(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
Alien: Earth rather unsubtly named its Season 1 finale “The Real Monsters.”
As such, the dramatic episode delivered big reveals, emotional reckonings, and ultimately, a flip in power dynamics.
The robot-child hybrids not only revolted against the controlling adults in charge, but also imprisoned them, while some of the alien specimens stolen from onboard the deep space research vessel USCSS Maginot broke out of captivity and now have free reign over Neverland island.
Compared to other installments of the Alien franchise, however, the series so far ends not with carnage, but with cliffhangers—no really, how many of us were eagerly anticipating irksome tech trillionaire Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) being mauled by a xenomorph or becoming a meat puppet host for the same eyeball alien he kept foolishly toying with, only to be left disappointed? Kavalier lives, but for how long?
While Alien: Earth hasn’t been renewed for Season 2 yet, here are some more burning questions we hope are answered down the line:
What is the Lost Boys’ next move?
“Now we rule,” are hybrid Wendy’s (Sydney Chandler) season-ending words, said to a bound Kavalier who laughs in acknowledgement that he’s been outmatched. Alongside him, the hybrids have also locked up synths Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) and Atom Eins (Adrian Edmondson), cyborg Kumi Morrow (Babou Ceesay) and Prodigy scientist Dame Sylvia (Essie Davis).
It looks like Lost Boys are now in charge of the Neverland research facility, but that doesn’t mean they can rest easy. A new threat arrives in the form of Weyland-Yutani forces, preparing to invade the island and retrieve the company’s stolen alien cargo.
And while Wendy might have control over the xenomorph for now, it’s not the only hostile species on the island. Given the alien fly’s ability to kill the otherwise near-invincible hybrids (RIP Tootles), spraying them with metal-melting acid, how safe are she and her friends really?
…and how long will Wendy continue to have control of the xenomorph?
As Alien: Earth’s xenomorph forms a bond with Wendy, the show reframes one of cinema’s most iconic movie monsters, turning it from apex predator to unlikely pet. Unlike her fellow hybrids, Wendy not only develops the ability to communicate with the alien, but it also begins to obey her commands, becoming a powerful ally in the Lost Boys’ fight for control of Neverland.
For how long? By the end of Season 1, the island gains a second xenomorph, one that burst out of Prodigy scientist Arthur Sylvia’s (David Rysdahl) chest. Will it also conform, or will it rebel?
What does the eyeball alien have planned?
Mileage on whether the eyeball alien T. Ocellus is cute or creepy varies across the internet—I’m firmly on the side of creepy—but the general consensus is that the show’s breakout star deserved a much bigger role in its finale.
So far, the tentacled creature has possessed Maginot mechanic Shmuel (Michael Smiley), the crew’s cat and later, a captive sheep at the Neverland facility, crawling into their eye sockets, taking control of the pathways to their brains and commandeering their bodies.
By the end of Season 1, however, after a failed attempt at making Prodigy medic Joe Hermit (Alex Lawther) its newest host, it escapes to the beach, where it inhabits Arthur’s chest-bursted corpse…which then sits up. Poor Arthur, whose body has now been occupied by two alien species in quick succession. And poor Dame, who ends the season unaware that her husband is even dead, much less that he’ll be a zombie the next time she sees him.
But what’s the Eye’s endgame here? We’ve got glimpses of its intelligence and penchant for scheming—it helps orchestrate Tootles’ death, despite no apparent benefit to it—but its motives still remain unclear. A decomposing body can’t possibly be its best bet, so how long until it finds someone better to inhabit?
How are the events of Alien: Earth connected to Alien (1979)?
The eight-episode series is set just two years before the events of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic, but their universes can often feel light years apart.
In the Alien films, the cruel and capitalistic machinations of the Weyland-Yutani corporation evoke as much horror as any of its titular creatures. In Alien: Earth, however, it’s just one of five firms that rule the Earth and its solar system. The show instead focuses on the Kavalier-founded Prodigy’s quest to crack eternal life, while the Dynamic, Lynch and Threshold corporations, which aren’t mentioned in other installments, merit only brief references here.
Prodigy’s actual answer to eternal life—their hybrids—don’t exist in Alien, or any of its prequels, however. So how do the Lost Boys meet their ends? Does Prodigy’s inevitable collapse mean the technology is lost forever? All the puzzle pieces are laid out; the fun now lies in seeing how showrunner Noah Hawley will contort them to fit.
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