Troop leader Shayla (Caoilfhionn Dunne) heroically volunteered to ‘kill’ Belinda with a tricky shot through the heart that, if carried out with enough precision, would prove non-fatal, and thereby attract the creature to attach itself to her. The plan worked and Shayla sacrificed herself by jumping with the monster into the miles-deep mine shaft, killing them both. Job done?
Partially. Just before Belinda’s infection was discovered, a tiny detail suggests that one of the creatures had already escaped. Look at the lift panel when Aliss and Troopers Seven and Nine are inside ready to be transported to safety. Shayla ordered two troopers to accompany Aliss, meaning there are only three people in the lift, but the panel counts four.
Is one of those Troopers infected with an invisible creature that the lift weight system is able to detect? (Aliss can’t be infected because the Troopers are standing directly behind her, which would make them vulnerable to attack.) Are they unable to hear its whispers because of their hi-tech space helmets, just as Aliss being deaf made her unable to hear it on the colony base?
In the episode’s closing scene, after Trooper Mo (Bethany Antonia) has been debriefed by Mrs Flood disguised as a space mining corp leader, Mo’s colleague appears to see a flash of something indistinguishable behind her back, just like Belinda saw behind Aliss. That suggests at least one creature left Planet 6-7-6-7 after Shayla’s sacrifice. If one already went up in the lift piggybacking on a Trooper, then there could already be two out there.
Unless, you know, the lift panel reading is just a production error caused by brain freeze due to the extreme cold of the episode’s Welsh quarry night shoot, but surely that would have been fixed in post by now? If there was a creature in that lift, let’s hope that Aliss really did get home safely to her daughter…
