's a good hole for me.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Maybe we'll get Yeah, maybe that's a loophole. Maybe I'll
get some information this way, right, Yeah, Kirsh goes to
see the eggs. He pets one of the eggs. It
doesn't even move because Kurch is a synthetic and it
doesn't want.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
We're going to take a quick break and we'll be
right back.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
We're back elsewhere on the island. Wendy and Smee showed
Joe the slips of paper that they eat. They create
different flavors when they want to taste something. And Isaac,
you know, is showing off that he knows how this
technology works, and he's been also learning at a prodigious
rate by downloading different information from the Internet, and just
(42:41):
like putting in his brain. Curly asks Show to explain
how the world ended up this way, and we learned
that the old forms of government just were no longer workable,
and so the corporations took over Prodigy, Whalen, Threshold, Dynamic, Lynch,
And he tells them that the other companies are probably
very mad at Prodigy because they wailing Tony's stuff, whiling
(43:01):
tany obviously more than the others. Slash slightly wants to
know why Wendy can have her brother here and none
of the rest of them can have their families here.
He's very upset at this. He's very angry at this,
and he should be. Joe agrees with them, like you
should all have your families here. That of course, and
now the loss there's this moment where you feel like
the Lost Boys beginning to unionize.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yet I'm like Joe is definitely ends up, like Joe's
definitely gonna end.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Up character that said, there's always some rats in the barrel,
and the rats in the barrel are Curly and Isaac,
who are like, actually, we love this, we love and
to be fair to them, you know, it's not hard
to imagine in this world coming from a life situation
(43:53):
where you think this is pretty good. I lots of
resources earn.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Yeah, and if you think about the economics of the
show that we've learned so far in the world, you know,
for all we know the reason these kids are terminally
ill is because they were sold into mining when they
were little kids and they've never been able. Yeah, we
have no idea, so they could really also imagine, aside
from just the capitalist exploitation aspect, which is quite likely,
(44:23):
there's also just like you could come from an abusive home,
you could come from He's never there, So I think
it's normal. I think it makes a lot of sense,
and I think this is a good I'm glad they
did this me too, because I was also going to say,
I think this is a good understanding of Holly from
Holly of how a character like Curly works, which is
like you have to understand their own motivations and everything,
(44:45):
and he's doing a great job of slowly peeling that back.
I also think this episode for people who weren't necessarily
into the kid leads of it all. I think this
episode starts adding in the ring calls that make it
way more interesting than if it were just some adults,
since I think like the fear aspects, how easily the
kids can be manipulated, the kind of early concept and
(45:09):
passion of like, well, imagine if we were all in
this together, like maybe we could change something. There's a
lot of stuff that wouldn't necessarily work if they were
fully aged adults, And I think that is what's really
smart here is that Morally has essentially introduced us to
characters who learn as we learn, and that is a
good way of getting exposition in. But it's also a
(45:30):
good way of making this feel very different from any
other alien project.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
So Curly and Isaac are basically like, well, we kind
of like everything the way it is, like we're.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
I like living on this tropical island and being immortal.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
You know, it's kind of put off by the awkwardness
intention She's like, I'm going to go to the lab,
so she heads off Joe. We get some snippets of scenes.
Joe inspects his lung scar and is like, you know,
multi thousand dollars piece of property, prodigy property in my
chest now rash outside his apartment, like watches him through
(46:08):
the window. Very I don't know what this is about,
but yes, it's clearly he's maybe, I think is really.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Going to say because he knows they're in danger and
he's kind of thinking, well, I mean, my read here
was like, is is this somebody that he is like, Okay,
this is a human who if I get them to
get chest busted? Yes, he want in trouble exactly. Nobody's
(46:36):
gonna care if I get rid of this guy. I
think Wendys who cas.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
I think there's two things. It's like, well, it's not fair.
Wendy's brother is here. He shouldn't be here because nobody
else gets to have one, and I need a human,
so why not him. I don't like him anyway, just
what he stands for, not necessarily as a person, So
it makes you can see the logic. Wendy goes down
(47:01):
to the baby alien growing in his brother's law and
her brother's lung and she's trying to raise into it.
She's trying to talk to it. Kersh is watching this.
The alien bursts out of the little lung and then
bursts out of the glass and now was running around,
and Wendy goes to it and like communes with it,
and they pets it. She's paying and talks to it,
(47:24):
and Cursh is like, holy shit, this is so crazy.
And then we get a I don't know what they're
going to do in the broadcast. In our screener version,
they're use they used Jane's addiction ocean sizes.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Yeah, the breaking definitely, It's unclear that we are getting
the same finished versions, but uh yeah, I just love
this moment so much. I think this is kind of
that big halfway point, you know, where Hawley is telling
us like, hey, you thought this was going somewhere, Well
it's going somewhere else. And I think that you can
(47:58):
hint that the reason and that maybe Prodigy doesn't exist
at when we hit Alien in two years is maybe
because the Lost Boys and the Aliens are going to unionize,
I mean unionize this enomop.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
Let me ask you this, what happens to an alien
that is grown out of in part the genetic material
of a human who is still alive.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
That's what I'm thinking, Like, is are they going to
have a connection essentially going to.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Be like a pet? Yeah? Not it, well not a pet,
but like because they're too smart obviously to be pets.
But like, will it read Joe as one of its own?
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Exactly? Will it be something that Joe and Wendy can
have at their side as they go towards this battle.
I will be interested to see, because if Wendy can
essentially raise the baby, then that becomes a whole different situation.
Like are we going to have like Wendy like riding
a crazy If I would love it, I don't think
(49:01):
the fans would love it, So let's I just think that.
But you know what, I just want to see how
this familial connection with the alien is gonna happen, because
it seems to be very important. It also is directly
outside of any of boy Wonder Boy Cavaliers kind of dreams,
because all he can see things through is this mindset
(49:23):
of Peter Pan Right, So you know is the okay,
wait a minute, I'm gonna tell you so is the
will the xenomorph essentially become like a protector for the kids,
like the dog is in Peter Pan, Like I'm I'm
very interested in in whether or not Hawley's gonna go
(49:44):
all in on it, or whether once Wendy kind of
gets her agency, Boy Genius just starts to realize that
everything he's thinking about was stupid and he didn't understand
the book, you know, Like I'm interested to see I.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Think we're gonna go. I think we are headed to
a play place where the robots and the aliens fight
on the same side. I think Holly's done too much
work getting is to empathize with the aliens to be
nothing right, yeah, or for them to get or for
them suddenly to flip to being the bad guys and
(50:19):
we have to wipe them out. And we've done too
much good work building up Boy Genius as like really
someone we want to see die.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah, I'm so excited to see him die, and I'm
so excited to learn when he's going to die too,
because a lot could happen on that island even with
him dead. So, yeah, how are you feeling about Episode Alien?
Half halfway through.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
The set getting better and better? I think it started
very strong and it's only gotten better since then this
is this episode has so many like things to think
about and is just so well done. I mean, I
think some of the acting by Toodles now Isaac by Curly,
(51:02):
like the the little conversation when they when Joe is
talking about, oh, here's the five corporations and like Isaac
is like trying to name them at the same time,
Like that's such a kid thing to do.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
And That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Like the way they's feel good.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
These actors bring to life the kid aspect, I think
is one of the strongest things about the show, and
I think it's one of the things people were most
worried about when it was introduced. But I think it
allows us to have character dynamics and character interactions that
we would never usually get in like an rated sci
fi show without it's kind of like an homage to
a character like Newt but without going full t to
(51:40):
Now you have a kid's sidekick, and I think they're
doing something really interesting with it. I am so interested
to see where the Cush kind of sides with the hybrids,
or sides with Prodigy, or does more of a kind
kind of David's style thing where he just he thinks
(52:05):
he's not like interacting, but really he's doing little bits
of machinations. It's really it's classic alien stuff, and I'm
loving it.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
My sense is much like the current show Foundation, which
is like in season three. I think, I think that
Kersh is looking for a loophole. Like you said, I
think the reason he's not dropping he's immediately cutting off
the Morrow conversation is because he's been given a very
clear task to study the aliens. Morrow has information about
(52:36):
the aliens as the head of security of that ship,
and as someone who has been in space with those
creatures for decades knows a lot about them. Therefore, it
is within his responsibilities to allow this communication to go
forward so that he can get more information about the aliens.
And I think similarly, he is looking for other loopholes
(52:59):
like that so that he can break free of Boy Cavalier.
And I think again, I think that conversation that he
had with Slightly about like what are you going to do?
Who you're going to side with? Is about siding with
his kind, with the synthetic kind, against the people who are.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
Which you're crushing them. That trajectory is like very much
on the same route as we have seen with other
kind of alien synths in the series where they do
work for the corporation, but they also usually have their
own agenda, whether it's something from Whalen himself or whether
(53:40):
it's like when David became obsessed with the creatures and
the Doo, so he started to kind of create spaces
to see what would happen with the creatures, which obviously
led us to where we are in this. So yeah,
I just find it a very intriguing set up that
I think for the second half of the season is
(54:02):
gonna turn into a cool like potential you know, hybrid
synthetic uprising, which if you think about it, would be
an instant reason why Prodigy could just not exist. They
just get bought up by Waylam because he couldn't control
the things he created, you know, Like it seems like
that wouldn't be a hard thing to explain and gives
(54:24):
a reason for why we would never have heard of them.
But maybe it's gonna be way worse. Maybe the Aliens
will actually overrun New Siam. I'm just I'm very excited
to be watching a show where I really really don't
have a handle on what is gonna happen next.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Well. In the next episode of extra Vision, we're diving
into the biggest stories and streaming, including the arrival of
Marvel's Thunderwolt's Asterisk on Disney Plus and the arrival of
Superman oh on VOD that's been for this episode. Thanks
for listening by x Ray. Vision is hosted by Jason
Concepcion and Rosie Knight and as a production of I
(55:00):
Heard Podcast.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Our supervising producer is Abu Zafar.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wag.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kauffman.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and
Heidi our discord moderator.
Warning. Today's episode contains spoilers for Alien Earths Episode four,
Free the Aliens. Hello, it was Jason Concepcion and I'm
(00:28):
Rosy night and welcome back to x Ray Vision of
the podcast. We we dive deep at your favorite shows, movies,
comics of pop culture, coming to you from iHeart. We'll
breathe three episodes a week, plus news on Saturdays.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
In today's episode, we are exploring Aliens Haunting. Fourth episode,
Haunting Haunting. It's going to make you ask some questions.
You've got to be asking a lot of questions about
the ethics of this technology on many different levels. So
let's dive in a lot to talk about this time around.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Okay, Alien Earth Episode four Observation. Wendy is waking up
after collapsing at the end of episode three. Dame and
Kersh are discussing her, but she can't hear them. They've
turned off her hearing, so she's not affected by whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
In immediately horrific situation. Yes, I kind of makes you
realize what they can do to you if you're in
one of these bodies.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So Kersh has figured out basically that Wendy is hearing
signals emitted by the xenomorphs she can hear, basically, she
can hear them, and he tells this to boy Genius
as boy Genius comes in the lab, but Boy Genius
is like, yeah, I figured that out already, kersh the
(01:48):
fuck of course, cursh jesus, I'm a boy genius. Get name, buddy,
uh And he's like, speaking of stuff and expectations, why
aren't you in the lab doing the job that I
fucking assigned to you? Now get out of here, And
then he rips on Dame saying, like, stop treating her
(02:09):
like a baby. She's a billion dollar synthetic prototype. And
everybody leaves until it's only Arthur, who who we found
out of this episode is Dame's husband. Shocker, did not
see that, did not see any chemistry between these two,
until it's only Arthur, Curly and boy Genius. Then Joe
(02:30):
comes in yep, and they you know, he's very obviously
worried about Wendy, and they're like, well, she can't hear
you right now, we turned off her hearing. And by
the way, i'm your boss, why are you acting like
you shouldn't be respecting me? And you're like worried about
your sister? And you're not showing me the proper me boy, genius,
(02:50):
your employer, your proper deference.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I'm like Joe, I don't know if he's seen like
a human boss for a long time. Bro, his boss
is little just y faceless robots, so he might not care.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
And like, as if to underline the point, is like,
by the way, how's the new lung I made you?
How's that breathing? How's that thing taste? Your other lung?
Your old lung? You're never gonna guess where it is.
It's in a vat right now, being used to as
a nest for a baby chest burster. And Joe realizes
now that the alien specimens are in the building and
(03:24):
he thinks this is crazy, as we all do. Arthur
and the crew slowly like bring up Wendy's hearing and
Joe tells her about oh, I underwent surgery, but he
doesn't really go into the new lung and all that stuff.
He very he downplays it severely, and he asks Wendy, like,
what happened. She says that after the fight with the
(03:46):
alien and she was brought back kind of like in
a state of suspension, some sort of like robot coma.
She's brought back to Research Island, but then she woke
up and heard the call of the aliens. She went
down to where she was hearing it and was lab
workers was experimenting on the aliens. And she then refers
to the chest Burster as the baby and says the baby.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Was screaming the baby.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So listen. One thing I love about this episode is
the way it made empathized with these terrible, horrific creatures.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Absolutely insane twist I did not see coming this episode,
but it actually makes so much sense because when we
actually look back at how whailing Utani, from what we've seen,
have used the creatures and have constantly been hunting them down,
and then someone like Michael kind of tried to create
a different version of them to you know, terror, kind
(04:43):
of terror formed the earth that he would take them
to like it. They have been being exploited throughout by
whaling Utani, which is just a crazy thing to say
because they're also monsters.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Void Genius is like so so happy. He is like
absolutely rock hard at this new discovery that his billion
dollar prototype is talking air quotes, talking to aliens, or
at least hearing an alien talk to it, and yeah, sure,
(05:15):
it causes her extreme pain and distress and locks up
her body.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Who fucking care to think of the diet foddy, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
It's a fa and Joe. So, Joe and Arthur are
like when she's like, oh, it caused me pain, They're like, yeah, yeah,
we'll stop that happening. And He's like, what stop it?
Are you kidding?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Why?
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Why would we stop it? Yea, her whole body belongs
to Prodigy, Like what are you talking about? Wendy settles it.
Wendy's like, wait a second, I want to I want
to continue to hear them, like I want to know
why they're speaking to me, Like what do they want
to say? And so they test her hearing and when
you find out that the alien signal is spread out
(05:54):
across like multiple frequencies all the way up to like
the highest ranges of Wendy's k ability, way way beyond
human hearing, like and and even I can't hear it
like other synthetics apparently can't hear it. Yeah, which raises
this question of did the aliens figure out a way
(06:14):
to tailor the frequency and the signal and aiming at Wendy?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Huh? Okay, I like that. I like that read a lot.
Let me. There was a really great discord theory about
this that was kind of blowing my mind. So it
was Josmick One who said, maybe if boy Cavalier worked
for whalen Utani when he was on his meteoric rise
(06:47):
to the top, perhaps he could you know, have gotten
like he has some of the goo, you know, and
if he touches the goo that we've seen, the black
goo that you kind of get from alien promethe, maybe
that was used in creating this version of the hybrid,
and that might be why they can hear Is there
(07:09):
some kind of alien wailan U Tanny connection here, because
it does seem weird the eight that Wendy can hear
it and nobody else can, even the other hybrids.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I guess we would need to know if there's because
it seems to me, like Wendy is, there's no organic
material in in Wendy like.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I don't not. From what we know so far, these
are alleged completely synthetialies.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Boy Genius asked Wendy to can you just like whistle
the sound like but obviously in a register we can
all hear it? She does it, Curly's jealousy is ignited
fanned by Boy Genius is like, aha, can you do that?
I wish as something such. I absolutely love pitting the kids,
like obviously it's terrible, but like.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Me too, and I also feel like I feel no,
it's it's great to watch. And I also hope that
Kylie will become part of Boy Genius's downfall. That was
like my biggest wish because he sucks. He's so so
good at sucking this actorate act that he's doing.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So yeah, this is Boy Genius's boy Cavaliers like villain
toured to force, Like this is some of the best.
I haven't felt this way about a villain in a
little bit like this was a he's a great villain.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I know it does. It was it was hinting at
Jeoffrey level.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's there.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I was like, it's not that yet, but it's if
you had the seasons, if we get more than I
feel like it could build up. He really he's a
he's a bad guy.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
A bigger, much bigger fan of the xenomorph than than boys,
which is, you know, thematically very alien. Okay, so you
know A Joe is like, hey, can we give Wendy
a break. She's very tired. He's like, she doesn't get tired,
she's android, but like, but then he eventually agrees, Okay,
let's give her a break. But you can tell like,
He's like, let me, let me put a pin in
(09:06):
that little conversation between me and Joe, who I don't like.
Boy Genius then asks Lobot for his opinion about what's
going on. Lobot is like, well, we must ask why
the hostile aliens are trying to speak to Wendy. Yes,
of course, Wow, Lobot, is that why they pay you
the big bucks? What incredible? And then Boy Genius tells Lobot, Lobot,
(09:30):
go tell Joe to remember who signs his fucking paycheck, okay,
and who owns the peace on his partent, I.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Don't know if Joe's can't pay that much pay I think.
I don't know if he's gonna give up Mossy for that.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Let's take a quick break to pay our bills and
we'll be right back. And we're at Wendy shows Joe
(10:06):
around her room and they're catching up a little bit.
Wendy wants then wants to know, Hey, Joe, are you
mad at me for, you know, for wanting to hear
the aliens and for you being tricked into thinking I
was dead? And He's like, no, I'm not mad at you.
I'm mad at all the people that lied to me.
I'm mad at Prodigy for lying to me. I'm mad
at Prodigy for not I'm mad at the fact that
(10:29):
they made it so hard for me to see you
and Dad when you were in the hospital. And Wendy
really can't seem to get her head around that Joe
wasn't able to come see her, but there was apparently
a war on which was the first we've heard of this. Yeah, interesting,
and he's among other issues. It just made it difficult.
(10:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I really like that Wendy is stressed out about this
because like in her mind, she wanted to get to Joe,
so she just got to him, you know, like with
us kind of and that understand like as a child,
she doesn't really understand like how he couldn't kersh uh.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Watches the tapes of Morrow. It's just getting more information
on the former security chief of the Magineo. Meanwhile, boy
Genius and we have to talk about this. Boy Genius
is reading Peter Pan on his podcast. Does he have
a podcast? He's sitting in front of a mic, a
nice mic, apparently a.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Pod a podcast, And also like why this one read
another book? My guy?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Well, you know what it was. I put this in
the group chat, but it is this is the episode
where I realized, Oh, what they're doing is Peter Thiel's
like obsession with Lord of the Rings and naming all
his differ free companies Palenteer a little bit uh, and
I forget what the other ones. It's like Pialenteer is
(12:05):
the currently most currently most well known one, but like
I think it's oh yeah, also Anderil and Mythrill. And
it's like, I think this is clearly that this is
like a version of oh, this very powerful man has
taken the exact wrong message from this very.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Popular fac series exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
I would just love to know more about Boy Genius podcast.
Very funny to me.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Are they going to release an episode as a special edition?
I would I want to know camera.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I want to like when it goes to the two shot,
I want you to see like Lobot sitting in the
other chair with a with his with his like baseball
cap on like backwards, very basic questions of like boy genius. Okay,
So boy Genus is doing his pod which again we
(13:04):
can't talk we can't talk enough about. Slightly is out
in the jungle with Moro talking in his head, and
Morow is basically like, here, okay, listen, you need to
go grab an alien egg and bring it to me.
Go get it. It's not stealing if you're worried about that,
because it is itself is stolen from me. I am
(13:26):
the rightful owner. You will only be returning stolen property
to its rightful owner, their owner. Therefore, this is the
right thing to do. And then to build this as
the grooming continues to build this relationship on a stronger foundation,
Marrow tells Slightly his real name, Kume Moro, and then
(13:47):
asks him his name, and his name is Rush and
he's from India. A Rush finds Kersh in his room
in a Rusha's room. Kersh is looking at this the
you know, the see no evil, hear, no evil speak,
no evil monkeys carved. He's like a carving of that
on his wall, and he's like, do you know what
(14:07):
this means? And they discuss the historical and ethical questions
at the heart of this saying, and basically what Kirsch
wants to know is, would slightly, Let's say I'm going
to do something bad. He says so slightly, I'm about
to do something that's going to hurt somebody, would you
(14:29):
stop me? And Tomorrow meanwhile, was whispering and slightly sad
like begiful, and then slightly says I would stand up
for my friends, which Kirsh says is the right answer,
although I'm still not sure how that connects to I
guess he's basically Kirsch's basically saying, be loyal. You didn't
see anything, you didn't hear anything, you don't say anything,
(14:52):
be loyal to the.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
People that made I think Cash's like I think Cash
she's getting like curious. I think that at the beginning
of this season he was very much like do your job,
like get things done. But I think that the arrival
of the different types of alien species and the way
that the kids are reacting to them, I think he
is finding his own curiosity again rather than this kind
(15:15):
of just acceptance of the boy genius. Once I felt
like this was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
As a burseoning potential alliance between the Synthetics and the
aliens against meat against humans. I saw this as basically saying,
when the rubber hits the road, who are you going
to listen to the others who are like you the synthetics.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
And me or.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Meat sticks like boy Genius Cavalier and Arthur and the
rest of them going to be loyal to if you
see me, let's see you say you see me put
my hands around Boy Cavalier's neck.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Right right, You're going to be a gon't be saying.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
In the lab, curse continues with these experiments. They expose
the sheep horrendously to the eye, and the eye attacks
it and pulls out the sheep's eye and then hacks
into its nervous system and is now using the sheep's body,
which I think remains somewhat alive right or maybe dying quickly, but.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Like like it's definitely the kind it's almost kind of
like the the Corterceps style, like it's taking you over.
It takes over your brain, but your body can still function. Also,
I have to say, this is going to sound really silly,
but I never the iyapus. I didn't expect the eye
to be such an important part. I thought that was
just how I lived. I didn't realize. So I thought
(16:44):
this was a really inventive and clever way of adding
a new type of creepy alien to the species.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yes, and one wonders, like how related it is to
the original black goo species various black goo created. Yeah,
Boy Genius again is like, you know, it's another rock
hard moment for Boy Genius. He's like he can't believe
what he's seeing.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
You can't believe this. He's like, this is incredible.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Kursh can tell from the brain wave readout that this
is a very very intelligent creature, very very smart, and
he studies it through the glass, moving around, like looking
at it from different angles. Lobot is like, you know,
if those things get out, and Boy Genius is like, great,
who cares, Like, we let's take the risk, no reward
without risk if it escapes to escape, like, we'll be careful.
(17:35):
But this guy is insane sight and and this is
really where you kind of feel that first, like, oh,
could Kursh could curseh And some of the synthetics say,
what's happened to the aliens is what happened to us
and this is bad and the aliens don't want to
(17:56):
kill us. They and they never try to hug our
faces or attack us. Well, NIBBs would disagree, but and
you know, maybe the time has come to free ourselves
of these human meat puppets. Boy Genius locks eyes with
the creature and like whispers stuff to a very very
creepy he wants.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
The funny thing is, I think, like I wonder if
boy Genius even has a tiny in the back of
his mind, like an itch on the back of his brain,
because I feel like, in this moment, like he's trying
to act like he has a connection with the creatures,
but it's like really clear that he doesn't. Yeah, whereas
we can see the sense and the hybrids, there's some
(18:36):
kind of connection that I.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Don't know that he is aware enough to see the
possible tensions brewing around him with the synths and these aliens.
But I do think, on a very cynical level, I
think that he heard I think he heard Curse say
this is a very very smart creature, and all of
a sudden, Boy Genius like wants to connect with it exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Oh my god, that's such a good point. Yeah, he's
still looking for that conversation.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Arthur takes Dame to a quiet spot outside the labs,
and all of a sudden, he has some very very
serious concerns about everything they're doing, most pressingly the alien
species now on this island, Like what can they do?
What are the dangers? We don't know? He's also concerned
(19:29):
that whatever the Lost Boys are supposed to be doing,
And this is interesting, how did you read this? Because
he's basically like, apparently the Lost Boys are built for
a purpose that we don't understand, right, we don't actually
know what the product line is designed to do. He
but Arthur seems very concerned that they're not ready to
do whatever it is that they are going to be
(19:49):
marketed as doing.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah, I wonder if it was like I just wonder
if he is upset because this is like not what
they're supposed to be doing. And I felt like when
they were talking about Prodigy, the name of it and everything,
the idea was going to be the brain body situation.
(20:12):
Then you can essentially have them just living in your
house as your child or as your relative who died.
But Boy Genius basically turned them into weapons the first
moment he had the chance, when they still had you know,
ten year old brain going inside their heads. So I
don't know, but yes, Arthur Dame definitely arguing married couple
(20:35):
at the center of this hilarious.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Now this brings up some interesting I think. Yes, so
they were talking about this, if this technology existed, and
you could upload people into a fully functioning synthetic body
and the and when you speak to it, it has
all the memories and the personality basically of the person.
If that was possible, I think it would be. I
(21:00):
don't think that you could legally call that a person.
You certainly couldn't call it the same person. Like let's
say it was a wendy situation where they died and
then you brought them back as this.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah, I think it's you would basically just say they're
an upload of a quncient.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
You'd have to classify them as something completely different, like
I think legally, Like imagine a situation in which they
upload you, but then the doctor runs into the room
where you're on the table and says, actually we were wrong,
Like you don't have stage four cancer. You're gonna live.
So now that both of you are alive, okay, you
could classify that other synthetic as like a different you know,
(21:38):
Jason two. But Jason two is still going to want
all Jason one's things. It's going to live in my house.
It's gonna want my dog, it's gonna want like all
the relationships that I have.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
And is that why they've only been making these with
femininely ill kids.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I think yes, because obviously if you do it to
a living person, it's the problems are severe and very
and very disruptive, and so legally, I don't think you
could call these I don't think you could call a
synthetic person a person. Like if it, I think you'd
have to call it a synthetic person. They'll invent another class.
But the other thing I was thinking is like, like,
(22:12):
what do you even let's say that technology did exist.
I don't even know what all the uses forget the
fact that like ethically and Morley to make these things,
it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
All the uses that I come up with that you
that you could use like now today, like right away,
are terrible. It's it's basically like, okay, you train it.
You take a highly trained Navy seal, right that you've
spent fifteen million dollars training them, You upload their consciousness
into these bodies, and then you send those out to kill.
And now the guy the Navy seal doesn't get PTSD
(22:47):
and doesn't get injured, and you just send these things
out to die. Die die, die die. That's one version.
Version two is like some sort of basically a haircut
of that's like some sort of like slave labor. You
take like highly skilled like mechanists and engineers and you
send them to do like crazy dangerous jobs like on Mars. Yeah,
which is like basically a blade runner or and this
(23:11):
is I'm sorry that this is what I thought of.
Let's say you get like a high value prisoner, you
upload their consciousness into a body so horrific, and that
body is not a person, does not have legal human rights.
You can torture that version of the person all day
and night until it dies. It should get like the
(23:34):
information you need. I think like those are like the
applications that I immediately come up with, and they're that.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
It's horrific but true. And I also think that you
make a really interesting point because also we've seen how
they can turn off Wendy's hearing and they can turn
it back on again, so I'm sure they can probably
also play with pain receptors and nervous systems spies probably.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
I think they would be incredible spies. You know, you
send them behind any you don't care if they get captured.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
You also can't tell physically again, kind of like it
was with Ash in the first Alien movie and onwards.
You can't tell that they are synthetic or that they
are not hybrids, you know, so that they are hybrids.
So I would say definitely, spy, assassin, any kind of weapon.
I'm also interested in the name of the company being Prodigy,
(24:24):
them only being able to do this to kids, and
obviously boy genius. There is some kind of thing about
the idea of like youth and how you can save youth,
and is there even a way I wonder, Okay, listen
to this for a crazy one. What if what they're
really trying to do is they do this version of it,
(24:46):
But what if there's a different version where they can
take an old person's consciousness, transplant it into a kid's
body and a kid's brain, and then put the kid's
brain into the machine. Because how you really need to
help old people extend their lives. So I'm interested to
know if there's a version of it where you are
(25:08):
kind of essentially.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Like a swap.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Us like a swap so that the kid becomes You.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Even need to take take kid's mind out, though you
could just like just write over it, you wouldn't I guess.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, no, that's what I mean, just right over that
and then you put it into the body, you know.
So I'm like, I'm intrigued because I feel like, to
really make this profitable, it's either weapons or life, kind
of making your life longer. And even though obviously lots
of people do have sick kids, the real people who
want to make their lives longer are these kind of
(25:43):
obsessive men who feel like they have this huge thing
that they have to keep working on and they must
always be able to stay as youthful as possible. So
I feel like the real money is in getting adults
brains into those bodies, which we know they say their
brains are too rigid. So I'm also interested in how
they are planning to make that work because I feel
(26:03):
like that has to be part of the money.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yeah, I feel like obviously you would send them to
do very dangerous things, but I guess I then would
need to understand like the cost proposition of how much
these cost like if you just.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Throw a billion human into space, yeah you can, it
doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Right, you can send one of these to like go
study the sun, right you know.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah exactly, But but like how much money are you
making from that? And how much money did it cost?
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, so it'll be interesting to see what these you
used to for. My sense is probably like war.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, war, I think is your number one. Right.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
They're probably gonna use these as his foot soldiers or something,
although what is the cost per unit? Like if each
body costs a billion dollars, then it's like why I
even do it? Just use poor people like they've been
doing for years. Anyway, Arthur basically says to Dame, listen,
I want us thinking about contingency play. These aliens are here.
(27:01):
The stuff with the Lost Boys is going in different directions,
like if this all goes sideways, we need to think
about getting out, okay yeah, And Dame is like, hey, yeah, yeah,
it'll be fine.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Nibs, she's not a serious passon, and like she has
not realized the seriousness of her situation until late.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Well, she's about to realize it now. NIBBs walks up,
and NIBBs is acting weird.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Which honestly normal day for Nibs. But she's obvious she's
always been struggling. Yeah, she's with this more than the others.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Listen, she's the she has the mind of a young person,
and she's been severely traumatized by both the process that
she's undergone that put her in this new body and
everything she's seen in the last few days. So she
comes up and she's like, I'm pregnant for real, Like
for real, for real, I am a baby. I'm gonna
have a baby. And Dame smartly plays along because when
(27:54):
Arthur's like, that's impossible, you don't have you're not a person.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Nibs I would.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Say, she doesn't get violent, but you could. She reacts
very negatively, and so Dame smartly plays along and she's like,
come to my office, let's talk privately. They go to
the office and NIBBs is like, very, very dedicated to
this idea that she's going to have a baby. And
by the way, she understands how babies are made, the
(28:21):
physical and biological process, and she's not at all convinced
that you need to go through all that to have
a baby. She's because she is having a baby. And
while all that stuff didn't happen. She's having a baby,
So what are you gonna do about it? Dame? The
penny drops for Dame that this whole project that they've
been working on is like rushing along without any kind
(28:43):
of heed to the potential consequences or disruptions that are
now happening. NIBBs then gets, you know, Dame, I think,
tries to be like, let's reason with you, Hey, would
you like to see the blueprints of your body?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
No, that's not what she needed.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Becomes violent now and NIBBs is super strong, as are
all these kids, and you know, puts her. She just
does not want to and she continues, she doubles down.
She's like, it's a girl, I think the baby, and
I'm going to name it Clarissa. And we get these
flashes of memories and we realize that NIBBs is haunted
by the confrontation with the eye creature in the lab
(29:20):
and that was horrifying, horrifying, and she doesn't it's so
horrifying in fact, that she does not want to talk
about it. She doesn't want to talk about She will
rather talk about anything else. She violently does not want
to talk about it. Like, she grabs Dame around the
neck and Dame plays it off, goes up, presses a
panic button. Guards show up, and then she's like, oh
(29:43):
my god, Nibs, I forgot I have a meeting with Boycovalier.
I have to go now bye. Yeah, the guards will
show you to your room, and NIBBs leaves with one
of Dame's stuffed animals, and Dame then pulls one of
the guards aside and says, we have a level three
security event. You know what that means, which I think
probably means we're wiping Nibs.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yes, that's what it feels like to me, is like
we're getting rid of her. Like whatever that means.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
She's gone, yes, we're gonna hold down the start button
for five seconds and then enter reboot mode, control all delete. Yes.
Joe goes to see Lobot for that meaning, and Lobot
is like, listen, that's what you got to understand. Wendy's
not your sister. That's a synthetic body with the brain
waves that are modeled on your sisters. Also, you work
(30:28):
for me. Also, everything you've seen and heard, even the
air you are breathing right now, is the intellectual property
of Prodigy Corporation, and Joe's like, well, I don't work
here anymore. Quit and well it says, okay, you can
do that, but that means you can never talk to
any of your friends that you made in.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Your your peers who you spent months and.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Wendy you will never speak to her again because she
is lockstock and barrel, the property of Prodigy Corporation. And
also like, what's up with that lung that we make
that we grew you?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Yeah, whonder where that came from?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So you can leave, but your credit score is going
to get nuked from orbit and will never be the
fucking same.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
So it's gonna be worse with that ever of mine
or something.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
I mean, if the class stuff really comes through in this.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, I also want to say, like, I think that
a lot of the stuff they've been exploring in this
show is quite broad and you can kind of read
into it however you want to read into it. But
this moment and the context of like the lung and
the new lung, and how having your body directly connected
(31:38):
to the corporation that you work for is really dangerous,
and how if you can't pay off medical debt then
you can end up with bad credit that would ruin
your life. Noah Hawley's being very direct here. This is
this is less a analogy than it is a direct comment.
And I think that's really exciting vibe And Yes, Common,
(32:00):
One of my favorite films I show with super producer
Common is Repo the Genetic Opera. It is definitely giving
that the idea that you could kind of reclaim a
lung or an organ that you didn't pay for. Yeah,
very very bleak stuff. And I kind of love that
Lowboy is the one who's giving these out as well,
(32:23):
Like boy Genius really just does not handle his own
business in any way, shape or form. This man is
like thinking about Peter Patten. Everyone else is doing the
damage control.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So Joe then wants to kind of change the subject.
He's like, Okay, well is that my sister? What did
you do? Or like what was the process? Like? Tell
me about it? And love that is, Like, well, first
of all, are you in or out? Like are you
do you work for us or not? Like are you
quitting and ruining your life or not? And by the way,
(32:55):
your sister, Wendy quote unquote or quote sister, she is
one hundred the property of the Project Corporation.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
It does look whether she is real or isn't real?
Is your sister or isn't your sister? She is? And
I do think something I think that's really interesting about
the show is actually, this is the kind of this
is the version of this technology that we've seen in
sci fi that I think is the most definitively you
(33:26):
can say that is your sister kind of situation because
even though it is brain waves just based on your sister,
that was a conscious choice your sister made to go
into that body, and now the body has her memories
that remember that choice. So I think we're in a
really interesting situation when it comes to sentience and agency
over the human body and who you are. But obviously,
(33:48):
like can a ten year old child even actually consent
to a choice like this or a decision like this,
That's where the things start getting really.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Mabsolutely they can't. Yes, no, no, the baby yeah. So
there is, however, a carrot too. After the stick and
Joe leaves the office, he sees his old colleagues Rachety
and Siberian. They're fine, and apparently the whole search and
(34:17):
rescue squad, all his buddies, are now based on Research Island.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Okay, Jason, I got my class hostages. Yes, I got
a question for you. Who is I was thinking about
this a lot of stuff. Who made that choice? Like
who is the real boss?
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Who is the.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
One who's making these decisions? While boy Genius isn't, Like
who was smart enough to know? Well, Joe's him. Maybe
we can use these people to navigate.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I guess Lobot is like the fix Law.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
The kind of real the real brains at the moment behind,
kind of keeping things under wraps right now.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah, And I think we're sjured. Does a very dangerous
job because he is colleagues work in a very dangerous
line of work, search and rescue, and anything can happen
to them, to that whole squad exactly. Wendy has a
meeting with boy Genius, and Boy Genius is like fucking
so obsessed with Peter Pan and like again it's it's
(35:12):
the very bunch Peter Teal and Lord of the Rings.
Wendy is. You can tell from this conversation empathizing somewhat
with the aliens something there is an emotional appeal in
that communication that they are sending that she is responding to,
and she says they don't like being experimented on, and
he's like, how did they tell you that? And he's like, well, well,
(35:33):
and she basically says, well would you want to be?
Like would you?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Which I have to say feels like foreshadowing to see
some good torture and experimentation on boy Genius sun Cereal the.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Sense and the aliens will rise up. Boy Genius then
asks like, why did you Tanny want them? And and
you know why? And she doesn't know, and he basically
now he raises the question of Joe, what do we
do about Joe? I don't like Joe. Joe is like
distracting you from your work, and shouldn't we send Joe
(36:09):
out of here because we don't need him? And when
he's like no, please, please, please, don't to send my
brother away, and then Boise's just like yeah, but like,
is does he really care about you if you didn't
come see you when you were sick and dying?
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Clearly was like watching and listening to this conversation her
eyes and knows all about knows that pressure point very well.
And he says, well, listen, here's the deal. You talk
to the aliens. Help me understand them and then we'll
keep Joe around. So that's a lot that's we're doing that.
We go onto the LA lab where the observation testing
(36:42):
of the eye is continuing. Toodles says, hey, I want
to change my name to Isaac after you know, Sir
Isaac Newton, and they're like, okay. Isaac runs into Slightly
and tells Slightly that hey, I'm going by Isaac now,
and it's like, you know, Toodles is like a kid's name.
I don't like it, and Slightly it's like, wait, well
(37:04):
you can change our names. Hold on as sad, and
he's also asking he's Slightly is also acting very very
sketchy cleuely come down here to.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Steal the literal voice in his head.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Right, and he's lies about being asked to come get
something and then leaves.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Okay, I'll ask you about this. This is another one
of my favorite theories that I've been seeing in the
discord online, essentially that Morrow is Captain Hook because he
has the cyborg arm and that's kind of his role
in the peter Pan of it all, and I thought
that was very interesting, especially now with this kind of
connection between him and you know, Slightly.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
I hate the Peter Pan metaphor so much, I know,
and the only thing that, the only thing, the saving
grace of it is in this episode, I finally realized
that the metaphor is less about Holly putting this metaphor
on it, although that's also an aspect of it, and
it's more that, yeah, boy Cavalier is obsessed with this story.
(38:05):
And so when moral Captain Hook, I answer, I don't
fucking care, and I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
I'm very interested. I like the idea that I like
the archetypes. I think they're fine. I think it's good,
and I'm but I'm also interested to see how boy
Genius is gonna respond to the kids taking these little
bits of agency, like renaming themselves, because that pushes it
out of his understanding of the book and what he
(38:35):
gains from the book, which is I'm just Peter Pan
and I'm going to be young forever, and he doesn't
really understand the point of the book, which is like,
you will never end up empathizing or loving people if
you don't allow yourself to grow. Well, I think so,
I think you're right. It's very it's very much more
about the book's connection to boy Genius than it is
to Horley.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Right, And I think that listen, I think that boy
Genius is looking at all the ways that these his
creation are developing, and I think that he is going
to obviously version two is going to have some different features.
They're going to be more controllable, more compliant, less unpredictable, probably,
like that's probably what he would be thinking looking at this.
(39:15):
So slightly goes out of the world to the woods
to talk tomorrow again. It's like, I can't get the egg,
and Marrow's like, well, what if I kill your whole family?
I'm with your mom right now. I always kill him.
And so you got to get that egg. But like,
I've figured out an easier way to do it. You
don't have to go get the egg. Just bring a
person down there and be like, oh, look at that thing.
(39:35):
Isn't that thing interesting?
Speaker 2 (39:36):
And get him in in that special position.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
You get him into the face hugger position, and the
face hugger will take care of everything else. Then you
just have to babysit that unconscious person for like twenty
four hours and every now nature will take its course.
Now here is I don't know if it's a loophole,
But it's interesting why can't boy Cat, Why doesn't Boy
(39:59):
Cavalier why is looking through Slightly's eyes or why doesn't
he get the daily recordings from Slightly's head and realize
that this is going on?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Okay, is there something because it is synth to synth?
Is there a way like.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
He's talking out loud?
Speaker 2 (40:16):
That's the crazy thing that we think carries like.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
I'm willing to I am willing to believe that Morrow
has encrypted the signal in some sort of way that
like Boy Genius Cavalier can't pick up. But the fact
that he doesn't wonder who Slightly is talking out loud
to is weird to me.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah, I think that's I guess. Also, well, I also
think like the other option is kind of like that
Boy Genius doesn't really do a lot of the looking
through people's eyes doing all that kind of stuff, that
stuff that like Kirsh does or Dame does. And I
think that if it just so happens that Kirsh is
(40:59):
the one, as we kind of see who's listening to
the whole thing, he I think his curiosity is peaked
to like, well, let's just see where this goes. Maybe
something different is gonna happen. Yeah, I think we will
learn more. I think than boy genius kind of feeling
like that out of his hands. I don't think he
does a lot of the handling.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
So that's a good question because they intercut this with
Kersh watching a monitor, and it's kind of unclear if
he is keeping tabs on this conversation or not. I
tend to believe, like you, that he is aware of
this conversation.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Mike got says that Kersh is kind of it's his
curiosity of like, well, okay, let's see what would happen
if someone put their face.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
I also think like he's thinking, listen morerow is information
about these creatures. I've been tasked with learning about these creatures.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Mm hmm. That's a good hole for me.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Maybe we'll get Yeah, maybe that's a loophole. Maybe I'll
get some information this way, right, Yeah, Kirsh goes to
see the eggs. He pets one of the eggs. It
doesn't even move because Kurch is a synthetic and it
doesn't want.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
We're going to take a quick break and we'll be
right back.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
We're back elsewhere on the island. Wendy and Smee showed
Joe the slips of paper that they eat. They create
different flavors when they want to taste something. And Isaac,
you know, is showing off that he knows how this
technology works, and he's been also learning at a prodigious
rate by downloading different information from the Internet, and just
(42:41):
like putting in his brain. Curly asks Show to explain
how the world ended up this way, and we learned
that the old forms of government just were no longer workable,
and so the corporations took over Prodigy, Whalen, Threshold, Dynamic, Lynch,
And he tells them that the other companies are probably
very mad at Prodigy because they wailing Tony's stuff, whiling
(43:01):
tany obviously more than the others. Slash slightly wants to
know why Wendy can have her brother here and none
of the rest of them can have their families here.
He's very upset at this. He's very angry at this,
and he should be. Joe agrees with them, like you
should all have your families here. That of course, and
now the loss there's this moment where you feel like
the Lost Boys beginning to unionize.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yet I'm like Joe is definitely ends up, like Joe's
definitely gonna end.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Up character that said, there's always some rats in the barrel,
and the rats in the barrel are Curly and Isaac,
who are like, actually, we love this, we love and
to be fair to them, you know, it's not hard
to imagine in this world coming from a life situation
(43:53):
where you think this is pretty good. I lots of
resources earn.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Yeah, and if you think about the economics of the
show that we've learned so far in the world, you know,
for all we know the reason these kids are terminally
ill is because they were sold into mining when they
were little kids and they've never been able. Yeah, we
have no idea, so they could really also imagine, aside
from just the capitalist exploitation aspect, which is quite likely,
(44:23):
there's also just like you could come from an abusive home,
you could come from He's never there, So I think
it's normal. I think it makes a lot of sense,
and I think this is a good I'm glad they
did this me too, because I was also going to say,
I think this is a good understanding of Holly from
Holly of how a character like Curly works, which is
like you have to understand their own motivations and everything,
(44:45):
and he's doing a great job of slowly peeling that back.
I also think this episode for people who weren't necessarily
into the kid leads of it all. I think this
episode starts adding in the ring calls that make it
way more interesting than if it were just some adults,
since I think like the fear aspects, how easily the
kids can be manipulated, the kind of early concept and
(45:09):
passion of like, well, imagine if we were all in
this together, like maybe we could change something. There's a
lot of stuff that wouldn't necessarily work if they were
fully aged adults, And I think that is what's really
smart here is that Morally has essentially introduced us to
characters who learn as we learn, and that is a
good way of getting exposition in. But it's also a
(45:30):
good way of making this feel very different from any
other alien project.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
So Curly and Isaac are basically like, well, we kind
of like everything the way it is, like we're.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
I like living on this tropical island and being immortal.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
You know, it's kind of put off by the awkwardness
intention She's like, I'm going to go to the lab,
so she heads off Joe. We get some snippets of scenes.
Joe inspects his lung scar and is like, you know,
multi thousand dollars piece of property, prodigy property in my
chest now rash outside his apartment, like watches him through
(46:08):
the window. Very I don't know what this is about,
but yes, it's clearly he's maybe, I think is really.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Going to say because he knows they're in danger and
he's kind of thinking, well, I mean, my read here
was like, is is this somebody that he is like, Okay,
this is a human who if I get them to
get chest busted? Yes, he want in trouble exactly. Nobody's
(46:36):
gonna care if I get rid of this guy. I
think Wendys who cas.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
I think there's two things. It's like, well, it's not fair.
Wendy's brother is here. He shouldn't be here because nobody
else gets to have one, and I need a human,
so why not him. I don't like him anyway, just
what he stands for, not necessarily as a person, So
it makes you can see the logic. Wendy goes down
(47:01):
to the baby alien growing in his brother's law and
her brother's lung and she's trying to raise into it.
She's trying to talk to it. Kersh is watching this.
The alien bursts out of the little lung and then
bursts out of the glass and now was running around,
and Wendy goes to it and like communes with it,
and they pets it. She's paying and talks to it,
(47:24):
and Cursh is like, holy shit, this is so crazy.
And then we get a I don't know what they're
going to do in the broadcast. In our screener version,
they're use they used Jane's addiction ocean sizes.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Yeah, the breaking definitely, It's unclear that we are getting
the same finished versions, but uh yeah, I just love
this moment so much. I think this is kind of
that big halfway point, you know, where Hawley is telling
us like, hey, you thought this was going somewhere, Well
it's going somewhere else. And I think that you can
(47:58):
hint that the reason and that maybe Prodigy doesn't exist
at when we hit Alien in two years is maybe
because the Lost Boys and the Aliens are going to unionize,
I mean unionize this enomop.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
Let me ask you this, what happens to an alien
that is grown out of in part the genetic material
of a human who is still alive.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
That's what I'm thinking, Like, is are they going to
have a connection essentially going to.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Be like a pet? Yeah? Not it, well not a pet,
but like because they're too smart obviously to be pets.
But like, will it read Joe as one of its own?
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Exactly? Will it be something that Joe and Wendy can
have at their side as they go towards this battle.
I will be interested to see, because if Wendy can
essentially raise the baby, then that becomes a whole different situation.
Like are we going to have like Wendy like riding
a crazy If I would love it, I don't think
(49:01):
the fans would love it, So let's I just think that.
But you know what, I just want to see how
this familial connection with the alien is gonna happen, because
it seems to be very important. It also is directly
outside of any of boy Wonder Boy Cavaliers kind of dreams,
because all he can see things through is this mindset
(49:23):
of Peter Pan Right, So you know is the okay,
wait a minute, I'm gonna tell you so is the
will the xenomorph essentially become like a protector for the kids,
like the dog is in Peter Pan, Like I'm I'm
very interested in in whether or not Hawley's gonna go
(49:44):
all in on it, or whether once Wendy kind of
gets her agency, Boy Genius just starts to realize that
everything he's thinking about was stupid and he didn't understand
the book, you know, Like I'm interested to see I.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Think we're gonna go. I think we are headed to
a play place where the robots and the aliens fight
on the same side. I think Holly's done too much
work getting is to empathize with the aliens to be
nothing right, yeah, or for them to get or for
them suddenly to flip to being the bad guys and
(50:19):
we have to wipe them out. And we've done too
much good work building up Boy Genius as like really
someone we want to see die.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah, I'm so excited to see him die, and I'm
so excited to learn when he's going to die too,
because a lot could happen on that island even with
him dead. So, yeah, how are you feeling about Episode Alien?
Half halfway through.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
The set getting better and better? I think it started
very strong and it's only gotten better since then this
is this episode has so many like things to think
about and is just so well done. I mean, I
think some of the acting by Toodles now Isaac by Curly,
(51:02):
like the the little conversation when they when Joe is
talking about, oh, here's the five corporations and like Isaac
is like trying to name them at the same time,
Like that's such a kid thing to do.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
And That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Like the way they's feel good.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
These actors bring to life the kid aspect, I think
is one of the strongest things about the show, and
I think it's one of the things people were most
worried about when it was introduced. But I think it
allows us to have character dynamics and character interactions that
we would never usually get in like an rated sci
fi show without it's kind of like an homage to
a character like Newt but without going full t to
(51:40):
Now you have a kid's sidekick, and I think they're
doing something really interesting with it. I am so interested
to see where the Cush kind of sides with the hybrids,
or sides with Prodigy, or does more of a kind
kind of David's style thing where he just he thinks
(52:05):
he's not like interacting, but really he's doing little bits
of machinations. It's really it's classic alien stuff, and I'm
loving it.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
My sense is much like the current show Foundation, which
is like in season three. I think, I think that
Kersh is looking for a loophole. Like you said, I
think the reason he's not dropping he's immediately cutting off
the Morrow conversation is because he's been given a very
clear task to study the aliens. Morrow has information about
(52:36):
the aliens as the head of security of that ship,
and as someone who has been in space with those
creatures for decades knows a lot about them. Therefore, it
is within his responsibilities to allow this communication to go
forward so that he can get more information about the aliens.
And I think similarly, he is looking for other loopholes
(52:59):
like that so that he can break free of Boy Cavalier.
And I think again, I think that conversation that he
had with Slightly about like what are you going to do?
Who you're going to side with? Is about siding with
his kind, with the synthetic kind, against the people who are.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
Which you're crushing them. That trajectory is like very much
on the same route as we have seen with other
kind of alien synths in the series where they do
work for the corporation, but they also usually have their
own agenda, whether it's something from Whalen himself or whether
(53:40):
it's like when David became obsessed with the creatures and
the Doo, so he started to kind of create spaces
to see what would happen with the creatures, which obviously
led us to where we are in this. So yeah,
I just find it a very intriguing set up that
I think for the second half of the season is
(54:02):
gonna turn into a cool like potential you know, hybrid
synthetic uprising, which if you think about it, would be
an instant reason why Prodigy could just not exist. They
just get bought up by Waylam because he couldn't control
the things he created, you know, Like it seems like
that wouldn't be a hard thing to explain and gives
(54:24):
a reason for why we would never have heard of them.
But maybe it's gonna be way worse. Maybe the Aliens
will actually overrun New Siam. I'm just I'm very excited
to be watching a show where I really really don't
have a handle on what is gonna happen next.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Well. In the next episode of extra Vision, we're diving
into the biggest stories and streaming, including the arrival of
Marvel's Thunderwolt's Asterisk on Disney Plus and the arrival of
Superman oh on VOD that's been for this episode. Thanks
for listening by x Ray. Vision is hosted by Jason
Concepcion and Rosie Knight and as a production of I
(55:00):
Heard Podcast.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Our supervising producer is Abu Zafar.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wag.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kauffman.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and
Heidi our discord moderator.
Hosts And Creators
Jason Concepcion
Rosie Knight
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