Last Saturday, we saw that the crew of the Covenant trudged onto a foreign planet, dressed like they were out hunting deer. Two crew members were infected with spores made of the infamous goo from the previous film, Prometheus (2012). An alien then burst out of the first crewmember and —because everyone seems to have a little trouble processing information in this movie — the pilot shoots at the alien while it is positioned in front of a bunch of gas tanks. The shuttle they used to land on the planet blows up, of course. The alien then escapes and we have no idea why it did not die along with the pilot and Oram’s wife.

The crewmembers who’d found Dr. Shaw’s wrecked ship return just in time to see the shuttle explode. Oram is obviously distraught because he knows his wife was aboard the shuttle. While he is mourning his wife, the second crew member begins convulsing, and yet another alien bursts out of him. Now, I know this is low-hanging fruit because either the writers or some other critic wants me to complain about it. But I’m going to take the bait: It comes out that the crew member who died was a guy who had a husband. I know this is Hollywood, and they’re all for diversity and whatnot. But why would anyone take a homosexual couple on a colonization mission?! There may be a commonsense explanation, but it isn’t offered.

The man in the hooded cloak…

In any event, the two aliens start attacking the crew and Walter, the colonists’ robot, loses his hand while saving one of the crew members. The crew manages to kill one of the aliens, but the other continues its assault until a flare is shot off. Everyone looks around to see who shot it and they see a man in a hooded cloak. When the man lowers the hood, he turns out not to be a man at all, but a robot. David, the maniacal mechanical wonder, has returned.

David asks the crew to follow him. He tells them that Dr. Shaw was killed when they crashed on the planet. He eventually takes them to a large stone building surrounded by countless charred bodies. Nonetheless, he assures the crew that the structure is safe.

But it’s clear that something is wrong with David. For instance, at one point, Oram tells him that they are a part of a colonization mission, and the creepy machine acts just a little too interested in the fact. But I’m sure everything will be just fine.

At any rate, Walter tells Daniels that he will talk to David since they’re both robots. While Walter is speaking with his almost twin, the audience sees a flashback showing what happened when the maniacal robot first arrived on the planet. It turns out that David reached the home of the giant white aliens from Prometheus after all. But for some reason, Dr. Shaw isn’t with him, and David releases the black goo into a crowd below the ship. The goo kills all the giant white aliens, and the audience is led to believe that it went on to destroy all the animal life on David’s new home.

Why did Dr Shaw help David back into action?

I’m not sure how plausible this is. First of all, I have one screaming question. David was literally a talking head by the end of the previous film? Why did Dr. Shaw put him back together? He is clearly an evil robot who could break her in two without stripping a gear. Granted, she never actually learned that he killed her husband, but the robot gleefully implied that he knew more about his death than she did.

There is no way Dr. Shaw should’ve trusted this can opener, based on what we know about her. If the movie was logically consistent, David would’ve been a head on a stick, and Dr. Shaw would’ve shot the flare. I don’t care how lonely space is. Nobody would put this killer creature back together just so they could have someone to talk to. The head, after all, was still capable of speech.

Secondly, I don’t see how these white aliens, the Engineers, as they’re called, wouldn’t have some kind of counter to the black goo. Surely, there would be rival factions on this planet, and one of those warring groups would develop such a deadly weapon against the other. This goo is very similar to the nuclear bomb, only worse. These various groups might decide mutual destruction isn’t beneficial, so that could be why the Engineers moved the goo to another planet in the previous film. But they’d still have bunkers, suits, chemicals, and pills—various counters that would ensure a small remnant’s survival. However, we are asked to believe that David wiped them all out in one fell swoop. I guess it’s a good thing there were no Engineers flying around space when David arrived. The robot might’ve had some explaining to do if anyone ever came back. Also, why did the black goo burn all the people instead of disintegrating them like it did in the first film?

And in case anyone wondered…

And, just in case we haven’t already suspected, David is lying about what happened to Dr. Shaw. She wasn’t killed in the crash. She was murdered by the evil robot. But we’re not supposed to know that, so David shows Walter Dr. Shaw’s headstone and “mourns” her loss. Personally, I don’t think any audience would believe David’s story, and it’s frustrating to know that he killed her after she put him back together. That makes her seem like an idiot. For all of Prometheus’s flaws, I never felt that Dr. Shaw was a moron. So I hated how she died.

While the robots are talking, the crew tries to reach the Covenant. This is largely irrelevant because we sense that the signal will come back when the writers need it to. Also, Daniels and Oram make amends.

But then one of the crew members tells them she needs to wash up and goes off by herself, which is as stupid as it is cliché. She had no way of knowing there would be any clean water around, aside from the rainwater outside the building, and even that would’ve been risky. She also doesn’t know how long she’s going to be on the planet, so washing up might prove to be redundant. But because we need another casualty, she wanders around the place until she finds a tub of water and begins cleaning her wounds.

Well, it turns out the last alien variant enters the building because David, of course, lied about that too. Obviously, the place isn’t safe. It sneaks up behind the crew member and kills her.

Where’s Walter?

Then David shows up again, leaving me with another rather important question: Where’s Walter? It seems the movie decided to make him conveniently disappear when needed because obviously David is a sociopath who should be watched at all times. It makes no sense for Walter to leave David alone at any point during this film, but the writers need David to be by himself so he can do his nefarious deeds. Therefore, the writers, rather than coming up with some kind of subplot for Walter, simply pretend like Walter doesn’t exist for a large portion of the movie. He just disappears. It’s as if the writers hope you’ll forget about him for a while. This is the epitome of lazy writing.

Anyway, David decides he’s the alien whisperer and tries to tame the beast, but Oram stumbles across David, sees the nasty creature, and shoots it. David becomes very upset and wails that it trusted him. Seeing that the robot is frighteningly apathetic toward the death of one of his crew, Oram demands answers from the faulty machine, and we’ll cover what happens then next Saturday.

Here are the first two parts of my review:

Alien: Covenant (2017): A story driven by stupidity, coincidence. Nothing seems to happen as the natural result of a character’s choices, consistent with personality and motive. It’s exciting but the audience will likely notice the hands of the writers moving the pieces where they want them to go.

Alien Covenant (2017): When the prophet fails. Everybody trudges onto the planet in what amounts to hunting gear and they begin looking for Shaw’s ship… What’s the point of Daniels being the screenwriters’ prophet if the character isn’t going to even try to take any sort of action to prevent a disaster?