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Alien: Earth’s Episode 7 Plot Twist Just Broke The Franchise’s Most Important Rule
Alien: Earth has been playing a high-stakes game all along. Showrunner Noah Hawley has fleshed out the Alien franchise lore with a long-awaited look at the corporate oligarchy dystopia that planet Earth has become, a wider range of nightmarish monsters lurking out in the darkness of space, and more technological wonders that make humanity’s place in the world even more precarious than it’s ever seemed to be. While the show has undoubtedly become a breakout hit, there has been an openly critical part of the fandom that isn’t enjoying the changes being made to the lore of the films. After Alien: Earth Episode 7, that debate is likely to erupt into a full-blown argument.
“Emergence” is the penultimate episode of Alien: Earth (or at least this first season), so it should be no surprise that all the players and pieces get arranged for an exciting showdown in the finale. However, this show has moved at a slower pace than most sci-fi/horror stories, and so it’s fair to be nervous that we’re rushing toward the ending. But one storytelling twist that Hawley has chosen is already going to cleave an even bigger divide in the fandom, before the finale ever has a chance to land the plane.
Alien: Earth Has Turned A Xenomorph Into A Key Ally
There’s only one cardinal rule of the Alien films: the xenomorphs are the bad guys, and the hero is fighting them for survival. Well, Alien: Earth has just flipped that whole concept on its head. And not everyone is going to like it.
It was one thing when Alien: Earth slowly but surely revealed how Wendy (Sydney Chandler) was developing the power to communicate with the xenomorphs. That was a story thread that could’ve gone in many directions, especially with Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) being the puppetmaster of Wendy and her hybrid “siblings.” It’s another thing entirely in Episode 7 when Wendy (having finally become disillusioned with the Prodigy corporation’s manipulations) decides to release her ‘xeno-pet’ from its holding cell, while a room full of Prodigy employees are still in the lab. The xenomorph tears those scientists and technicians to pieces – and then, later, also tears through a squad of Weyland-Yutani soldiers, with the episode ending on the cliffhanger that the beast could claim a squad of Prodigy soldiers, next.
Did Alien: Earth Just Jump The Shark?
It cannot be overstated that this is a complete reversal of the core dynamic in Alien, which is interesting, but also problematic. Since the 2000s, fans have been critical of new TV or movie installments that try to overdevelop or humanize (so to speak) a franchise villain; in the minds of many fans, knowing less about a horrific creature, scary supernatural entity, or maniac killer is better. While we don’t seem to have to worry about xenomorphs suddenly bursting into seliloquois during “conversations” with Wendy, seeing the fearsome icon of Alien now serving as a pet/hitman for a character who is still, technically, a child is… affecting. There will be some fans for whom Wendy’s actions will be a point of no return, or perhaps a fatal crack in the logic of the show. A child-aged human unleashing an alien monster to kill other humans? It’s an intense concept to accept.
Then again, Hawley has arguably been sowing the seeds of Wendy’s turn all along. The series has always kept the hybrids front and center as the focus (not the monsters); in doing so, it has created a clear metaphor about how children (of our current time) are being exposed to, and affected by, the dangerous and chaotic world adults have created around them. The story has been building Wendy’s arc up to be one about self-empowerment, a transition that has low-key been fueled by the enigmatic Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant), who has continuously pushed all of the hybrids to reject the notion that they are still human and embrace evolving into something greater. Wendy, in turn, has shown abilities well beyond initial measure, whether that’s controlling machinery remotely, killing a xenomorph in combat, developing communications with the alien species, or (in this case), deciding to seize her own agency and break free of her corporate overlord.
That Wendy feels more kinship with an alien monster Prodigy hatched than with the humanity she may no longer even have speaks volumes about the point the show seems to be driving home. But will the majority of fans engage with the idea? And can Alien: Earth truly make it work in the finale?
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