Bishop Aliens: The Android Played by Lance Henriksen

Bishop is an android, and in Aliens he is one of the three people who go to LV-426 alongside the Colonial Marines in a company-backed rescue mission, the other two being Ripley and the company man Burke. Lance Henriksen plays him, billed fifth in the cast of James Cameron's film, after Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn and Paul Reiser.

The character is credited under two names across the saga. He is Bishop in Aliens and Bishop II in Alien 3, and both credits belong to Henriksen. A third credit, Charles Bishop Weyland in AVP: Alien vs. Predator, is also Henriksen's, but that is a separate human character and not an android.

If you are new to the saga, Bishop makes more sense once you have seen alien 1979, where Ripley learns that the science officer Ash is an android carrying out company orders. The next film, aliens 1986, asks the same question from the other side: what does an android do when the orders in the room come from someone else? You can find the full run of films on the alien movies hub and in alien movies in order.

Bishop's story runs through two films: he goes down to LV-426 with the Marines in Aliens, and he is revived on the prison planet Fiorina 161 in Alien 3.

In Aliens, Ripley is rescued after decades adrift and learns that LV-426 has been settled by colonists. When the colony goes silent she joins the Marines, together with Burke and Bishop. At the colony they find the buildings wrecked and a single survivor, a young girl called Newt. The Marines are ambushed in the alien nest and most of them are killed, and Ripley takes over from their inexperienced commander to get the survivors out. Burke is revealed to have wanted alien embryos for profit, and the colony's damaged reactor is about to blow up. Bishop is among the four who escape the colony shortly before it is destroyed, and he is badly damaged by the end, yet still able to help save Newt.

Alien 3 (1992), directed by David Fincher, begins with the Sulaco heading home with Ripley, Newt, Hicks and the damaged Bishop all in hypersleep. A facehugger gets aboard, a fire makes the computer eject the escape pod, and the pod crashes on Fiorina 161. Only Ripley survives the crash. Later in the film she revives Bishop, who confirms that a facehugger was aboard the pod. Near the end a team from the company arrives, led by a man who looks exactly like Bishop and claims to be his maker. The credits list that man as Bishop II, played by Henriksen.

Bishop's most important relationship is with Ripley, and the others are best read against it. Ripley goes to LV-426 on the condition that the creatures are destroyed, and Bishop travels in the same party as Burke, the company man who secretly wants embryos brought back. That places Bishop between two people whose aims are opposed, which is where much of the character's interest comes from.

With Newt, the sole survivor of the colony, the link is practical rather than sentimental: Bishop is still able to help save her after he is badly damaged, and he is one of the four who leave the colony with her. Hicks is the other survivor on that ship, and the four share the hypersleep trip home. You can read more about them on the pages for newt aliens and hicks aliens.

The comparison with ash alien is the one the series invites. Ash is the android in Alien (1979) who lets the crew aboard and follows the company's secret orders over their lives. Bishop is another android in the same company-shaped world, played by a different actor. For the wider picture, see alien androids, and for the android of Prometheus, david prometheus. Ripley herself is covered at ellen ripley.

Then there is the relationship that exists through casting. Henriksen plays Charles Bishop Weyland in AVP: Alien vs. Predator, a dying billionaire and the founder of Weyland Industries who funds the Antarctic expedition. The film presents him as a different character from the android Bishop. In Alien 3, the man who claims to be Bishop's maker looks exactly like him and is credited as Bishop II, so the link between the faces is made on screen and in the credits.

Bishop survives Aliens, and he is still present, though damaged, when Alien 3 begins.

At the end of Aliens, Ripley fights the alien queen in a power loader and pushes her out through the airlock. Bishop is badly damaged by that point, but he is one of the four survivors, with Ripley, Newt and Hicks, who settle into hypersleep for the trip back to Earth. In Alien 3 the escape pod crashes and only Ripley survives, so Newt and Hicks do not make it to the end of the story. Ripley revives Bishop on Fiorina 161, and he confirms that a facehugger was aboard the pod.

The Bishop who appears near the end of Alien 3 is a different matter. He leads a team from the company and claims to be Bishop's maker. Ripley refuses his offer, throws herself into the furnace and kills the Queen embryo inside her, and Morse is the only prisoner left alive. The film does not show what becomes of either android after that scene.

As for the question of death, Bishop does not die in Aliens. His body is wrecked, but he leaves the colony and reaches the ship with the others.

In my opinion, the strongest thing about Bishop is how little he asks of the audience: he is a helper in a film full of people who panic, and he is still useful when he has been wrecked. That being said, this is my reading and not an official ranking.

The first moment I would point to is the one near the end of Aliens, where a badly damaged Bishop is still able to help save Newt. It is a payoff for the early suspicion that an android on a company mission cannot be trusted, and the film resolves it without making a speech about it. It could be argued that it answers Ash from Alien (1979) quietly, and I think it does.

The second is in Alien 3, where Ripley revives Bishop on Fiorina 161 and he confirms that a facehugger was aboard the pod. It is a small scene, but it gives Ripley, and the audience, a fixed fact in a film that is short of them. Fincher's film is bleak, and having a familiar face confirm the danger is a rare piece of clarity.

The third is the arrival of Bishop II. Henriksen is credited for a second performance, and the scene gives us a man with Bishop's face, leading the company's team and claiming to be his maker. Perhaps the right reading is that the film wants the audience to feel the company's reach rather than to explain it, and I find that more effective than a lore dump would have been.