Summary
Alien: Earth builds to a new status quo, reversing the power dynamics in an ending that leaves the door ajar for Season 2.
It only took all season, but I finally learned the technical term for “Species 64”, otherwise known as the “creepy tentacled eyeball octopus”, which is how I’ve generally been referring to it. “Ocellus”, it’s called. This is perhaps the least relevant thing about Alien: Earth’s ending, which brings the first season to a close with a radical shift in the status quo and a door having been left slightly ajar for Season 2, but it matters to me.
As I said – radical shift in power. It’s a complete turnaround, actually, since by the end of Episode 8, titled “The Real Monsters”, which is what I’ve been saying all along, the Lost Boys take over Prodigy’s Neverland with the help of two pet Xenomorphs that consider Wendy their mother for reasons that still haven’t entirely been explained. Kirsh, Morrow, and Boy Kavalier, the avatars of blind subservience, corporate takeover, and barefooted psychopathy, respectively, are all prisoners. And Weyland-Yutani is probably going to raid the place, since the Xenos have decimated most of the security personnel.
Oh, and the Ocellus has found a new host. Truth be told, I could have done with more awful things happening to Boy, but maybe that’ll come in a follow-up.
Trouble In Paradise
There’s a fair amount going on after the Lost Boys’ failed escape attempt. They’ve been imprisoned along with Hermit and Morrow, albeit in different cages, which would seem like a victory for Boy Kavalier, who is still annoyingly focused on trying to transfer the Ocellus out of the sheep and into a person, but not quite, as Prodigy is collapsing around his ears in real time. A Xenomorph under Wendy’s control is still on the loose, cleaving the security teams into messy chunks, and Wendy, for reasons I’m not sure I entirely understand, is able to control all of the facility’s computer systems with her mind.
She also has a good angle for rallying the troops. Sure, there’s a bit of lingering distrust among the surviving Lost Boys, since the assumption is that Curly snitched about the escape attempt – I thought this also, but she vehemently denies it – but they can all tell that they’ve been badly wronged in this situation. Boy doesn’t do anything to dissuade them of this notion, either. With all that considered, they might as well break out and tip the status quo on its head.
Hermit and Morrow have the same idea, enacting their own escape in temporary allegiance, though they part ways to hunt down their own respective targets. Hermit is predictably going after Wendy and the kids, while Morrow has a score to settle with Kirsh.
Sibling Rivalry
This is all backdropped by Wendy’s simmering resentment with Hermit for shooting Nibs. This seems like a general difference of opinion, but the reality is that a lot of the show’s themes are bundled up in it, since the disagreement with Hermit dovetails with Wendy’s own sense of awakening. In the Lost Boys realising that they’re technically superweapons, they’re also shedding the naive skin of childhood, becoming something more monstrous and less human to reflect whatever fusion of synthetic parts and human consciousness has sprung them to life.
Naturally, this changes how Wendy views Hermit. There’s less simplistic childlike reasoning there now. Wendy has a better sense of who she is, which is to say she’s more aware of not being Marcy, not really being Wendy, not being a child or a grown-up or a person or a robot. She’s the product of corporate greed and scientific overreach, a consequence of someone with too much money and power meddling with the nature of existence itself out of boredom and greed. She’s entirely unique. And where does simply having a brother fit into that?
Sure, Wendy saves Hermit from Atom, who turns out to be another synthetic like Kirsh, which means that Wendy can simply stop him dead by mind-controlling the Prodigy network. But it’s a more pragmatic move than a sentimental one. Wendy has finally realised what I’ve been saying all along, that the Xenomorphs are more preferable allies because, despite being apex predators who view humans simply as food, they’re honest. And, advantageously, they don’t view her as food.
The New Status Quo
This is how the ending of Alien: Earth brings about a complete reversal of the initial power dynamics. The aliens aren’t a rampaging threat, even though they do continue to wipe out Prodigy’s forces. They’re not instruments of the Lost Boys’ control. They’re the security team of a new ruling class, under the sway of their “mother”. Their honesty made them pliable. How ironic.
The adults, meanwhile, including Dame Sylvia, a wounded Morrow, a badly malfunctioning Kirsh – those two beat the goo out of each other in a standout sequence – and Boy Kavalier himself, are prisoners. They’re locked up in the cage where the Lost Boys have spent a lot of the season in time-out. Nobody knows that Weyland-Yutani forces are rounding on the island. For now, in this moment, Neverland is controlled by the Lost Boys.
As for the Ocellus, it finds a new host after all, entirely on its own – Arthur, whose corpse was left rotting on the beach. Season 2 feels pretty inevitable, doesn’t it?
