The Cutprice Guignol

One of the more baffling pop culture opinions I’ve seen in recent years is that the seaspn three Breaking Bad bottle episode entitled The Fly is considered one of the worst episodes of the entire show. An episode directed by Rian Johnson (hmm, could be The Last Jedi of it all) and focusing on the lead characters and their strained and compelling relationship, that has far-flung ramifications for the future of the show. That, for me, is not a boring episode: and the reason I mention it here is because Alien: Earth’s very own The Fly is a boring episode in what is becoming an increasingly boring show.

Now, I love Noah Hawley. I reviewed every episode of Legion (that’s right, on purpose) and I think the worst Fargo season is, at least, on par with the Coen Brothers entire movie career, an opinion that has gotten me into brawls in the past. What I’m saying is that if anyone has a high tolerance for this man’s bullshit, it is me. I’ve even seen The Unusuals, which should be proof enough. I can cope with a slow, thoughtful pace as long as something is actually happening, you know?

Yet, The Fly pushed me to the breaking point, and I need to be honest about the glacial pacing of the show as a whole. Everything after the first two episodes has been either boring or marginally pointless. What interesting directions the story has actually headed in have taken the scenic route into the Bermuda Triangle (which Boy probably owns too). The characters, aside from a handful of outliers like Wendy and Morrow, are so one-dimensional that when they weren’t on camera they were probably frozen in place. Though we’ve still got a couple of weeks till the finale, it’s hard not to feel like this was likely a shorter season when it was first pitched, because I can’t imagine that the three trudging episodes on the island were the original plan for this story.

There are a lot of interesting ideas – Nibs’ autonomy over her own mind and body leading Wendy to realise that her Guardians (well, Dame, since Arthur was fired for standing up for the kids) didn’t have their best interests in mind, for a start; a brilliant set up for a debate on transhumanism masked as the moment where a child no longer sees their parent as their protector. Instead, we get perhaps the most clunkily-written scene of the episode – lumbering Sydney Chandler with rote dialogue that has none of personality she brings to Wendy, and the feeble defence from Dame that confirmed that this show is completely wasting Essie Davis. For shame.

Unlike some of the preceding episodes, stuff does happen: there is a full-grown Xenomorph that talks to Wendy; even if it’s still stuck in rote and simplistic territory – God, this show needs to do a lot better when it is trying to communicate its themes through the cyborg kids. Boy’s meeting with Yutani is predictable, though well-acted enough. The blood bugs get loose, taking poor Isaac (although this might be a Westworld situation where they just reboot him for next week) out in the process. I feel bad for Mrs Eyeball – she’s doing all of this good stuff to keep me interested and she’s stuck in a sheep. MVP.

Finally, we have the demise of poor Arthur, a character I only care about this week because I happened to see the actor excel in season five of Fargo. Arthur himself is a perfect example of the problem this series has – in the episode where he gets facehugged (adverb?), we still don’t know much about him, aside from a few brief moments of moral stance-taking that aren’t contextualized by his previous character work. It does, at least, promise some great stuff heading forward: Morrow being back in action doing things we didn’t already know about, Kirsch and just what the hell he is up to (Timothy Oliphant has been weirdly amazing, even if all he’s done has slightly tilted his head and looked intrigued for about 40% of his screentime), and Slightly, a super-cyborg child under the kind of emotional pressure that my adult ass couldn’t deal with. is reaching breaking point.

To be fair, The Fly isn’t all bad (just mostly) – it’s baring the brunt of my frustration with the previous outings of Alien: Earth so far. Like most episodes on the island this season, it’s a reminder that we are still, firmly, on the scenic route.

By Kevin Boyle

(header image via Yahoo)