Ask A Genius 1527: Alien: Earth Escapes, Gym Injuries, and Comedy Breakdowns
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/09/27
How do robots, brutal gym injuries, and comedy meltdowns intersect in Rick Rosner’s stories with Scott Douglas Jacobsen?
Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner explore the bizarre and the brutal. The Alien: Earth saga continues as the Hermit briefly captures a creature, Wendy battles a robotic lieutenant, and their uneasy alliance begins to crack. Rosner then recounts horrific gym injuries, including a powerlifter tearing both quadriceps and common bicep ruptures. He also shares his stepfather’s sternum-removal surgery after thyroid cancer. Shifting to comedy, Rosner recalls Michael Richards’ infamous meltdowns and his own near-breakdown, contrasting explosive outbursts with quieter creative collapses. The conversation ties together fragile humans, resilient machines, and the strange ways both succeed and fail.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What happened this time with Alien: Earth?
Rick Rosner: The Hermit walked in and found the sheep. He briefly managed to trap the creature in the empty sheep cage, but it escaped.
Wendy entered and struck the floating eye. Realizing it was outnumbered and at risk of being destroyed, the eye retreated down a conduit and escaped. Soon after, the boy cavalier’s lieutenant appeared and fought Wendy. She discovered he was also a robot and, using her access to the island’s operating systems, froze him and pushed him over.
Wendy and the Hermit then argued over his loyalty—whether it lay with his human comrades or with her and the hybrids.
The name “Hermit” brought to mind hermit crabs, which survive by inhabiting discarded shells rather than producing their own. When they outgrow a shell, they must move quickly to another, leaving them briefly exposed and vulnerable. While this comparison highlights fragility, Noah Hawley (the series’s creator) likely did not intend that exact parallel. On the show, the Hermit is indeed one of the weaker characters: a combat medic, more accustomed to tending wounds in battle zones than fighting, and less formidable than other soldiers.
In Studio City, a fleet of delivery robots is already in operation. They navigate sidewalks and streets with surprising competence. Each evening, they line up to be loaded into a U-Haul truck, which transports them to a central facility for charging and overnight storage. The bots even have individual names, such as “Henry.”
Self-driving cars (Waymo vehicles) are also active, particularly in Hollywood. Despite skepticism about trusting autonomous cars, they handle complex maneuvers reliably. One was observed performing a difficult left turn on a yellow light—executed correctly. These robots, while not threatening, exemplify how automated systems are steadily integrating into daily life.
Jacobsen: What is the worst self-injury you have seen at a gym?
Rosner: I did not witness it, but I knew the guy. He was a Junior Olympic champion in powerlifting. He was massive, maybe on steroids. One day, in the 1980s, he was squatting 600 pounds. Back then, that was a lot—though today people squat closer to a thousand. Something went wrong, and he tore both quadriceps completely off his knees.
When muscles tear from their attachment, they recoil toward the other joint. Surgeons have to pull them back down and sew them onto the bone. It is a brutal injury, and recovery is a long process. He was in a wheelchair for quite a while.
People often tear biceps, too. The bicep is relatively weak compared to how it is typically used. It has two heads, and you can lose one attachment and still use it to curl weights. However, it leaves a visible gap in the arm. The first gym owner I trained with had such a tear—two lumps of muscle separated by a hollow gutter. I later noticed the same injury on a Hollywood actor in a movie—he never got it repaired.
Those are pretty brutal injuries. In weightlifting, if you really mess up, you can also get a compound fracture when heavy weight slips out of control and crushes you.
My stepdad had a different kind of ordeal—not an injury, but a doctor-created “fix.” He had thyroid cancer. They removed the thyroid and followed up with radioactive iodine to kill rogue cells. That bought him years of remission; he lived 20 more years after diagnosis.
However, the second recurrence was worse. It had eaten into his sternum. The doctors, perhaps too complacent, had not caught it soon enough. They had to remove his entire sternum. To patch the hole, surgeons cut his pectoral muscle at the shoulder, flipped it over, and sewed it across his chest cavity. It worked for the rest of his life, but it was a gruesome and improvised solution.
Jacobsen: What about mental breakdowns in comedy rooms? Have you seen that—people burning out from overwork or personal issues?
Rosner: Not in comedy rooms directly. I have known people who had to step away, but not complete breakdowns. I did, however, see Michael Richards—Kramer from Seinfeld—implode twice. He is infamous for his 2000s meltdown at the Laugh Factory, where he shouted racial slurs at hecklers. However, decades earlier, in the mid-1980s, I saw him bomb at a comedy night in a bar where I worked.
He blanked on what to do next, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and meant to give a little squirt. Instead, it fully discharged. The club’s front was filled with chemical foam like a snowstorm. He apologized, climbed onto a table in the middle of the room, and finished his set while the audience huddled at the back. That was his first freakout I witnessed.
I have had one myself. In a semi-comedy context, I got so frustrated with a writing partner that I pushed him down and punched him.
Jacobsen: For the record, you have not punched me.
Rosner: No. We are about 1,200 miles apart. Moreover, since then, I have been on Toprol, an adrenaline blocker. I have not punched anyone since. Not that I was swinging wildly before—but the medication helps.
Rather than explosive breakdowns—throwing things, yelling—what is more common in comedy rooms is a quieter collapse: people stop producing. They get demoralized and quit contributing. That is the breakdown I have seen. But even that, not often.
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