Note: This story contains spoilers from “Alien: Earth” Season 1, Episode 8.
The tables at Neverland turned quite a bit in the “Alien: Earth” finale and the Lost Boys are in charge … for better or worse.
The chaos of Weyland-Yutani showing up on the island to take back the various aliens from the Maginot; Wendy (Sydney Chandler), Joe (Alex Lawther) and Nibs (Lily Newmark) failed escape attempt; and the T. Ocellus eye monster plotting and scheming, was bound to come to a bloody head and the finale paid off on that promise. Season 1 ends with the adults on the island locked in a cage with the Lost Boys calling the shots — with the aid of the xenomorph — and Wendy ominously saying it was their turn to “rule.”
“There’s a difference between being a wartime leader and a peacetime leader,” series creator Noah Hawley told TheWrap about Wendy’s skill as a leader. “If you’re playing big picture games, you’ve got to sacrifice some pieces, like all that stuff, she’s going to have to figure out how to do that.”
The final episodes showed Wendy leaning into her connection with the xenomorph past the point of communication and joining forces to get off the island — and later to hunt down soldiers and track Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin). Despite leaning into more violent solutions, Hawley is not sure Wendy is really grappling with some of the choices she made to round out Season 1.
“There’s a moment in the seventh hour where she releases the xenomorph, but she doesn’t stick around to see what happens,” he said. “She doesn’t stick around to see that like four people die seconds after she does that, so she’s not really grappling with the actual implications of her decisions yet. I think that’s sort of ahead for her to see.”
Hawley continued about Wendy’s violent finale choices: “I think she’s angry, and I think she feels hurt and she’s grieving Isaac. She still hasn’t necessarily dealt with the trauma of being a terminally ill kid, like all that stuff is in there but she’s acting with what feels like moral clarity to her. These kids have literally been told that they’re floor models, their property. They’re not meant to have opinions or an agenda. Yet, no one’s looking out for them, so that the only way to protect themselves is to take control. But that doesn’t mean that they’re going to do any better.”
That sense of protection through control is shown to full effect in the finale. Despite running through a number of soldiers and security — both on the Wayland-Yutani and Prodigy payrolls — Wendy and the xenomorph hold off on killing the Neverland leaders and instead cage them up. Boy K, Dame Sylvia (Essie Davis), Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) and Morrow (Babou Ceesay) are all rounded up. Hawley says Wendy is not quite at the point of outright killing everyone who has wronged her but it’s a “slippery slope.”
“I’m sure she would argue that all she’s doing is protecting herself and the people that she loves,” the showrunner said. “And so, killing Boy Kavalier in the moment in that he’s at his most vulnerable is not an act of protection; that is a murder. She’s not willing to do that, but it’s, you know, slippery slope.”
Elsewhere on the island, the T. Ocellus eye monster — the real scene-stealer of Season 1 — finally moved on from its sheep host. Boy K had clear machinations to put the alien into Joe, but before that could happen it had a square-off with Wendy and managed to get out of the facility. It seemed like another animal host was in its future until it happened across Arthur’s (David Rysdahl) body — dead on the beach via chestburster. A dead human host certainly feels like an upgrade from an imprisoned sheep or a cat.
“It’s opportunistic,” Hawley said. “But it was in a dead cat that seemed like a way to get around, but the moment it saw what looked like a better vehicle, it jumped ship. I don’t know if Arthur is a long-term solution, but it certainly is a way to get up and around.”
Season 1 wrapped without an official renewal from FX. The show was a long journey from inception to premiere in August 2025, and Hawley is hopeful and has plans to get to work on a second season as soon as they’re given the nod. In an era where big shows can take two or more years between seasons that should be music to fans ears.
“I’m on the starting block, you know what I mean,” Hawley said. “As the show wraps up, I’m waiting for the gun to go off to start the Season 2 race. Season 1 is always a proof of concept and then, in success, you have to build a show to run for multiple seasons. So that’s sort of where my head is at now. Let’s build something sustainable that we can create more of a regular schedule. None of us want to be off the air for any longer than we have to be.”
He finished: “We all feel the urgency, and yet FX is is very deliberate in their choices. Not so much as I would say, ‘Are we picking it up or not?’ But, like ‘what can we spend on it.’ These are not cheap shows to make, and I always say to Disney, it’s my job to be ambitious for you.”
“Alien: Earth” is now streaming on Hulu.
