SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from “The Fly,” Season 1, Episode 6 of “Alien: Earth,” now streaming on Hulu.
Within the opening moments of “Alien: Earth,” it was revealed that the race for immortality lies between a competition among five companies: Weyland-Yutani, Threshold, Lynch, Dynamic and Prodigy Corporation. While the series follows Prodigy Corporation as it’s on the verge of releasing a scientific breakthrough in creating synthetic bodies with human consciousness, the company begins testing out the process on terminally ill children. As the children begin to inhabit their adult bodies, the company continues to pride itself in claiming that they have effectively ended death, allowing consumers the opportunity to purchase immortality.
It’s Episode 6, titled “The Fly,” that disproves that a hybrid can, in fact, beat death, ending what Prodigy Corporation has built their latest invention on. After one of the young hybrids, Tootles (Kit Young) finds himself locked in a glass chamber with the alien specimens, he is attacked by the nest of alien flies, killing him instantaneously. While the rest of the Lost Boys are unaware of what has happened to Tootles, one thing is certain: No one is guaranteed to be spared from death, even in a synthetic body.
Kit Young in Episode 6 of “Alien: Earth”
Young spoke with Variety about the unarticulated rivalry that the Lost Boys have with one another, playing an adult with the mind of a child and working with a real-life sheep while staging his character’s grisly demise.
Leading into Episode 6, Tootles asks Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) if he can change his name to Isaac in tribute to another famous scientist, Isaac Newton. The two begin to talk in the lab, and you can tell that Tootles looks up to Kirsh as he is the lead synthetic scientist on Neverland Research Island. Would you say that Tootles idolizes him as a father figure or a role model, or is it a blurred line between both?
It’s a bit of both. There are very obvious parental figures for all the Lost Boys, with Dame Sylvia being the matriarch and Arthur being a father figure or a fun uncle for them. With Kirsh, it’s a little bit more like when you have a favorite teacher. Tootles really wants to embody everything that he is because Kirsh is upfront with them, is very direct and doesn’t lie to them. When adults tell kids the truth, they really seem to respond to that. He’s trying to be the Robin to Kirsh’s Batman, and their relationship is like a sensei and a protégé.
During “The Fly,” there is this childlike wonder that Tootles has when Kirsh entrusts him to watch over the alien specimens as he’s away from the laboratory. Tootles chooses not to tell Curly (Erana James) that he’s been chosen to watch over the laboratory alone. Is there a subconscious rivalry between Tootles and Curly, since they’re both employed as young scientists trying to research these new specimens?
Erana and I had that kind of the vibe [for our characters] to be incredibly competitive and constantly jabbing at each other. Obviously, they’re all kids, but I think to children, the age differences really matter. It’s like when kids say they’re not 10, they say they’re 10 1/2. With Curly and Tootles, they’re the older kids, and they actually have real jobs as scientists in the lab.
They’re employed kids, they have adult jobs!
They’re employed, they’re busy and booked! It’s very much a deliberate choice to not include someone because you want to feel special. Had he taken Curly with him, then he probably would still be around. So much of Tootles and his story as he becomes Isaac is growing up, and he grows up a bit too fast. It really is his curiosity that kills the cat.
What do you think he believes of Prodigy Corporation leading up to his final moments? He gave up his body and his name for a company who stripped him away from his family for their technological advances. In the end, Tootles dies in the name of science, the very thing he loved so much.
As you guys like to say in the States, he really drank the Kool-Aid. He believes what he’s told, and then he gets frustrated about the fact that he’s not being treated as an adult. There’s an instinct that a lot of kids have to grow up fast, and he believes he’s a grown man that needs a new name. I don’t think he’s aware enough to necessarily see that there might be some nefarious things going on with the company. As far as he’s concerned, he’s been given this great gift. He was going to die as a sick child, and he’s been given a second chance. If anything, had he gone on, he might be at risk of being one of the people that sides with Prodigy Corporation.
You worked with Victoria the sheep during Tootles’ death scene. In the show, the sheep is being controlled by T. Ochellus, the eyeball alien specimen, which knocks Tootles down and ultimately leads him to his death by the alien flies. What was the process of staging and blocking his final moments, alongside working with a live animal and various practical effects?
It was the only day I had where I was the only actor on set. We put it all together and staged it like we were doing a play. When we got to the glass chambers, we had shots where we had the real sheep, and then we had shots where it was this amazingly life-like animatronic sheep. You genuinely couldn’t tell the difference, and the only way you could tell the difference is that the sheep would be still for too long. The only thing that had to be digitalized, was some of the melting goo and some of the flies jumping down. Most of it was practical. They had this real pump spraying at me while I had the goo coming out my mouth in camera. There were a couple of dots on my face, but most of it we captured during filming.
Throughout the series, Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) prides himself on the fact that these hybrids can end death, effectively creating immortality. Tootles’ death disproves this, showing that a hybrid being can die under extreme circumstances. What do you imagine this means for Prodigy Corporation’s future and the imminent release of these hybrid bodies?
It’s utter panic, because everything that Prodigy is building the hybrids on is a lie. All of these corporations are trying to achieve immortality through very different methods, and with Prodigy, it’s with these bodies. The stakes go way up for all the other Lost Boys, especially with Wendy [Sydney Chandler], knowing that really no one is safe.
For Prodigy, it really tanks their stocks, because they’ve probably told the world that they’ve got at least six hybrids, and now they’re probably going to want to do a showcase where you can’t use all six kids. You’ve either got to make more or you might have to do a little iOS update. There’s a reason that we’re not at the end of the season yet. It won’t bode well for Prodigy Corporation in the future.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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