Kelly O'Brien was a United States Army soldier and a resident of Gunnison, Colorado, played by Reiko Aylesworth in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. She returned from an overseas tour on the same day in October 2004 that a Predalien crash and the following Xenomorph outbreak tore through the town. After an adult Xenomorph killed her husband Tim at their house, she fled with their daughter Molly, joined other survivors, refused a promised airlift at Gilliam Circle, and flew the hospital helicopter clear of a nuclear strike. She was one of four known survivors of the Gunnison wipeout, with Dallas Howard, Ricky Howard, and Molly.
Biography
Earlier Life
Kelly O'Brien served in the United States Army and made her home in Gunnison, Colorado, with her husband Tim O'Brien and their young daughter Molly. An overseas tour pulled her away from that household for a long stretch, and the distance left Molly cool toward the mother who had been gone. The film places her return on the same October 2004 day that the scout ship crash and the Xenomorph outbreak begin to tear through the town and the surrounding woods.
When Kelly stepped back into Gunnison she wore desert camouflage and carried the habits of a soldier rather than a civilian parent. Tim had raised Molly through the absence, and Kelly knew the girl had grown while she was away. She came home hoping to close that gap, without knowing that the night would erase the ordinary life she had tried to rejoin.
Reunion And Homecoming
Tim met Kelly in the rain outside their house and brought her inside to Molly, who had grown enough that Kelly could hardly believe the child in front of her. They gave Molly a pair of night-vision goggles as a homecoming gift and promised to show her how the set worked later. At bedtime Kelly tried to settle her daughter, put the goggles away, and said she loved her, only for Molly to ask for Dad to read instead.
Alone with Tim afterward, Kelly admitted that Molly was angry she had left, and that she wondered whether the tour itself had been a mistake. Tim told her she had not made a mistake and that they had missed her. The quiet exchange put a hard edge on the reunion, because Kelly could feel how far the tour had pushed her from the girl she had come home to protect.
Attack On The House
During the blackout Molly woke screaming that a monster stood outside her window, and she had seen it through the night-vision goggles from the gift. Tim tried to calm her and checked the glass, then an adult Xenomorph smashed into the house and tore him apart while Kelly pulled Molly away. Kelly heard her husband tell them to go, and she ran with their daughter rather than stay for a fight she could not win with empty hands.
Outside in the rain they put distance between themselves and the wrecked home while Molly cried that they had left Daddy behind. Kelly told her to stay quiet and that they were going to be okay, even as she shared that she had seen one of the creatures too. The flight from the house ended her first night back as a wife and mother in Gunnison and forced her into the role of escort for the only family she had left.
The Cemetery
Kelly and Molly reached a cemetery where another survivor, Karl, had seen something cloaked moving among the stones. When Molly grew loud and Karl threatened them, the cloaked cleaner later named Wolf fired a plasma bolt that killed Karl where he stood. Kelly pulled Molly clear of the blast and moved on unarmed, and Wolf did not take the shot at them.
The cleaner followed the same path toward a sporting goods and gun shop where other townsfolk had gathered for weapons. Kelly and Molly fell in with survivors that included Dallas Howard, his brother Ricky, Jesse, Dale, and Sheriff Eddie Morales. The shop became both an armory and a trap, because Xenomorphs and Wolf closed on the same doors the humans were trying to use.
The Stryker And The APC
After the shop fight the group found a National Guard Stryker and the bodies of the unit that had walked into an ambush on Main Street. Kelly took a rifle from the dead and climbed into the armored vehicle with Molly and the others while Morales raised Colonel Stevens of the U.S. Army on the radio. Stevens promised an airlift in thirty minutes from Gilliam Circle in the center of town and told them ground routes were gone.
Kelly stopped the Stryker and said she thought the colonel was lying, because the army thought about containment first and would not risk the infestation leaving Gunnison. She argued that the hospital helicopter was the real chance out, while Morales insisted the circle was help a few miles down the road. When the group split, Kelly drove toward the hospital with Dallas, Ricky, Jesse, and Molly, and Morales took the rest toward the promised airlift.
Hospital Roof
The hospital had become a hive, and Kelly's group fought through corridors thick with Xenomorphs and the Predalien that had seeded the wards. Inside the building the others said that whatever happened, Kelly had to reach the helicopter because she was the one who could fly it. Jesse died in the chaos of that fight, and Ricky took a wound that left him barely able to move.
On the roof Dallas stayed behind with scavenged Predator gear to buy time while Kelly got Molly and Ricky to the chopper. Kelly shouted for him to come, then lifted off when he made it aboard under fire from the creatures and from the cleaner duel unfolding on the same roof. She put the helicopter into the night sky as Wolf and the Predalien finished their fight and as the military strike closed on the town.
Final Fate
As the F-22 strike lit Gunnison, Kelly told Molly to close her eyes and held the helicopter through the shockwave that tore the aircraft out of the sky. The crash put Kelly, Molly, Dallas, and Ricky into a forest clearing where armed soldiers surrounded them and ordered their weapons down. Kelly pressed Ricky to hold pressure on his wound and faced the perimeter that had come for survivors rather than for an airlift into safety.
When Molly asked whether the monsters were gone, Kelly told her they were gone. The four of them were the only people known to have walked away from the nuclear wipeout of Gunnison in October 2004. Kelly ended the night as a mother who had lost her husband and her town, and as the soldier who had chosen the hospital roof over the lie at Gilliam Circle.
Personality And Traits
Kelly O'Brien carried the tension between a devoted mother and a soldier who had been gone too long. On her first night home she tried to tuck Molly in, said she loved her, and then confessed to Tim that Molly was angry and that the tour might have been a mistake. When the house came under attack she chose Molly's life over a hopeless stand beside Tim, and that choice shaped every mile she ran afterward.
Her army training showed in how she read Colonel Stevens. She treated the Gilliam Circle airlift as containment rather than rescue, said the army thought about containment first, and staked the group that followed her on the hospital helicopter instead. Under pressure she drove the Stryker, took rifles from the dead Guard, and flew the chopper through the blast that erased Gunnison, which left her among the few people who refused the official story and lived.
Weapons And Equipment
After the National Guard ambush Kelly took an M4A1 carbine as her main rifle and a Beretta 92FS as a sidearm from the weapons the survivors gathered in town. She used that kit through the shop fight, the Stryker run, and the hospital corridors, and she held the rifle on the roof while Dallas delayed the creatures behind them. The film shows her as the one person in the escaping group trusted to fly the hospital helicopter once they reached it.
Kelly also drove the Guard Stryker, the armored personnel carrier the survivors used after Main Street fell. That vehicle carried Molly and the hospital group away from Morales and the civilians headed for Gilliam Circle. Between the carbine, the pistol, the Stryker, and the helicopter, her military skills were the reason that small group had a path out of Gunnison at all.
Behind The Scenes
Variety reported in September 2006 that Reiko Aylesworth had been cast as a lead in the Alien vs. Predator sequel, with principal photography due to start in Vancouver the following week beside Steven Pasquale. She was already known for four seasons as CTU agent Michelle Dessler on 24, and Fox paired her with Pasquale under directors Colin and Greg Strause from a screenplay by Shane Salerno. Greg later told Total Sci Fi that Aylesworth played a mother just back from the war who fired machine guns in the film, and he called her their Ripley. Ariel Gade played Molly, and Sam Trammell played her husband Tim.
At an early 2007 theater-scholarship event, Aylesworth said Fox hired a Vancouver trainer for the role and that she worked out two to three times a day so she would look fit and bulked up as Kelly. She trained on pistols, machine guns, an M249 SAW, and a tank-mounted gun she described as roughly twice her height. Standing about five foot four, she told the same audience she liked playing a mother because she had worked with children between early TV jobs. In a November 2007 radio interview she said the shoot had been fun and that she was proud of the film.
Famous Quotes
- "Maybe I made a mistake."
- "I think the colonel was lying."
- "The army thinks about containment first."
- "If I'm right, they're dead if they follow you."
- "I'm going to the hospital with the tank."
- "Close your eyes!"
- "They're gone."
Conclusion
Kelly O'Brien came home to Gunnison as a soldier and a mother on the day the October 2004 outbreak began, and she left it as one of four known survivors. She lost Tim at the house, shielded Molly through the cemetery and the shop, refused the Gilliam Circle airlift, and flew the hospital helicopter clear of the nuclear strike. The film ends with her telling Molly the monsters are gone while soldiers close a perimeter around the crash site, which leaves her alive as of October 2004 with Dallas, Ricky, and Molly.
Appearances
- Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
Tag Categories: Avp Lore | Alien Universe Characters | Predator Universe Characters | Predator Hunt Survivors | Xenomorph Encounter Survivors
