The ending of Alien: Earth episode 4 revealed that Wendy can in fact talk to a Xenomorph. The show has been building up to this revelation by having Wendy respond pretty painfully every time a Xenomorph embryo reacts to its environment. And today, we saw that, after some guidance from Boy Kavalier, she was able to replicate the sounds that a Xenomorph embryo makes, thereby essentially inventing a whole new language. Of course, that’s a scientific breakthrough and should be celebrated. But this is Prodigy we are talking about. Any new discovery or invention is merely a tool in their hands to gain power. So, I can bet that Boy Kavalier is going to use Wendy’s work to do something inhumane and diabolical. However, there are several other factors at play that he has to keep in mind. For starters, Hermit wants to free Wendy. Wendy herself isn’t sure if she wants to be a product of Prodigy or if she wants to go home with Hermit and live the life of a “normal girl.” On top of that, we have Slightly planning to make Hermit the host for a Xenomorph, and taking him to Morrow, in exchange for his and his family’s freedom. This has all the makings of an intense conflict. How will that play out? What does it all mean? Allow me to dissect.
Spoiler Alert
Alien: Earth episode 4 is centered around the concept of control, or maybe the lack of it. In the first scene itself, we see the scientists controlling what Wendy can and cannot hear. Since Boy Kavalier “guides” her, while Sylvia, Arthur, and even Hermit say that she should take a break from all the Xenomorph stuff, Wendy sort of gravitates towards Boy Kavalier because she thinks he is giving her freedom. However, when he threatens to send Hermit away from Prodigy City because he thinks Wendy and Hermit’s bond is hindering their scientific study, she understands that she doesn’t have any true power. The same goes for Hermit. He thinks that his right to simply resign from his job gives him some kind of power over an entity as mighty as Prodigy. But he is humbled by the revelation that he owes thousands of dollars to the company because he almost died on the job, and he has to pay for the lung that he lost and the one that was thrust onto him (something, something, capitalism). Also, he has to grapple with the notion that his sister isn’t his sister anymore, but the gateway to the next stage of human evolution—a transhuman future—and that means that Prodigy is their one and only home. Coming to Slightly, or Aarush, Morrow is obviously controlling him by threatening to kill his biological mother. Slightly knows that he has no authority; it’s all in Morrow’s hands, and if he doesn’t do exactly what he is being told to do, he’ll lose his mother. This feeling of helplessness is only exacerbated by the fact that Tootles can rename himself to Isaac and Hermit gets to hang around Wendy and the Lost Boys, while the rest can’t. Slightly tries to regain some control by asking why everyone can’t have their families around, and Hermit chimes in to agree, but then that’s shot down by Isaac and Curly because they like the “respect” and privileges they get from Prodigy. Hence, he’s probably thinking that the only way of taking the proverbial reins from Prodigy into his own hands is by sacrificing Hermit on the altar of Weyland-Yutani. This just goes to show that democracy and governance are important. If you allow capitalist corporations to run the circus, everything—humans, hybrids, and androids—will be reduced to pawns in a game centered around gaining ultimate power.
The most basic prediction that I can come up with, based on the aforementioned plot threads, is that Slightly is going to kidnap Hermit and take him to a Xenomorph egg. Wendy is going to use her new Xenomorph friend and unleash it on Slightly in order to save her brother. And then she is going to turn the Xenomorph against Prodigy, or at least threaten to set the Xenomorph on Prodigy, in exchange for her and Hermit’s freedom. In that situation, Boy Kavalier has to choose between killing them all or allowing them to leave in the hopes that one of the many science experiments that he’s cooking will provide the solution to this whole conundrum. However, when you factor Kirsh into all of this, things get a little complicated. Boy Kavalier is a genius, but he is human after all; Kirsh is not. Boy Kavalier is solely focused on Wendy and Hermit’s relationship because Wendy is his favorite. That’s why he is failing to notice everything that’s going on with Slightly. Kirsh can see Wendy’s bond with the Xenomorph, and at the same time, he is aware of Morrow’s vice-grip on Slightly’s soul. Now, if Kirsh wants to nip this affair in the bud, he can. He can switch off Slightly, save Hermit, and allow whatever’s going on with Wendy and the Xenomorph to flourish. But the thing is, even Kirsh yearns for control. He is constantly disrespected by Boy Kavalier even though he looks out for him all the time. He sees how jealous Boy Kavalier gets when the bug-eyed alien takes an interest in him instead of his boss. He knows that he should report a product of Weyland-Yutani, Morrow, hacking into a product of Prodigy, Slightly, but he doesn’t, because he wants to see how it’s going to play out. He should instantly inform Boy Kavalier about Wendy’s breakthrough with the Xenomorph, but he just stands there and observes. Why? Because Kirsh probably thinks that Wendy and her Xeno-buddy are the key to the liberation of every “machine that’s not a machine” built by Prodigy. Whether or not Kirsh’s programming will allow it to happen is something that we have to wait and watch to find out.
In addition to all this, Alien: Earth episode 4 clarifies a piece of lore about the birth of the Chestburster. Maybe it was common knowledge, maybe it wasn’t. I thought that the Xenomorph embryo needed an actual human host to be able to turn into a Chestburster; I stand corrected. Apparently, all it needs is a damaged lung on life support to grow up. I know that that sounds like a very small detail, but this is significant, especially if Prodigy wants to go to war with Weyland-Yutani. Just to be clear, we haven’t seen the presence of any other corporation in the franchise except for Weyland-Yutani because it’s possible that Weyland-Yutani just consumed them all through the power of hyper-hyper-capitalism. Maybe Prodigy is on the path to failure. However, it’s possible that, even while failing, they have figured out how to make a Xenomorph without killing a human host: all you need is a lung. I suppose that Prodigy has a good mortality rate. People dying will give them access to lungs. Sure, when a person dies, the lungs are affected first. But you can keep that organ alive through artificial means for as long as you want to, which in this case is the incubation period of the Xenomorph embryo. So, unless Wendy destroys Prodigy—and Kirsh either stops Slightly from taking Hermit or allows him to take Hermit to Weyland-Yutani after he has been impregnated by a Facehugger—I think Boy Kavalier is going to round up a bunch of dead or dying people, harvest their lungs, and birth some Xenomorphs. What then? Well, that’s where Wendy comes in, or more specifically, Wendy’s linguistic skills. You see, I have a feeling that Wendy’s ability to communicate with Xenomorphs isn’t unique to her. At the end of the day, she is a robot (yes, “hybrid” is the term), and she is running on a program that’s feeding data into Prodigy’s system. Eventually, one of the many IT guys working there is going to find a way to turn Wendy’s chirping into a downloadable language packet and install it into all the other hybrids and androids. So, even if Wendy finds it hard to lead an army of Xenomorphs, born from solitary lungs, Boy Kavalier will find someone to do it for him. Probably Curly will step up, since she wants to be the boy genius’ favorite. Either way, this battle for agency and control is bound to get more interesting in the upcoming weeks. If you want to share your thoughts on the ending of Alien: Earth episode 4, then the comments section is open for you.
