About that …
One of the most striking images presented in the series thus far is that of a singular sheep hooked up to various electrodes and standing around in the Prodigy lab. The enigmatic animal featured prominently in both the trailer and two-part season premiere. In fact, a graphic of a sheep’s head has served as a sort of unofficial symbol for Alien: Earth, popping up in promotional easter eggs and as the title card for a March screening of the show’s first 15 minutes in Austin that several outlets (including Den of Geek) were invited to. Now Alien: Earth episode 4 “Observation” finally explains what Prodigy CEO Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) has planned for his livestock.
In what’s one of the most horrifying scenes in recent television history and all the Alien canon, Boy K and company let the Eyeball Monster loose on the poor ram. The process, rendered in some truly impressive CGI, is as bloody and upsetting as one would expect. T. Ocellus flings itself on to its prey and pries the left eye out with its tentacles. The invader eyeball then nestles itself in the empty socket and takes control, ending the desperate thrashing. It then stands up on its hind legs and falls back down to the ground, dislodging the dangling extra eyeball from the sheep’s head like a booger. It’s in this moment you begin to get why every episode of Alien: Earth ends with a heavy metal needle drop.
Even moreso than the brief cat attack in episode 1, this scene is a perfect example of the primal revulsion Hawley is looking to capture with Alien: Earth‘s new critters. To state the obvious, people really don’t like to have their eyeballs messed with. Eye gore is one of the last remaining taboos in horror with only the most hardcore projects giving it a go. But the revulsion and fear goes even deeper than the gore.
This alien-possessed farm animal presents the horror of the familiar tainted with the unknown. As hybrid Tootles (Kit Young) notes upon viewing a nearby computer monitor, the sheep’s “wavy lines are totally different now.” His synthetic mentor Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) confirms that that’s because this creature is highly intelligent. Sure enough, the sheep is no longer merely looking at its captors but observing them through two mismatched, yet clearly discerning eyes.
The use of the sheep as a sacrificial object to this unknown evil is also symbolically significant. The electrodes attached to its head resemble horns, giving an animal usually associated with innocence in the Biblical canon the more goat-like appearance of the devil himself. Additionally, the false messianic figure known as Dajjal in the Islamic tradition is said to be missing an eye. One Hadith (an anecdote surrounding the life of Muhammad not presented in the Quran) even clarifies that Dajjal will have a blind right eye and an oversized left eye, which sounds an awful lot like a sheep we just met.