“I’m…” Wendy is both certain and not. “I don’t know what I am,” she says to Hermit here in the season finale of Alien: Earth. “I’m not a child. I’m not a grown-up. I’m not Marcy. I’m not Wendy.” But while she TBD’s this, she’s for damn sure done letting external human forces manipulate her agency. She’s not powerless. Far, far from it. And she’ll use her Not People power to make decisions people in power hedge with phrases like “It’s complicated.” At least her friends, the xenomorphs, are honest about what they want. In the comically insufficient Prodigy holding cell where they’ve have landed, after the chaos of Episode 7, Wendy proselytizes to her fellow hybrids. Her fellow ghosts in their machines. “All this time we’ve been afraid of them,” she says. That time is done. “I think they should be afraid of us.” Haunt mode: activate.          

Across Neverland, the chaos continues. Comms are down, Yutani’s jamming Prodigy satellites, and from the forest, a xenomorph roars. Failed cinematic hybrids aside, it’s like hearing the Predator’s battle cry before becoming its latest pile of meat and flesh. (Just ask the island’s decimated security services.) Hermit’s in his own cell, with Morrow, and Boy Kavalier has landed on Wendy’s brother as his chosen “someone weak,” his ideal human host for Eyeball Tentacle. Neverland’s descent into disorder has also agitated in Kav what Kirsh describes as his “severe” ADHD. Instead of being smart, Kid Trillionaire is championing his own “planet-sized brain” as a bulwark against Neverland’s complete system failure. With Big Xeno on the prowl, Boy Kav straps on a Kevlar vest for protection. But his disgusting feet remain bare. It’s the tyranny of hubris. He still thinks he can’t be harmed. 

An XXL brain has no place here. With an effortless gesture from Wendy, every screen in Neverland goes blank. She’s in control of all the technological and infrastructure systems humans take for granted, and while she could unlock the hybrids’ cell at any time, she does Morrow’s first. Let the cyborg attack the synth; she has plans for them all, anyway. 

Toploaded with arrogance and “Who will play with me?” drivel, Kavalier addresses the hybrids with an honesty that reveals his core psychosis. At six years old, he applied his giant brian to building his first synth, and ordered it to murder his abusive father. Years later, he’s the first trillionaire, and has plans for an immortality superstore with Wendy and the gang as display models. (Click to buy! Live forever!) He just keeps laughing as Wendy unlocks the cell and they advance on their creator, never to do his bidding again. It’s simultaneously manic and conceited. Even in this moment, Boy Kav believes he’s impervious to destruction. Wendy’s got one word for this rich dork. “Run.”

What does the hybrids’ Neverland takeover mean for the human world at large? For the world of the Alien franchise? Way back at the beginning, Alien: Earth told us, the prevailing technology of immortality will determine what giant corporation rules the universe. But that’s from a people in power perspective. Hybrids running the show, with evolved onboard consciousness wedded to tech superiority, feels like the beginning of a different outcome. And then you figure in Wendy’s coo-cooing mind texts to her new xenomorphic colleagues. In one terrifying, beautiful moment of superimposition, A:E shows us how Wendy can call on and command the xenos from afar. Will she become their collective mother?

With orders to the other hybrids to collect those who remain – Sylvia, Kirsh, Morrow – Wendy arrives at Boy Kav’s lair just in time to prevent Hermit from being Eyeball T’d. He was in there being resourceful – Hermit protected himself by climbing inside the containment unit. But Eyeball’s gotten smarter all season, and with each human encounter. The creature is about to insert itself into Hermit’s brain when Wendy arrives and knocks it away with the artful, elite power of a bended corner kick. There is one other threat in the room, Atom, who is revealed to be a Prodigy-built synth. But in a nice moment of take-that Alien: Earth comedy, the robot Prodigy exec is frozen in place mid-strike. “He’s mechanical, and on the network,” Wendy explains to Hermit. “So I can make him do what I want.” 

A still-laughing Boy Kavalier, a back-broken Kirsh, Sylvia dissociating, Atom powered down, and Morrow in chains are the new residents of the hybrids’ original holding cell. The few Prodigy soldiers who aren’t dead have been rounded up. (Eyeball Tentacle is still on the loose, as is Plant Monster – while Hermit’s friend Siberian survived alien scrapes all season long, here in the finale she is consumed by the latter.) Wendy addresses the group. To Sylvia: “You think you’re a good person, but all you did was put six children in the ground.” And to Kavalier, a complete dismantling of his big brain mystique and insular little storymaking. He’s not Peter Pan; he’s not even a boy. “You’re a man. A mean, angry little man, who decided to hate everybody. Just like your daddy.” 

Slightly, Smee, Nibs, and Curly join her. Hermit stands and observes. And hanging onto the outside of the cell, Big Xeno, joined by the child version that once gestated inside Arthur’s chest. In the airspace above the island, Yutani’s attack ships are arriving. But inside Neverland, Wendy is done letting humans be in charge. 

“Now we rule.”

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.