Netflix’s The Eternaut ended on a shocking cliffhanger revealing that there’s some larger power at play that has been mind-controlling the alien beetles and the human-robots to further their sinister goals with a wave of their hand. One could even hear hypnotizing music that gave Pied Piper of Hamelin vibes in this closing shot. Well, this entire sequence suggests that there is indeed going to be a second season of The Eternaut. The makers of the Netflix show have already shown their keen interest in finishing the story. They have only adapted a part of the comic strip, which is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. However, there hasn’t been any official confirmation from the streaming platform, as they might still be waiting for the numbers to come in before they make an official announcement. The thing is, The Eternaut is quite an expensive show, and we may have to wait a little longer for the second season to arrive. In the meantime, those of you who are quite eager to know what happens next can pick up the original comic book. But if you are too lazy to work your way through those 369 pages, then allow me to give you an overview of everything we can expect in The Eternaut season 2.
Spoiler Alert
The Hand
The Eternaut season 1’s ending didn’t explicitly reveal the body of this hybrid alien, but in the comic book, these extraterrestrial beings are called “hands.” They look a lot like humans, except for having too many fingers on their hands. However, it needs to be mentioned that these “hands” are much more evolved than humans, and considered to be far superior beings. They come from an unnamed planet in a binary star system that is covered with thick snow. Other than the physical traits, their name also represents their powers, how they can mind-control inferior beings and make them submit to their commands. In the comic book, the “hands” use a device called a telecontroller. These telecontrol devices have metal teeth that pierce the subject’s medulla, spinal cord, and brain and turn them into robots. It erases their consciousness completely, which means they are no longer in control of their mind and body. However, in season 1’s ending, we do not see any such devices on the human-robots, which could imply that the creators of Netflix’s show are going to make some changes to how these “hands” control the alien beetles and the humans. When Juan Salvo’s daughter, Clara, returned home after going missing during the toxic snowfall, she had a lump on her head, which I guess could be the hidden telecontrol device in her head through which the “hand” was controlling her. Yes, Clara was a human-robot just like Lucas and a whole bunch of people you saw in the stadium.
As per the comics, the “hands” aren’t the real monsters here. I mean, they are the ones enslaving humans, but they too are prisoners of war. There is another superior power called “they” who had attacked the “hands’” planet and captured them so that they could use them as foot soldiers in their campaign to take the whole universe for themselves. So, these hybrid creatures are just as helpless as anyone else, but they do share a lot of wisdom with Juan and his friends, especially Favalli and Franco, so that they don’t give up their fight against the alien invaders and keep hustling until they have found a way to break their evil spirits.
It’s Another Trap
In season 1’s ending, Juan and his friends couldn’t stop themselves from asking the questions we all had in mind: why did aliens let them broadcast a signal if they could have ambushed the resistance squad the moment it arrived in the downtown apartments? Well, the answer is simple. It’s another trap, and I guess Juan realized the same. The alien-controlled Lucas brought Favalli, Juan, and the others to the downtown area so that they could broadcast a message to all the human survivors hiding in different parts of the city. In the message, a resistance officer informed the listeners about a safe zone, that is, the resistance base camp, Campo de Mayo. But why? Well, it’s a strategic move. Instead of having to scour the city for survivors, they could now assemble them in a single spot. They have already planted their moles, aka, the brainwashed human-robots, in Campo de Mayo, making it easier for them to curb the rebellion and take them prisoners. Their end goal is to mass convert the humans into robots and use them as pawns in “their” next war, just like they used the alien beetles to take over Earth. In the comic book, a captured “hand,” before taking his last breath, told Juan and Franco that “they” used “hands” to attack the beetles’ planet and enslave them just like they did with “hands.” And those “they” didn’t see fit for the battlefield, “they” threw into the mines of their home planet. The comics had also introduced a third alien species called the Gurbos, which are giant wild-animal-like beings that the “hands” use as battering rams. And just like the rest of the prisoners, the Gurbos have telecontrol devices implanted on their necks through which the “hands” could control their actions. It was implied that once the invasion was complete, the aliens would leave the planet to conquer another inferior species.
A Final Fight
Being a person who had previously served in the one of the historic battles of the country, Juan Salvo wouldn’t let some aliens turn his entire family into human-robots and would do anything in his power to rescue them. If I assume that Juan knows that his daughter is being mind-controlled by some alien, like the crowd of human robots and alien beetles he saw inside the stadium, then I guess he will try to infiltrate the blue-lit dome to find out more about how this mind-manipulation works. In the comics, it was Juan and Franco who snuck into the “hands’” dome to learn more about the mind-controlling technique and the devices they used to erase human consciousness. These two brave men were later joined by Favalli, and together they launched an attack against the epicenter of the alien invasion, that is, the foundation Lucas was speaking of. In the comic book, the dome that Juan and Franco infiltrated and the dome that the trio later attacked are located at different places, but I think, in Netflix’s show, they are going to turn it into a single location in order to cut out the unnecessary bits. This particular dome in the stadium is armed with some really high-tech machines that can neutralize the atomic load of the missiles. It could also be theorized that it was this dome that shot down three planes of the Peruvian armed forces that were going to bomb the soccer stadium. This suggested that the world was aware of the alien attack in Buenos Aires and doing their best to stop the invasion. However, most of the human weapons were useless against the foreign enemy, which meant they needed a better plan of action to tackle the threat.
Juan, Franco, and Favalli knew that the world’s superpowers would need their help to stop the invasion, which was why they decided to communicate with the international authorities and inform them about the same. However, before they could do so, Franco and Favalli were captured by the aliens, while Juan had no option but to escape for the safety of his family.
There’s Still Some Hope For Clara
I found it quite surprising that the brainwashed Lucas and Clara weren’t acting exactly like human-robots, or the pod people, as you may call them. They seemed pretty normal and had retained their original memories, except for the part where they were abducted by the alien beetles. In the comic book, the humans with telecontrol devices on their necks didn’t have any memories left. Nor could they act like humans, which makes me believe that we’ll be seeing two kinds of mind-controlled humans in the show, and this is going to be one great deviation from the original narrative. In the comics, Clara was never kidnapped by the aliens, but it seems like the makers of the Netflix show are making some drastic changes to the narrative to amplify the stakes for the lead protagonist, Juan Salvo.
Clara’s abduction and the fact she isn’t acting like some mindless creature further imply that there’s still some hope left for Juan’s daughter. Only if Juan is able to get to the root of the problem and find a way to free his daughter’s consciousness from the clutches of the extraterrestrial beings will she not be a prisoner anymore, giving Juan a slight chance to save his family from the alien invasion and take them somewhere safe. Well, that’s actually what happens at the end of the comic book, where Juan hijacks an alien spaceship and leaves the planet with his wife and daughter.
Juan Is A Time Traveler
Finally time to address the elephant in the room: why was Juan Salvo having eerie visions of past and future events? Well, it’s no surprise for the comic book readers, as they already know what all this fuss was about. The comic begins with writer Hector German Oesterheld getting an ominous visitor who is none other than Juan Salvo. The old and tired visitor calls himself an Eternaut, or a traveler through eternity. In the comic book ending, while trying to escape the human robots, Juan, Elena, and Clara hide inside an alien spaceship, where Juan triggers a time machine that throws him and his family out of terrestrial space and time to another dimension. In short, Juan ends up in a parallel universe while his family, who was standing a bit away from him while he was pulling the levers of the time machine, ends up in another continuum. The tragedy here was there are an infinite number of continua, and no one really knew where Elena and Clara were, which was why Juan embarked on a pilgrimage through the centuries to find his family.
In the end, Juan, still searching for Elena and Clara, arrived on Earth in the middle of the 20th century and started sharing his accounts of the alien invasion. However, as soon as the Eternaut, or Juan, finishes his story, he suddenly remembers that it’s still 1959 on this version of Earth. The alien invasion in the comic started somewhere in 1963, which makes Juan realize that his family in this alternate reality might still be alive. He quickly leaves Oesterheld’s house to meet his family. Oesterheld runs after him as he isn’t quite sure what would happen if a man from the future encountered his past self; however, the moment the comic book writer reaches Juan Salvo’s house, all he can see was a single Juan, a young version of himself hugging his daughter in the streets. The comic book didn’t reveal what exactly happened to the Eternaut, though it could be speculated that his consciousness merged with Juan of 1959, which was the reason why the show’s version of Juan kept having those visions and déjà vu moments. Or maybe there’s some fracture in the timelines because of which Juan was having those visions. I guess the second season will further unravel the mystery around Juan’s visions and explain the reasons why he kept remembering things from the past and the future.
In The Eternaut’s ending, Juan told Franco that he has been here before, and done all of this in the past. It’s likely that watching the “hands” and the blue-lit dome brought the Eternaut’s memories back, and now these will help Juan to come up with a way to counter the alien invasion. In the series, Juan started having these visions the moment he stepped out in the fatal snowfall, which suggests that the onset of the catastrophe triggered the dormant memories inside his consciousness and started showing him things that were going to happen in the near future.
I guess, in the show, the Eternaut first met Juan during the Falklands War, which was a major turning point in Juan’s life. It is to be noted that Netflix’s show is a modern adaptation of Oesterheld’s comics, which can be seen as a parallel version of the same events. So, what I am trying to say here is that it could be possible that in show’s version of the narrative, the Eternaut met Juan in 1982, and not in 1959 as per the original timeline. Though, I could be wrong here, and season 2 will shed more light on exactly when Juan met the Eternaut, if he does encounter him like in the comic book. You see, the creators didn’t start the show like the comic book, which means they didn’t want to reveal that Juan was a time traveler. Such a choice tells me that they might be making some drastic changes to Juan’s character, and maybe in the show’s version, he would finally be able to break the loop and stop the alien invasion? In the comic book, Juan is never able to do so, though season 1’s ending does give us a glimmer of hope, implying that human civilization can still be saved.
