'Isn’t about academic freedom'

'On his worst day, he was more deeply knowledgeable'

He had numerous acting and stunt credits

'Must-see TV'

'The natural next step'

Movies & TV Alien: Earth Alien: Earth Finally Reveals the True Star of the Show in “The Fly” AIR. DUCTS. By Leah Schnelbach | Published on September 10, 2025 Credit: Hulu Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Hulu Episode Six of Alien: Earth is titled “The Fly” and was written by Noah Hawley and Lisa Long and directed by Ugla Hauksdóttir. This week we’re back at the Never Land facility, where people and hybrids continue to do silly things with alien life, and we finally get a star turn from the Alien series’ best character: THE AIR DUCT. Let’s Dissect a Still-Quivering Facehugger First things first: I finally thought of a good portmanteau for my favorite character, the one I’ve been calling Eyeball Octopus, and it’s OPTIPUS. My apologies for it taking this long to marinate. Wendy’s spending a lot of time with her Xenomorph baby, who’s growing up so fast! Joe is concerned about whether working with the creature is hurting her emotionally, and Kirsh makes a point of reminding Joe that Wendy can do anything, and that no she’s not going to go “live” with Joe. Joe starts gently poking at Wendy to see if she really enjoys being on the island, and finally raises the idea of them leaving, but Wendy tells him that the island is “a yes place” and pushes back on his idea. Joe looks shocked as she walks away from him. (I’m more shocked that a man who has grown up in this world still just blurts out all of his thoughts like surveillance cameras don’t exist.) Yutani and Boy Kavalier meet, with a mediator appointed by The Five sitting between them. Boy Kavalier flops into his seat like a teen at a family dinner, splays his legs out, and stretches his gross feet up on the table. That’s to start. Later he crawls part of the way down the table like he’s auditioning for a ’90s music video, and then he sits cross-legged at one end. Throughout all of this, he keeps a smirk plastered across his face because he knows that he has Yutani cornered—no one knows that he bribed someone to sabotage the Maginot (well, except Morrow, but he can’t say anything about it seemingly), and she was importing foreign space creatures. The fact that they were meant to go to an off-world lab doesn’t matter now that they’re here, and thousands of people are dead or injured. She pays him off and still has to agree to a six-week quarantine before she can get her creatures back. Somehow, I don’t think they’re going to still be available by then—at least not in their current forms. Then we get my favorite scene in the episode. Morrow has a private chat with Yutani, and suggests that they sow as much chaos over at Never Land as possible. He goes to the elevator, and the doors are almost closed when a hand pops in and forces them open, and here’s Kirsh, joining him for their own private chat. Morrow posits that Kirsh must be upset to be obsolete now, and Kirsh posits that Morrow must envy him for being fully machine. Horrifying mutual threats later, Morrow calls Kirsh “old toy” and we’re off to the rest of the plot. Credit: Hulu Man, I don’t care how unlikely it is, I want a sci-fi Odd Couple reboot with these two, and I want it now.   Meanwhile, back at the science lab, Atom Eins tells the Sylvias to erase Nibs’ memories of the crash site, and the whole phantom pregnancy deal. They protest that they don’t know what it’ll do to her, but Atom Eins reminds them that all the kids have to be on stage happy and smiling in a few weeks time. Arthur tries to refuse anyway, Dame says she’ll do it, Atom fires Arthur and tells him to get off the island by sundown unless he wants to get shot for trespassing. And Dame does it. She erases Nibs’ trauma, while pointedly thinking of her own fear when Nibs attacked her. “Isn’t it a gift” she murmurs. A voiceover of Boy Kavalier reading Peter Pan to the children plays as Smee confronts Slightly about Slightly’s sudden seriousness. Slightly promises that as soon as he’s able to do the thing he has to do he’ll play games with him again. As I expected, Slightly tries to sacrifice Joe to the Alien Egg, but Joe at last shows some brains and refuses to wander off with the hybrid boy who’s acting really tense and weird all of a sudden. His two friends from the Search and Rescue team show up just then to bring him on a check of the perimeter. And then all my newfound respect for Joe goes out the window as he keeps trying to engage them in casual conversation about boats until Siberian snaps at him not to do whatever he’s thinking of doing, because they’re safe here. Which, well, go ahead and believe that if it helps you sleep, I guess. Nibs wakes up to find Wendy sitting with her. Wendy immediately asks her about all the memories that were just wiped. Did no one think to warn the other Lost Boys not to bring it up??? So now Nibs is kinda traumatized again, because she can’t remember any of what Wendy’s talking about and she thinks there’s something wrong with her. Kirsh leaves with Boy Kavalier, and asks Isaac to feed the creatures in his absence. Isaac is super excited to be entrusted with a big task. It does not go well. Look I knew going into this show that things were going to get gnarly. That’s the nature of Alien. But to see Isaac, who was so excited to be trusted with science, get so immediately outmaneuvered by these creatures was terribly upsetting. He follows all the feeding procedures carefully, until he accidently pulls a door off its hinges, which means he has to go into one of the enclosures. Even that’s going OK—he carefully sets a tray of food down for the Alien Flies, with his foot holding the door ajar enough to get back out—until Optipus bangs on the wall between them, startling him so his foot slips out of the door. And then that’s it. He’s trapped in there, the Alien Flies attack, and it’s all hybrid milk blood and melting synthetic flesh and brains being sucked out. And if that isn’t enough Lost Boy carnage, the show drops us straight into the emotional wringer. Wendy confronts Dame Sylvia about erasing Nibs’ memories, and Dame either means it when she says she wants to help Wendy and that everything she does is for the kids, or she’s just lying to to get her to calm down. She definitely holds herself like she expects Wendy to attack the same way Nibs did, despite the fact that Wendy has never been violent toward anyone except the Xenomorph who threatened Joe. But obviously this sets the stage for Joe to convince her to flee the island, if only he could… wait, Joe’s done something smart again. He goes to Arthur “Work Won’t Love You Back” Sylvia to talk about Wendy’s safety. Arthur tells him he’s going on a trip, and when Joe asks directly whether his sister is safe on the island, he glances at the cameras, then motions Joe over to his computer to show him Smee and Wendy’s vitals. Except of course he uses the opportunity to type out a warning and a boat code. He also turns the Lost Boys’ trackers off. I just—aren’t there cameras built into every computer? And has he never heard of keystroke logging? I feel like there are holes in this plan, but at least Arthur’s trying to be a good person. Surely that won’t be puni—oh no. He notices that Isaac is offline and darts off to the Secure Lab to check on him. The Secure Lab where ordinary meat sacks like himself are NOT supposed to go. Meanwhile, on the transport, Kirsh is watching Slightly on his laptop, Slightly is crying and begging Morrow to spare his mother’s life. But then there’s Arthur, made entirely of meat and positively stuffed with organs. He goes in to check on Isaac, finds him dead on the ground, and Slightly uses the chaos to open the door to the Egg Incubator. Then he ducks out and locks the door, and watches as Arthur is facehugged. And then, in a hilarious moment of Alien-ing, Slightly pops open a vent and drags Arthur and the facehugger into the ductwork, just barely replacing the metal grate before the (now loose) Alien Fly would have melted him like poor Isaac. We have an alien in the vents! And no one knows it’s there! And Boy Kavalier is miles away and it’ll for sure hatch by the time he gets home! Again, Kirsh watches all this. Boy Kavalier looks back from pretending to fly the transport and notices him staring at his screen. He asks if everything’s OK, and Kirsh assures him that it is. We end with a close up of my beloved Optipus, staring straight down the barrel of the camera. In This Space, Everyone Can Hear My Opinions Credit: Hulu I’m torn. On the one hand, I’m glad to be back in Never Land with the Lost Boys, because I’m much more invested in their story than I was in The Last Days of The Maginot last week. But at the same time: ISAAC NOOOOOOO. Look, I know the Alien universe is brutal. I love horror, I love gore, mostly I find it funny—but I liked Isaac, and seeing him so proud to be trusted, and so eager to prove himself to Kirsh, only to meet such a terrible end made me feel actual human emotions. And historically I have not done that while watching an Alien story (fine, Andy’s story in Romulus got to me, too) so well done, television show. I think what made it even worse is that Isaac genuinely doesn’t see the danger until it’s far too late. He believes he’s completely safe, and moves with an ease and confidence bordering on arrogance, right up until that enclosure door won’t open. Did anyone else find it strange that Slightly didn’t even flinch when he saw his fellow Lost Boy lying there dead? I realize he was desperate to placate Morrow and save his mother, but I expected him to be shocked that any of them could die like that, at least, even if he didn’t have a more emotional response. Credit: Hulu I was pleased to see that there was finally some actual disagreement between Joe and Wendy—Joe’s just been assuming that his kid sister Marcy is still his kid sister Marcy, despite ALL VOLUMINOUS EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY. But of course she has her argument with Dame Sylvia immediately after her conversation with Joe, so now she’ll probably agree that they have to escape. To be clear I am also sad about Arthur, but I figured he was doomed as soon as he expressed a second thought about the Transhumanism Project. I’m glad he got a few moments of empathy and actual heroism before the end though. (I also want to thank the writers for having him ask Joe which name he preferred—I’ve been calling Joe Hermit “Joe”, but I notice a lot of other people call him “Hermit”, so it was nice to see it become an actual point of discussion.) And man that meeting between Yutani and Boy Kavalier was infuriating. As much as I don’t want terrible things to happen to the kids or Joe, this meeting fully put me over the top in rooting for Boy Kavalier to be destroyed by his own hubris. What is Kirsh’s plan, here? I assume he wants to get rid of the hybrids because he sees them as potential replacements, but beyond that I’m not sure how he comes out ahead. Oh and once again: AIR DUCT! AIR DUCT! On Immort(AI)lity Credit: Hulu Yeah, about that. We’ve seen our first Lost Boy die, and it seemed just as brutal and terrible as the death of any human in this series. The only person who saw Isaac’s corpse was Arthur, who reacted as though he was a regular human person whose body should be retrieved—rather than, say, “Let me run back to the other lab, and make an extra backup of Isaac’s consciousness to put in a new synth body.” Are there no backups? Or was Arthur simply so shocked that he reacted like a human who found a dead body, rather than a cybernetics expert who found a broken machine? Meanwhile, we have Dame Sylvia treating Nibs’ brain like an Etch A Sketch. Boredom’s Not a Burden Anyone Should Bear Credit: Hulu We get three pointed Peter Pan pronouncements this week! The first is Wendy Darling realizing that she won’t always be two years old when her mother wishes she could stay a baby, which is hilariously juxtaposed with Wendy’s rapidly growing Xenomorph. The second is Wendy dreaming of Never Never Land encroaching on her waking world, as Slightly argues with Morrow before Smee discovers him. The third is a matter-of-fact account of Peter having to off Lost Boys as they age out of life in Never Never Land, which is, of course, read over Isaac’s death. Alt-J’s 2012 song “Tessellate” plays as Boy Kavalier walks into the mediation session with Yutani—so at least that’s a little closer to the show’s present time. We end on Godsmack’s 1999 hit “Keep Away”—which is probably good advice, but as long as Optipus is in that sheep’s body, she’s friend-shaped. I’ll take my chances. David 8 Was Right Credit: Hulu I wish we could get a bottle episode of Kirsh and Morrow in that elevator. Wendy confronts Dame Sylvia about erasing Nibs’ memory, tells her: “Maybe I don’t want to be a people, if that’s how people are” and ends by pointing out that Dame Sylvia herself might be the problem that needs to be solved. Wendy learns a terrible truth, and responds the way an eight-year-old child would respond. Maybe it’s not such a hot idea to take a group of very young children, with all the ability to call bullshit that children have, who were catastrophically ill and traumatized by it, and shove them into superbodies with brains that can very quickly work through the idea that the humans around them are only dead weight? Meanwhile Kirsh is executing his plan, if his plan is: “keep a poker face and watch as chaos unfolds in Never Land.” Did he intend for Isaac to go into the Secure Lab and get ambushed while he was miles away and unable to help? Or was that genuinely just an accident that works in his favor? He’s definitely been watching Morrow manipulate Slightly, and says nothing as the boy traps Arthur Sylvia in the Lab. Or, well, he says one thing—he says “Affirmative” when Boy Kavalier asks if everything’s all right back home. Whatever Happened to “Save the Cat”? Credit: Hulu No new creatures are harmed this week! (I mean, other than Isaac, Nibs, and Arthur…) But we do get to see the titular Alien Flies in action, and Optipus makes her sheep host body stand up on its hind legs again, and we get a new facehugger. Scattered Transmissions in the Void of Space! Credit: Hulu IT’S GONNA BE IN THE AIR DUCTS AND ARTHUR WAS JUST FIRED SO NO ONE KNOWS HE’S MISSING AND THEY WON’T KNOW IT’S LOOSE AND AND Sorry. I’m a little excited. BUT THERE ARE SO MANY DUCTS FOR IT TO POP OUT OF Sorry. As I’ve often said, horror doesn’t freak me out, and I’m rarely scared. But now they’ve presented me with an Alien that could buzz in my ear before it killed me, and that’s the FUCKING WORST. Quotes! Credit: Hulu Wendy, to Joe, about her Xenobaby: “Joe, I think this one could be good.” (ed note: Oh honey…) Wendy: “This is a ‘Yes’ place, not a ‘No’ place.” Joe: “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Wendy: “The Boy Genius said that ‘No’ is the first step to nothing—being nothing. Achieving nothing. And here we say ‘Yes’”. Joe: “If someone tries to hurt you, tries to take advantage of you, then ‘No’ gives you power over your body, power over your life.” Boy Kavalier to Yutani: “Of course, your thoughts and prayers for all the victims of the Maginot crash are always welcome. Kirsh: “Look at you. The almost-human, self-hating machine. How you must envy me.” Morrow: “Sure, yesterday’s model—the incredible irrelevant robot! Who wouldn’t want to be you? What’s it like, working for a company that’s made you obsolete?” Kirsh: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Morrow: “They’re cute, your kids. With their shiny new bodies. I gotta get me one of those.” Kirsh: “A child? Or a body that isn’t so sad?” Morrow: “You know what I like most about killing synths? They don’t feel pain. So nothing clouds their minds when I start chopping ‘em up.” Kirsh: “See, I would imagine it’s the pain that makes it satisfying. Especially for cyborgs—that moment when you realize you’re not a machine after all? When the first eyeball…pops.” [Kirsh bites his lip.] Morrow: “I’ll see you soon, old toy.” Smee: “Bein’ grown up sucks!” Kirsh, to Isaac: “The scientific method is a method, not a suggestion box.” Wendy, to Dame Sylvia: “I don’t want to be a people anymore, if this is what people are.” [end-mark] The post <em>Alien: Earth</em> Finally Reveals the True Star of the Show in “The Fly” appeared first on Reactor.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Isabella Cêpa, a Brazilian feminist and outspoken women’s rights advocate, has defeated a legal campaign that once threatened her with up to 25 years in prison. Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court issued a final, non-appealable ruling in her favor, concluding a high-profile case that began with a brief social media video and evolved into one of the most significant free speech battles in Brazil’s modern history. After years of legal pressure and public silence from Brazilian institutions, Cêpa has not only escaped prosecution but has been granted full refugee protections in Europe. The move marks the first time a Brazilian citizen has received asylum abroad for being persecuted over gender-critical beliefs. Her case has now become a legal precedent, one that free speech advocates say could help protect others facing similar repression. The conflict began in 2020 when Erika Hilton, a politician who identifies as a woman, won a city council seat in São Paulo. The media widely described Hilton as “the most voted woman” in the city. This caught Cêpa’s attention and led to her making a video that she posted online. “At the time I didn’t even know who this person was. I just saw a headline on an Instagram page celebrating that ‘the most voted woman in São Paulo is a transwoman,’” Cêpa said. “Then, I shared a video with my followers saying I was disappointed to hear that the most voted-for woman in São Paulo, later found out that it was in the entire country, was a man.” That single statement triggered a criminal complaint. Hilton reported her to police, which led to an investigation. In early 2022, authorities summoned Cêpa for questioning. She was unaware of the extent of the charges until a major newspaper contacted her for comment. It was only through that journalist that she learned prosecutors had charged her with five counts of “social racism,” a category invented by the Supreme Federal Court in 2019 to criminalize discrimination against the “LGBTQ community” under Brazil’s race-based hate crime laws. Investigators reportedly combed through Cêpa’s social media history to gather posts that might be labeled “transphobic.” These were used to build a case portraying her as a repeat offender. The potential sentence added up to 25 years in prison. While her legal fight in Brazil is now over, her victory has implications far beyond her personal safety. Cêpa’s successful asylum application may now serve as a blueprint for others whose gender-critical views place them at odds with increasingly aggressive speech laws. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Isabella Cêpa Wins Landmark Free Speech Case After Brazil Sought 25-Year Sentence for “Misgendering” appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A Brazilian judge’s order demanding that posts on X be erased not just within Brazil but across the entire globe has caused concerns over national courts asserting control over international online speech. The ruling, handed down by Judge Jeferson Isidoro Mafra in Blumenau, Santa Catarina, orders the platform to delete specific content worldwide, regardless of whether it violates laws in other countries. The platform’s Global Government Affairs team publicly criticized the decision, calling it a direct threat to global freedom of expression. “This means that even if the content is not unlawful in other countries, the Brazilian judiciary believes it has the power to issue orders that extend beyond its own jurisdiction and reach the entire world,” the statement read. X also pointed out that the ruling runs counter to international law, which restricts a nation’s legal reach to its own territory. “This contradicts a basic principle of international law that limits jurisdiction to national territory and puts global freedom of expression at risk,” the platform added. The ruling stems from two lawsuits filed by Leonardo Wagenknecht Utech, a business administrator, who accused other users of insulting him on the platform. One of the disputes began after Utech mocked a pro-amnesty demonstration related to the January 8 riots. His sarcastic comment drew a harsh reply from another user, which Judge Mafra determined was offensive and unlawful. The judge ordered the response removed and instructed X to provide the IP address of the user in question, an order the platform followed. But the most controversial element wasn’t the content of the posts. It was the court’s insistence that the deletion must apply globally. X argued that enforcing Brazilian laws beyond Brazil’s borders sets a dangerous precedent, but Judge Mafra dismissed the jurisdictional challenge, declaring that full removal was non-negotiable. He also claimed that there was no issue of overreach, saying the court’s order “removes Brazilian interest and is based on Brazilian standards.” In a second case brought by Utech, the pattern repeated. After he made a comment critical of Pope Leo XIV’s alleged political leanings, another user responded with an insult. Once again, the judge ruled in Utech’s favor and again imposed a global takedown order. Mafra maintained that such posts exceeded the bounds of lawful expression, asserting that “freedom of expression is not unlimited” and must conform to notions of “honor, good faith, good customs.” The judge imposed financial penalties for noncompliance, including a daily fine of one thousand reais ($183) capped at twenty thousand. Two separate injunctions have been granted so far, both ordering global deletion of user posts. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Brazilian Judge Orders Global Deletion of X Posts in Civil Defamation Cases, Rejects Geoblocking as Insufficient appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The former head of security for WhatsApp, Attaullah Baig, has filed a federal lawsuit against Meta, alleging that the company concealed extensive security flaws, ignored regulatory risks, and launched a campaign of retaliation when he tried to alert leadership. The complaint, filed in the Northern District of California, paints a picture of a company that, in Baig’s words, “treats its users like they are just numbers on some dashboard.” Baig’s lawsuit includes detailed allegations that Meta violated its 2020 FTC Privacy Order and federal securities laws. We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here. In a 2022 internal document shared with senior WhatsApp leaders, Baig warned: “We have a fiduciary responsibility to protect our users and their data. The penalties can be severe both in terms of brand damage and fines.” He outlined six critical failures, including unrestricted employee access to sensitive data, the absence of breach detection capabilities, and the daily compromise of over 100,000 user accounts. According to the filing, Baig joined WhatsApp in 2021 and quickly uncovered what he believed were significant violations of legal and regulatory obligations. A “Red Team Exercise” revealed that about 1,500 engineers could access and exfiltrate user data without any tracking or audit trail. In one of his early meetings with leadership, he told then-head of WhatsApp Will Cathcart that the team had only ten engineers working on security, despite the scale of the platform. He later expanded his concerns in a September 2022 pre-read document for Meta executives. Among the listed issues: “Failure to inventory user data,” “Unrestricted data access,” and “Massive daily account compromises.” The filing alleges these failures violated both the FTC settlement and international data protection laws, such as the GDPR. Baig repeatedly raised alarms with executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, General Counsel Jennifer Newstead, and other top decision-makers. On January 2, 2024, he sent Zuckerberg a letter detailing Meta’s alleged violations and claimed that Meta’s central security team had “falsified security reports to cover up decisions not to remediate data exfiltration risks.” The suit claims that despite his efforts to secure the platform, Baig was pushed out through a campaign of micromanagement, bad-faith performance reviews, and exclusion from key decisions. His former supervisors allegedly warned him not to mention regulatory compliance issues in writing. In one confrontation, he was allegedly told: “Don’t be the guy that people hate to work with,” after raising concerns about weak cybersecurity controls. Baig’s attempts to roll out security tools were also blocked. According to the filing, he and his team developed features to help users recover hacked accounts, limit impersonation scams, and protect vulnerable users like journalists and activists. One such system, called Post Compromise Account Recovery, was successfully recovering tens of thousands of hijacked accounts daily. Meta shut it down. The filing claims “leadership refused to act on the findings, blocked progress on remediation, and refused to provide necessary staffing.” In November 2024, Baig filed a whistleblower report with the SEC, alleging Meta failed to disclose “material cybersecurity risks.” He informed Zuckerberg of the filing a few weeks later. The company terminated him in February 2025, citing poor performance. Baig claims this was the final act in a long-running campaign of retaliation, stating: “This is not a sexual harassment. This is about the company.” He had previously told leadership that the security issues could lead to regulatory enforcement actions similar to those faced by Twitter after its whistle-blower scandal. In response to one internal presentation, Meta’s global public policy head reportedly asked whether they could face consequences like “Mudge at Twitter.” Baig’s disclosures include what he calls Meta’s “false commitment” to European data regulators, citing internal access to sensitive WhatsApp data by as many as 100,000 employees. He also alleged that leadership actively downplayed privacy threats, manipulated internal metrics, and pressured engineers to minimize the severity of risks in official documents. His lawsuit seeks reinstatement, damages for lost compensation, and an order requiring Meta to comply with whistle-blower protections under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Meta, for its part, has denied Baig’s claims. A WhatsApp spokesperson previously characterized the allegations as “distorted claims that misrepresent the ongoing hard work of our team.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Ex-WhatsApp Security Chief Sues Meta Over Alleged Data Failures, Retaliation, and FTC Violations appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

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