Alien: Earth Has a Villain More Dangerous Than Michael Fassbender’s David

This article contains spoilers for Alien: Earth episode 7.

The first season of Alien: Earth is chest-bursting its way toward an action-packed finale, and as the various synthetics, cyborgs, humans, and androids fight over the scraps of the USCSS Maginot creatures, the long-awaited Alien TV series has made it clear the Xeonomorph is far from the MVP. After 46 years of the acid-bleeding monsters ruling over the franchise, Alien: Earth has introduced a whole host of new villains – both alien and humanoid.

Alongside the terrifying T. Ocellus and snivelling Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), another major threat is waiting in the wings, and it’s someone who looks poised to outsmart them all. From Ridley Scott’s first outing, we’ve been warned not to trust synthetics. While Lance Henriksen’s Bishop and Winona Ryder’s Call have been remembered as the good guys, the likes of Ian Holm’s Ash and Michael Fassbender’s David have proved there are plenty of rotten robots out there. But just what is Timothy Olyphant’s Kirsh up to in Alien: Earth?

While fans are used to seeing villainous Weyland-Yutani synthetics, it appears others in “The Five” also have their own scheming robots. Kirsh has been assigned to train Kavalier’s “Lost Boys,” who are hybrids made of a human’s consciousness in a synthetic body. Hybrids are already touted as the next big thing, and in Alien: Earth episode 6, there was a tense exchange where Babou Ceesay’s Morrow seemingly touched a nerve when he referred to Kirsh as an “old toy.” We can’t help but be reminded of Fassbender’s David, who was the “son” of Guy Pearce’s Peter Weyland in Prometheus. Whereas David seemed to show initial loyalty to Weyland, like Kirsh does to Prodigy, he soon broke bad for his own nefarious means.

After Weyland was bludgeoned to death at the end of Prometheus, David went rogue, wiped out a planet of Engineers, and killed Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw in Alien: Covenant. Similar to David, Kirsh appears to have no compassion for humans, memorably referring to humans as “food.” Reminding Sydney Chandler’s Wendy that her brother (Alex Lawther) will eventually die one day while she keeps on living, a frank Kirsh reiterates: “Used to be food, you know. Humanity. Your lives were short and filled with fear.” While the Lost Boys have experienced this fear when their human bodies died and they were turned into hybrids, it’s not an emotion that a pure synth like Kirsh is accustomed to. It’s been hard to decipher what Kirsh feels for the Lost Boys, and whereas David cried over Shaw’s grave in Covenant, it’s unclear what his thoughts are on the death of Tootles (Kit Young).

It’s also likely that Kirsh’s viewpoint of humans being weak has been exacerbated by serving under Boy Kavalier. Episode 7 “Emergence” saw Kirsh being pushed to breaking point when the trillionaire told him to “be useful.” He at least managed to prove his worth when he stopped Weyland-Yutani forces from storming Neverland. Kirsh’s episode 7 redemption arc saw him getting his own back on Morrow when he secured the baby Xeno for Prodigy, also grounding Smee (Jonathan Ajayi) and Slightly (Adarsh Gourav) for their idiocy. Was this all part of Kirsh’s plan to lure Morrow to Neverland and take out a major Wey-Yu threat, or is he still looking out for himself? 

Notably, Kirsh’s control of the lab in the penultimate episode proves he could’ve helped Tootles, with some theorizing that he sabotaged the hatch that led to the hybrid’s demise at the hands of the synth-munch Fly. It hasn’t gone unnoticed that in the Peter Pan analogy, Kirsh seems to be a jealous Tinkerbell. Posting on Reddit, one fan suggested that Kirsh could even turn against Wendy in the finale, musing: “He’s Tinkerbell. He’s envious and duplicitous. Remember when Tinkerbell tried to kill Wendy?”

Covenant saw David break company protocol when he turned against the colony crew and left us with a cliffhanger ending for a movie that we’ll likely never see. Scott has teased the idea of returning to these dangling plot threads, while we’ve already pitched David as the perfect addition to the upcoming Romulus sequel. Noah Hawley has admitted he only considered Alien and Aliens when creating Alien: Earth, but even if we don’t get a David versus Kirsh showdown, the latter could be more dangerous. 

Someone else on Reddit highlighted Kirsh’s apparent disdain for the Lost Boys because they’re synths who’ve kept their human emotions. As David is a full synth who also has this emotional flaw (as pointed out by Fassbender’s Walter in Covenant), the OP added: “I think Kirsh would find David even lesser than the Lost Boys. David is fully artificial, but debases himself by developing increasingly human traits, rather than being an efficient, logical, fully utilitarian machine. An android version of the boy genius (meaning: an immense waste of potential). I honestly see Kirsh instantly disabling David as dangerously faulty equipment.”

Despite Alien: Earth’s position some two years before the events aboard the USCS Nostromo, the fact that none of these characters have appeared beyond this point in the timeline doesn’t give us much to go on. Still, Kirsh’s seemingly wavering loyalty to Prodigy could soon see him jump ship to Weyland-Yutani. Things aren’t looking good for Boy Kavalier in the finale trailer, and while it would be a shame to wave off the show’s own version of Joffrey Baratheon so early, there are plenty of theories that he’ll fall foul of the T. Ocellus. With Hawley reiterating a second season of Alien: Earth is further along than we might think, Olyphant’s standout role in its freshman outing has fans hoping a potential end of Boy Kavalier doesn’t mean we won’t be getting more from Kirsh.