Alien: Earth has concluded its presumably initial run with a story that, well, frankly leaves us with a lot of questions as it takes a hiatus for now. With the Hybrids still active, a pair of Xenomorphs on the loose, and a few other alien organisms running around Prodigy’s Neverland laboratory, there’s a lot to consider both for the future of the series — if one even exists — and the overall Alien landscape. There’s also a few character beats and even a film technique we needed to consider.
And in a surprise twist, these ponderings could also have implications on things like the upcoming Predator: Badlands. But with showrunner Noah Hawley clearly signaling a specific direction for the story, should it continue, we’re left to contemplate elements like the following.
Warning: Spoilers for Season 1 of Alien: Earth Follow
Will The Series Even Continue?
This may seem like an odd question to start with, but at a time when stalwart programs like Doctor Who seemingly have no future but Daredevil: Born Again returns for a third season, it is fair to wonder if Alien: Earth will come back. No announcement has been made as of yet, but the conclusion of the 8-part season suggests Hawley believes it will continue. With the Eye finding a host, the grownups rounded up, the Flower on the loose, and Lady Yutani (Sandra Yi Sencindiver) en route to Neverland, it would appear the series will be the most direct follow-up to any of Hawley’s shows ever.
Consider: Legion, Hawley’s take on the X-Men, would come back to its characters after a between-season time jump, while Fargo concludes its tales every season to move on to new characters — even if they all share the same world. It is possible Alien: Earth will do the same, with Wendy (Sydney Chandler) leading the Hybrids and the two Xenos away from immediate danger and picking up after they’ve evaded harm. But then there’s her ominous finale line: “We rule.” Is that a mission statement from someone who is neither human, nor Xeno, nor Synth?
More on that question in a moment. First, let’s think about the format a possible season 2 could take. Sure, the direct follow-up seems obvious, as the series invested so much time in these characters, but like the fifth episode of the series, it could also move focus to, say, what Weyland-Yutani has really been up to all this time and why they sent the U.S.C.S.S. Maginot on that sample-return mission in the first place. How did Lady Yutani’s grandmother know something was out there? As it happens, humanity’s relationship to extraterrestrial life is very imprecise in the overall scope of Alien. The first film suggests the Xeno is genuinely the first contact with any sort of ET organism, but Aliens, with its references to bug hunts and Arcturians, indicates a more populated galaxy.
Then there’s the Predator to consider…
But outside of the Xeno skull in Predator 2 and the two Alien vs. Predator flicks, the Alien universe seemed exclusively one of Xeno, human, and Synthetic. Alien: Earth has upended that paradigm, and it gives Hawley some leeway on where to go next.
Then again, with the Hybrids as a new detail, season 2 will likely still focus on them.
Do Hybrids Dream Of Alien-Possessed Sheep?
One of the show’s key themes centers on just how human the Hybrids remain after the decidedly transhuman procedure to move their consciousness into Synth bodies. The last two episodes went one step further by suggesting the kids are, in fact, dead and the Hybrids are purely Synthetic with a record of each child’s memory. The graves Wendy — or it is Marcy? — Hermit (Alex Lawther), and Nibs (Lily Newmark) discover indicates Dame Sylvia (Essie Davis) knew the real truth. Then Marcy’s — or is Wendy? — subsequent declaration that she is neither human nor Synth sets up a pivot in that key theme. If the Hybrids are not transhuman, what are they?
The most obvious answer: a new form of life still finding its place in the universe. But with Wendy/Marcy already deciding it is theirs to rule, it is possible they are more of a threat than the Xenos themselves.
Indeed, Alien has already played with this idea via Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. In both films, David (Michael Fassbender) has a problem with his fleshy creators and sets out to damage, kill, and obstruct them at every turn. That story thread derailed, though, when Covenant was not successful enough for director Ridley Scott to continue with a planned third film in the trilogy of prequels. And although Hawley told Rotten Tomatoes when we were on the Alien: Earth set that Prometheus is something he set aside to tell his story, there is an opportunity to circle back to David, especially if the Hybrids strike some accord with their closest cousins.
Well, presuming they accept Artificial Persons as cousins.
And presuming the Prodigy experiment was a failure, it also leaves Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) — should he survive what happens next — in a tough spot. He needs to explain to the board why his grand business strategy not only proved unsuccessful, but is now an existential threat to both the company and humanity itself.
Although, it is possible season 2 will see Prodigy quickly absorbed into Weyland-Yutani once its CEO discovers what transpired at Neverland or finds the bodies of the grownups. It would explain why Prodigy disappeared by the time Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) returns to Earth in Aliens.
What’s With All The Crossfades?
With a few notable exceptions, the crossfade technique — superimposing two images over each other to serve a thematic point — is not a feature of Alien’s overall cinematic language. But it is a key visual element of Alien: Earth. When we caught up with Hawley in late July, he told us how the technique took root for him as a director and why it continued to be employed in the storytelling throughout the season.
“It started for me when I shot the sequence on the airship at the very end [of the premiere] where Sydney is sitting across from Tim as they’re talking about how they used to be food and how humans live and die and there’s something you can do about it,” he explained. “I framed the actors to the edge of frame because I knew that I had this footage of Hermit and his crew and the explosion, et cetera. I thought, well, maybe I’ll fade them up as they’re talking to try to create a dramatic tension there.”
That choice informed the larger editorial process. “You’re juxtaposing these things together, and there’s an emotion, there’s a synergy from two images together that you don’t get from an image singularly,” Hawley continued.
The technique was also more popular in 1970s cinema, if mostly absent from 1979’s Alien, and the executive producer thought using it would evoke more of that era. See also: the use of zoom lenses, another relative rarity in Alien films.
Are All Synths Networked?
In one of the most surprising moments in the finale, Wendy gains control of disguised Synth Atom Eins (Adrian Edmondson). To Hermit’s surprise, she announces that he was on the network and, thus, she could access his software.
But is that true of all artificial people? Are the Bishop (Lance Henriksen) in Aliens or the infamous Hyperdyne Systems model 120-A/2 known as Ash (Ian Holm) in constant communication with a central server thanks to an obscure WiFi protocol? Granted, that could be more difficult when factoring in interstellar distances and Earth’s seeming use of sub-light communication systems, but if all the Synths on Earth are networked, Wendy could use them to move against the Five Corporations.
Speaking of which, when will the other three companies get wind of the war between Prodigy and Weyland-Yutani? Also, for that matter, who owns Hyperdyne Systems?
Wendy’s ability to access the network also makes us wonder if she was sending directives to Ash and the U.S.C.S.S. Nostromo’s MU/TH/UR computer. It would explain why the Company executives Ripley encounters in Aliens seem completely unaware of the Xenos on LV-426. Were they out of the loop all along as Wendy’s plan unfolded?
Of course, the lack of Hybrids in those stories suggests they are off the board by 2179, the year Aliens takes place. But one other thing to consider: As with Legion, Hawley may be playing in his own sandbox, with the events of the Alien films as mere possibilities. The Nostromo, for example, is already on its fateful mission, but it remains to be seen if their encounter with the Xenomorph will matter to the story he is telling.
The inter-connectedness of Alien: Earth to other Alien projects may be resolved via Predator: Badlands and its character Thia (Elle Fanning), a Weyland-Yutani Synth who ends up allied with an exiled Predator. Then again, the focus on another artificial lifeform may just be a coincidence.
And while we’re talking Synths, what was Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) working on? He seemed to have an agenda all his own throughout. His decision to help Slightly (Adarsh Gourav) and Smee (Jonathan Ajayi) deliver Arthur to Morrow (Babou Ceesay) even suggested he was a Company plant all along. But their subsequent fight put that thought to an end, even as Kirsh’s need to solder something led to further speculation about his aims. It may be a moot point now as he has been damaged and possibly destroyed by Wendy’s Xenos, but it is possible his true intentions are embedded in what he taught her. Like David, did he have it out for humanity?
Will The Eye Finally Communicate Its Desires?
One of the most intriguing aspects of Alien: Earth’s initial episodes is the Eye, an alien lifeform that resembles a human eye, and its apparent intelligence. When freely moving, it seems to possess more than just a simple survival instinct about itself, especially when compared to the other species collected by the Maginot. And once it bonded with a sheep in the Boy Genius’s possession, its sentience was seemingly confirmed. But now that it inhabits Arthur Sylvia’s (David Rysdahl) corpse, it is possible The Eye will do the thing Kavalier hoped it would: talk. But will it?
On the one hand, a mute-but-creepy performance from Rysdahl has its appeal, but there is also something genuinely eerie about The Eye seizing upon English and directly telling the Hybrids what it wants. Speculation on that front could range from the simple wish to go home — he was kidnapped by Weyland-Yutani, after all — to a more sinister end. Either option could be compelling, and the actor would be a hoot to watch as he becomes an alien inhabiting a corpse.
Come to think of it, there are still three other organisms to consider as well. The Flies may yet prove to be the Hybrids undoing, if anyone (besides Kirsh) ever notices just how quickly they dispatched Isaac (Kit Young). The Flower seemingly absorbed Hermit’s friend Siberian (Diêm Camille Gbogou), but its true horror has yet to be revealed. The blood-sucking Ticks, meanwhile, receded into the background even though they are as much of a threat as any of the other specimens the Maginot collected. Introducing them in the first place means Hawley has an idea of what to do with them.
Indeed, all of the remaining details, creatures, characters, and ideas suggest the showrunner has a lot more in store for Alien: Earth. We’ll be ready if and when the program returns.
Alien: Earth: Season 1 is available to stream on Hulu.
Thumbnail image by Patrick Brown/FX
