The Creepiest Detail About Alien: Earth Isn’t Its Xenomorphs

Contains spoilers for “Alien: Earth” Season 1, Episode 1 — “Neverland”

The “Alien” franchise is always heavily loaded with creepy, crawly monsters ready to drool on, bite, and invade human bodies at the drop of a hat. But in the first episode of “Alien: Earth,” the creepiest being that the series has to offer isn’t an entity from beyond the stars — it’s Wendy (Sydney Chandler), a hybrid synthetic who bears the consciousness of a dead child. 

Watching her behave like a kid who’s totally bewildered by adult concepts and realizing she’s about to be sent out to investigate a shipload of deadly creatures is undeniably unsettling, while the less we say about her spying via video cameras on her brother, Hermit (Alex Lawther), whom she speaks of in almost wistfully romantic tones, the better.

This all occurs in an episode where a cyborg security tactician named Morrow (Babou Ceesay) does his duty, killing off his entire crew and crashing the Weyland-Yutani Corporation-owned Maginot right into Earth to preserve its zoo of alien creatures — even though said creatures are clearly dangerous and, of course, include xenomorphs. And that’s not even the episode’s eeriest moment, which belongs to Wendy — but “Alien: Earth” seems completely aware that its main character has a disquieting presence. 

To be fair to both Wendy and the show’s producers, they seem absolutely cognizant that Wendy is not quite human — and as a matter of fact, the narrative seems to be using that to its advantage. Her intense, childlike curiosity about everything seems quite likely to get her into major problems — even if she’s the cure to this alien menace, she seems just as likely to get her compatriots killed as to help them reach safety. That obvious sense of tension is what will likely make her attempt to bond with her teammates difficult, if not nigh on impossible.

Even more importantly, in what hopefully won’t be yet another “Alien” franchise plot hole, Wendy is able to adapt to her surroundings pretty quickly. That means that she might be the xenomorph’s ultimate enemy — someone who has chameleon-like abilities to blend in with her settings and handle any disaster that’s afoot. That may be the creepiest detail about Wendy — and “Alien: Earth” — of them all.