Alien: Earth raised a lot of eyebrows when it made its central character Wendy (Sydney Chandler). The first of the “hybrids” (i.e., human children whose consciousnesses are transferred into synthetic android bodies), Wendy and her “Lost Boys” companions are an exciting new addition to Alien‘s franchise lore. But showrunner Noah Hawley managed to keep things moving so deftly during Alien: Earth‘s two-episode premiere that there was little time to stop and really ponder the deeper implications of the hybrids – and especially the unique abilities that Wendy was manifesting.
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Well, Alien: Earth Episode 3 drops another big cliffhanger ending on fans – one that, once again, leaves one of the Hermit family members in dire straits. Only, instead of Joe (Alex Lawther) being in the clutches of the xenomorph, it seems that Wendy/Marcy is the one who is now in the thrall of the deadly species.
While the show didn’t make too much of it in the opening episodes, viewers did question the scene of the Lost Boys arriving at the crash site of the USCSS Maginot. It was made clear that Wendy was experiencing moments of static or interference when on site at the Maginot, but it was never confirmed what the source of it was. Some fans quickly jumped to the theory that Wendy was picking up on some kind of high-pitched frequency that the xenomorphs use as a method of communicating – now we can all but confirm that’s the case.
Alien: Earth Episode 3 Confirms Wendy’s Connection to the Xenomorphs
In Episode 3, “Metamorphosis”, the Lost Boys squad successfully captures all of the dangerous species that Weyland-Yutani was smuggling onto Earth – albeit at great cost. Wendy and Joe are both critically injured in a battle with the xenomorph drone that killed the Maginot crew, with Wendy ultimately killing the creature. Wendy remains catatonic for a long stretch of hours after the battle, during which she is collected by the Prodigy Search and Rescue team and brought back to the Neverland facility for repair and rebooting.
While Wendy is out, Prodigy owner Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) decides to make his own xenomorph drone for research purposes. Some of Hermit’s damaged organs are repurposed as a xenomorph incubator, and a larva is forcibly cut from a facehugger and implanted in the flesh. However, the invasive surgical approach to creating a xenomorph clearly causes distress in the facehugger, which seems to ‘cry out’ with a high-pitched frequency that not only stimulates other facehuggers gestating in their eggs, but also wakes Wendy from her coma.
The episode ends with Wendy, her mind scrambled by the frequency, stumbling her way to the lab where Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) and the Lost Boys are engineering the xenomorph, collapsing on the floor as the facehugger dies and the xenomorph larva begins to gestate. While it will take Episode 4 to fully confirm things, the early implication is that Wendy is somehow connected to, or in tune with, the facehuggers, which immediately raises some pretty big questions.
Wendy’s Xenomorph Connection Could Change Everything About Alien
After having her consciousness jump between bodies (and being the first successful prototype of that process), it’s no surprise that Wendy picked up some other form of awareness or sensivity that no one else possesses. When fans started to drop theories about this connection, there were some immediate follow-up questions that came with it.
The first thing is: Can Wendy ‘hear’ xenomorph drones like she hears the facehuggers? Are those two frequencies even the same?
Secondly, if Wendy can ‘hear’ xenomorphs, is it just a passive ability? Or can she ‘speak back’ to them, as well? And if she can communicate, what does one do, conversing with monsters?
And, as with any big new reveal this show drops on us, there’s the looming challenge of reconciling all this with the established canon of the Alien films. Establishing that a corporation on Earth has developed a new form of artificial being, which can also understand (and possibly commune with) xenomorphs, feels like it would’ve been something that would’ve affected the course of the franchise timeline in a much bigger way. It’s also a massive risk in storytelling: the xenomorphs became iconic precisely because they are such unknowable creatures. A system of conversation could strip that mystique away, entirely.
Alien: Earth is streaming on FX-Hulu.
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