An Alien: Earth Star's Most Emotional Scene Included His Real-Life Daughter

The following contains spoilers for "Alien: Earth" up to and including episode 5, "In Space, No One..."

"Alien: Earth" is an interesting expansion of the "Alien" franchise. It's a TV show that's already given us a fantastic remake of the original "Alien" movie in its first five episodes, in addition to homaging the weirdest film in the property with a cool "Alien: Resurrection" nod. At the same time, it's doing things we've never seen this franchise do before, like introducing an extraterrestrial that even the Xenomorph is afraid of.

Without a doubt, however, the focus of "Alien: Earth," and the place where it is most in sync with the themes of not just the original "Alien" film quadrilogy but also Sir Ridley Scott's two prequel movies, is the show's approach to synthetics. You see, the show's biggest addition to the lore of the "Alien" franchise so far has been the introduction of cyborgs (i.e. humans with cybernetic augmentations) and hybrids (synthetic bodies with human consciousnesses downloaded into them). While cyborgs have been a staple of science-fiction for decades, it's the hybrids, and the fact that they are essentially kids in adult bodies, that steal the show — even if we're a bit annoyed by how the tech works.

That's not to say the show's cyborgs aren't cool, as possibly the best character in "Alien: Earth" is also a cyborg — Babou Ceesay's Morrow, the former chief security officer on the USCSS Maginot, who can pull blades in between his fingers like he's Wolverine. So far, he's been kind of the "Alien: Earth" equivalent of the T-1000 from "Terminator 2," i.e. a driven, cold machine with a singular purpose of getting the Maginot's alien specimens back to his boss without a care for anything else. In the series' fifth episode, however, he gets a tragic backstory that changes everything, especially because it includes Ceesay's real-life daughter.

Speaking with Variety, Ceesay talked about the flashback scene in "Alien: Earth" episode 5, "In Space, No One...," in which Morrow spends time with his daughter. As the actor explained, it really struck a chord with him when he learned that his character had a daughter who died a horrible death:

"The actress playing my daughter is my real daughter. We were shooting, and they were looking for someone to play my daughter, and my daughter was out there [in Thailand] with me going to school, with my son and my wife. [Showrunner] Noah [Hawley] was like, 'What would you think if they'd use her letters, or they'd use a baby picture?' Imagine, in that scene, I'm looking at that — it goes to another level. Even talking about it now affects me."

In "In Space, No One...," we finally get to know the crew of the Maginot before the ship crashed back in the show's first episode. Everyone on board is essentially just forced to give up years of their life — including having their loved ones age and die while they're away — because that's the way of capitalism in the future of the "Alien" universe. When it comes to Morrow specifically, we also get a soul-crushing scene where he is looking at letters his daughter wrote to him, along with a cold corporate message informing him that his daughter died when she was only 19 in a tragic house fire. As it turns out, he received that message just eight years into his mission (which lasted more than 60 years itself).

"I knew there's something human about this guy that I wanted to cover up as much as possible until the moment," Ceesay told Variety. "My hope is that when people see episode 5 and see some of the motivations, they're more on the fence. It's not like, 'Okay, this guy is mission-driven and insane and mean.' It's more like, 'I don't know how I feel about him now.'"

Indeed, the more we've learned about Morrow, the more interesting he has become. This started with the reveal that his cybernetic implants were the result of Yutani (of Weyland-Yutani fame) essentially picking him up off the streets after he'd been abandoned by his mother and giving him a cybernetic arm to correct his palsy. Then along came episode 5, which only further added to the tragedy of Morrow by revealing why, exactly, he's so hellbent on getting the Maginot's aliens back to Wayland-Yutani. It's not just a matter of loyalty to his corporate overlords (despite them being absolutely horrible to him and his daughter). 

No, this is all about Morrow seeking to destroy Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) for causing the death of the Maginot's crew by convincing one of them to betray their crewmates in order to sell the alien creatures to the Prodigy Corporation for money. In the world of "Alien" (and nowhere else, right?), human lives are worth less than nothing in the eyes of giant corporations; they're merely playthings or pawns that exist to an be moved around a chessboard as needed. Therein lies both the tragedy of Morrow and what makes "Alien: Earth" itself a great show.

New episodes of "Alien: Earth" debut on FX and FX on Hulu on Tuesdays.