How the Alien: Earth Finale Sets Up a Possible Second Season With Crucial Open Questions

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Alien: Earth finale. Following a penultimate episode that ended with Joe (Alex Lawther) siding with his Prodigy guard buddies over Wendy (Sydney Chandler) and her pet Xenomorph, the finale of showrunner Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth TV series gave rise to what seems like the start of a new world order on the island of Neverland. Titled “The Real Monsters,” Episode 8 saw the power struggle between Wendy and trillionaire Prodigy CEO Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) come to a head, as Wendy banded together with her fellow hybrids to take control of the boy genius’ compound. After using her newfound ability to hack into the Neverland security system and free herself and the Lost Boys from their holding cell, Wendy tasked each of the hybrids with collecting a target: Smee (Jonathan Ajayi) and Slightly (Adarsh Gourav) were sent after Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant); Morrow (Babou Ceesay) and Nibs (Lily Newmark) after Dame Sylvia (Essie Davis); and Curly (Erana James) after the Prodigy soldiers. Finally recognizing Wendy’s important leadership role in the group, Curly also told her that she’d like to be called Jane, the name of Wendy Darling’s daughter in the story of Peter Pan. Wendy herself went to retrieve her brother, whom she saved in the nick of time from becoming the new human host of the killer eyeball alien. This was a plan Boy had tried to set in motion with the help of his bodyguard Atom (Adrian Edmondson)—who was revealed to be the very first synth the boy genius ever built. Luckily, since Atom is mechanical and was connected to the Neverland network, Wendy was able to stop him in his tracks and rescue Joe. The two then had it out over how he views her and her place in the world. “I don’t know what I am,” she lamented. “I’m not a child. I’m not a grown-up. I’m not Marcy. I’m not Wendy. And I can’t be what everyone wants me to be.” However, there was one thing Wendy was sure of, and that was that she was not powerless. So after gathering all the adults who had tried to exert influence over the hybrids in a holding cell, Wendy laid down the new laws of the land while her Xenomorph and its chestburster youngling watched menacingly on. “Now we rule,” she announced as the Lost Boys waited on her command. If the series ended there, it wouldn’t be the worst cliffhanger in the world. But there are still plenty of questions for the show to answer in a second season, such as what the eyeball alien might be plotting now that it’s claimed the dead body of Arthur (David Rysdahl) as its new host; what the Weyland-Yutani forces arriving on the island have been ordered to do, and whether Wendy can actually control the Xenomorph. While Alien: Earth hasn’t yet been officially renewed, Hawley has spoken about future plans for the series. “I think that I have a destination in mind story-wise, which allows me to know what the story is I’m telling, what it means,” he told Evolution of Horror. “And I don’t know how long it takes to get there, but I do have a sense of where we go in success. And you know, the question becomes: how streamlined can we make the process so that you’re not waiting for three, or four, or five years for more?”