Earth Episode 5 Introduces USCSS Maginot Crew and Their Mistakes

Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Alien: Earth season 1, episode 5.Alien: Earth properly introduced the crew of the USCSS Maginot, and they gave me a lot more sympathy for the characters in Prometheus. Alien: Earth episode 5 was a flashback episode to the cause of the USCSS Maginot‘s crash-landing, and it finally introduced us to the crew of the Weyland-Yutani ship. One of those crew members has some major similarities to the cast of Prometheus.

Though there was a saboteur working with Boy Kavalier on board the Maginot, the ship’s crew also made an extraordinary number of mistakes that led to their deaths. Zaverni, for example, did an awful job as interim captain, no one listened to Morrow’s advice as the safety officer, and Malachite drank infected water unknowingly. One crew member, however, was the most to blame.

The Maginot’s Science Officer, Chibuzo, Is Terrible At Lab Safety

Courtesy of FX 

Chibuzo, the Maginot‘s science officer, was easily the most disastrously stupid person in the cast of Alien: Earth. Even though she was a trained scientist and biologist, it seemed like Chibuzo had never even heard of a safety protocol before, let alone knew how to follow them. Chibuzo gave Alien: Earth‘s alien lifeforms every chance in the world to escape, and she wasn’t even the saboteur.

Going just in chronological order, Chibuzo was conducting experiments on hostile alien lifeforms in a (presumably) sterile lab. Despite that fact, she wore no personal protective equipment of any kind, she was eating and drinking while handling these lifeforms, and she didn’t monitor any of their containers. That’s lab safety 101; high school chem labs have better protocols.

Those are just Chibuzo’s fundamental mistakes, though. She then forgot to fully secure the lid on Species 19’s container, even though she knew it was carnivorous and could climb the glass walls. Later, she forgot to secure T. Ocellus’ tank in its place, and she completely ignored the automatic alert that it wasn’t secured.

Granted, she had learned about the death of a crew mate, and she was distracted. That’s no excuse for such a huge breach of safety procedure, though. Chibuzo is supposed to be a professional biologist hired by the richest company in humanity’s history for a mission of the utmost importance to Weyland-Yutani’s CEO, but she has the lab safety knowledge of a 14-year-old.

It’s honestly surprising that it took a saboteur for one of the Maginot‘s specimens to escape. The way Chibuzo runs her lab, something should have breached containment on day one. Even Rahim, a doctor who refuses to use a mask while doing open surgery, has a better sense of self-preservation and safety protocol than Chibuzo did.

Chibuzo Would Be Right At Home With Prometheus’ Scientists

Chibuzo’s frankly startling incompetency makes her very similar to the scientists in Prometheus. Like Chibuzo, Prometheus‘ scientists were dumb. They were exploring foreign worlds, interacting with unidentified alien lifeforms, and more without a single precaution in place. Also like Chibuzo, they were supposed to be professional scientists, yet they had the reckless abandon of children.

Chibuzo’s incompetency, however, has highlighted something about the Alien franchise that makes the sins of Prometheus easier to accept: Alien has always depended on idiots. The entire franchise has been propelled along by hotheads and meatheads who buck safety protocols and give the Xenomorphs every chance in the world to go on a rampage.

In the original Alien, no one but Ripley wanted to enforce quarantine measures when Kane was infected. In Aliens, everyone underestimated the Xenomorphs and made numerous mistakes, like using explosive rounds. Every Alien movie has at least one absolute nitwit who gives the Xenomorphs a chance to kill everyone in sight.

Surprisingly, the crew of the Maginot is actually among the least guilty of this crime. Unlike almost anyone else in the Alien franchise, they actually followed protocol, to a degree. When Bronski was infected with a facehugger, they actually put him in cryosleep. They had no way of knowing that the facehugger could stay awake in subzero temperatures, though, so that’s really not their fault.

As annoying as it can be, people making mistakes while handling hostile alien lifeforms is a central part of Alien. Not only is it a common plot device, it also speaks to the franchise’s main message: there are things out there that we don’t understand that are more dangerous than we can imagine. If anything, Alien: Earth shows that better than most Alien movies have.