Alien: Earth Creator Shuts Down Episode 7’s Xenomorph Twist — No Pet Alien Allowed
The bold new plan came with one big unknown: would fans buy in? The rollout now will reveal whether the gamble wins hearts—or falls flat.
Alien: Earth just took a big swing. Episode 7 hands a Xenomorph something close to marching orders, and showrunner Noah Hawley knows that move might make some fans twitchy.
The swing in episode 7: 'Emergence'
In this week’s episode, a synthetic named Wendy (played by Sydney Chandler) does the unthinkable: she manages to communicate with a Xenomorph and point it at a squad of Yutani soldiers. The creature follows through, which leaves Wendy and company with what looks like a very fragile, very temporary alliance. Emphasis on temporary.
Hawley on whether fans will buy it
Hawley told The Hollywood Reporter he was genuinely unsure how this would land with viewers. The idea is not to turn the Xenomorph into anyone’s pet, but to explore what happens if, for a moment, their goals align. And because it’s still a horror story, he’s not exactly laying odds on a happy ending for that partnership.
'One of the big question marks was if fans were going to go with this idea. I don't want her to have [a Xenomorph as a] pet. But if it seems like an alliance has been struck, what are the interesting possibilities that we can pull out of that? And because this is a horror story, we have to assume that, ultimately, I wouldn't bet on this working out.'
Why the show can do this (and the movies couldn’t)
Here’s the inside-baseball part. Hawley points out that an Alien movie is a tight two-hour survival sprint; a TV show has to live with its monsters week after week. That means using the Xenomorphs in more than one way — sometimes classic, sometimes unexpected — or the story ends the second they kill everyone, or the humans kill them. The show is actively testing how far it can stretch that without breaking the Alien vibe.
Where and when this all fits
Alien: Earth takes place two years before the 1979 original. The setup: the USCSS Maginot, a Weyland-Yutani research ship, crashes on Earth with Xenomorphs aboard, and the fallout is what the series chews on episode to episode.
Release info
New episodes drop weekly: Hulu in the US, Disney Plus in the UK.