Alien: Earth carries the title of Ridley Scott's groundbreaking 1979 sci-fi/horror film, but anyone who has watched showrunner Noah Hawley's previous works (Fargo, Legion) knows he never keeps things confined to the basic titular implications. In the case of Alien, Hawley has taken the core franchise staples of humans battling nighmarish xenomorphs, corporate greed, and artificial life and blown them out in a big way: More monsters, bigger sci-fi concepts of mechanical life, and actual faces to the megacorporations that fund all this madness.
In Alien: Earth Episode 5, we finally take a step back and learn what actually happened on the doomed Weyland-Yutani ship USCSS Maginot before it crashed on Earth. In filling in that key gap in backstory, Hawley also pulls the surprise twist of revealing the biggest "villains" in the series - and surprisingly enough, it's not the xenomorphs that have been stalking unlucky victims.
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW!
"In Space, No One..." tells the story of the Maginot's crash largely from the point of view of cyborg security officer Morrow (Babou Ceesay). Morrow is awoken from cryosleep to learn that Captain Dinsdale (Tanapol Chuksrida) and another crew member have been attacked by facehuggers during willful acts of sabotage that include arson, breaking the ship's navigation controls, and opening the cargo hold with the facehugger eggs in it. The captain dies during the surgical attempt to remove the parasite, while the other infected crew member is placed back in cryosleep until a solution can be found back on Earth. Meanwhile, Morrow locks things down and begins to hunt for the traitor in their midst.
The big turn in the episode comes when Morrow's interrogations of the crew reach creepy Mr. Teng (Andy Yu), who gets Morrow to realize that a member of the non-essential crew hasn't been asleep in his cryopod like everyone believes. When Morrow checks the message logs between crew members and those back on Earth, he discovers that one man, Petrovich (Enzo Cilenti), is indeed awake before scheduled, and has been bribed and turned by none other than Prodigy Corp. CEO, Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin). As it turns out, Boy has known about the specimens Weyland-Yutani collected - and their bio-research value - for months (if not years), and always planned to hijack the find.
The Maginot's crash landing into the Pordigy city of New Siam was therefore a planned act, so that Boy could circumvent the power hierarchy of the megacorporation council and claim the ship and its holdings as his own, creating a legal tug-of-war just long enough to study the creatures and steal any valuable samples and data for himself. We've gotten hints of the true sociopathic nature of Boy's personality leading up to (and earning) this moment, but knowing he was willing to endanger an entire ship's crew, an entire city population, and the entire Earth to get these alien lieforms tells you he may have less human empathy inside him than a synth does.
However, Boy Kavalier is not the only major foe that steps into the spotlight in Alien: Earth Episode 5. When the situation aboard the Maginot starts to spiral out of control, the crew gets understandably vexed. That stress starts leading to small mistakes, which is all the creatures they've captured need to exploit the situation. Science officer Chibuzo (Karen Aldrige) makes two big slip-ups: she doesn't properly seal the container holding the 'blood bug' specimens designated "Ticks," allowing one tick to shoot a school of tick larvae into Chibuzo's open water container. Medical officer Rahim (Amir Boutrous) manages to recapture the bug (but no one notices the infected water), but when the crew learns of a xenomorph outbreak, Chibuzo rushes out of the lab too fast and neglects to lock the container holding the dreaded 'Eye Octopus,' allowing the creature to finally break loose and escape.
It's during the lab scene (and later during a climactic battle) that Alien: Earth Episode 5 confirms that the Eye Octopus is far more intelligent and cunning than anyone thinks. The creature purposefully distracts Chibuzo when it sees one of the ticks escaping; it also shows significant intelligence in recognizing that the machinery of its containment unit isn't functioning properly, and then uses its tentacled body as a slingshot to knock its container off the shelf and shatter. The Eye also bides its time strategically, waiting until it catches senior engineering officer Shmuel (Michael Smiley) alone, and taking control of his body (in the most nightmare way possible, tearing out and replacing his eye with itself). Seeing the Octopus Eye in control of a proper host body was equally as chilling, as the creature seemed to enhance Shmuel's power, agility, and durability (or even ability to feel pain) above normal human ranges. The creature piloted Shmuel into battle against a xenomorph drone pretty effectively, and was still a threat to the xenomorph when it hopped out of Shmuel and attacked the drone directly.
It's no mistake that both of these reveals about the true villains of Alien: Earth come right after Episode 4, where we saw Boy Kavalier and the Eye Octopus (in the body of a poor sheep) first making contact, and possibly bonding with one another. Boy's entire stated purpose for making synths and hybrids is to create an intellect worthy of his attention and conversation; now, it may look like he could have found such a colleague in biological form.
With Wendy and the hybrids now seemingly making pets of xenomorphs, and Episode 5 ending with Morrow and Yuntani plotting an attack, Boy Kavalier and the Eye Octopus may need to form their own alliance. Hopefully for Boy, it's a partnership that lets him keep both of his own eyes intact.