Wendy and Xenomorph, Eyeball, Season 2

Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers for “The Real Monsters,” the season 1 finale of “Alien: Earth.”

“Alien: Earth” has come to land – and the kids are in control.

The FX series season 1 finale is set in the universe that entered our culture with “Alien” (Ridley Scott’s 1979 creature feature). These beings have the consciousness of human children, but in the synthesis, adult bodies, and the season finale, their leader Wendy (Sidney Chandler) coordinated something like a coup. Once the seasons were over, Wendy awakens to adult plunder after seeing the battle between an authority figure (Timothy Oliphant) and Morrow (Bab Sheesai) – she enlists the Xenomorph, whom she controls, and places her in Kirsh, Morrow, Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) and Dame Sylvia (Sasie Davis). What else is there besides her controlling Neverland Research Island? Wendy intends she is telling her fellow hybrids to “dominate.”

Using Wendy’s awakening, and the use of clawed creatures to force her will, reminds us of Daenerys’ journey in “Game of Thrones” ten years before television history. But it’s also pure Noah Holy. The creator of “Alien: Earth,” known for “Fargo” and “Legion,” is deeply concerned with the meaning of being human. Wendy’s future decisions talk about diversity in a posthumous interview about Season 1. It’s about whether to lean on the flicker of humanity within her, or embracing and accepting the fact that she was built to become something more. It remains uncertain whether his sister is indeed his sister, so what her brother Joe (Alex Rother) feels deeply is the fight. (This same human dynamics is also injected into the much-anticipated battle between Moreau, a man with several cybernetic upgrades, and Kirsch, a perfect synthetic being who pleases to be beyond human realm.)

Ahead of the “Alien: Earth” finale, Holy spoke about all these complications and how to inform up for upcoming shows. As we wait to see if “Alien: Earth” gets a season 2 update, Holy begins to plot the next move.

It’s clear that at the final moments of the season, Wendy has become his own. I was really impressed with the way Joe saw her horribly during this sequence. And I wondered if that was a sign that she was more accepting of her hybrid side and moving away from her humanity.

That’s the central issue of the series, right? Is Wendy going to choose “human” or “other”? There is a push-pull between her brother. She, on one level, represents the best of humanity and the senses of Kirsch and the boy Kavalier. So her brother realizes that whatever his brother he had is really gone at this point.

The problem with giving children all of that power is that their executive function is not large and their outcome awareness has not necessarily been fully developed. There’s hub arrogance there. As she says, “Maybe this Xenomorph might be good”? We know Xenomorphs, it’s like we’ve got control over for a while… So, she has all this power, so it’s a concern, but she still doesn’t have the perspective she thinks she needs.

Have you allowed Wendy to open and communicate and control Xenomorph for you in the writing process?

As we see in the final couple (episode), it clearly gives her a very powerful companion. But the moment she releases this creature, it kills a lot of people and she doesn’t see. Although she is not facing the consequences of that decision, there is the real moral challenge she faces when part of her power lies in causing human injuries or death. So where is her moral highlands?

For me, the very inevitable violence in “Fargo” and “Aliens” never wants violence to be made into entertainment. I always want it to be impactful and meaningful and to help the audience stand up to their desires. And the moment when we are trained to feel like violence as an audience is the only way to resolve conflicts, let’s take a closer look at it and see how we feel about it.

It leads me to the battle between Moreau and Kirsch. This is exciting in the sense that it’s thematically rich, not only is it a watchful eye on the cyborg and composite battle at the end. It’s (changed) man vs machine.

The moment I wrote the elevator scene, I knew you had to pay it off at some level. You don’t want people to wait for the second season. (Morrow’s) The hub-haunted statement “Man always wins. It’s a matter of will.” Then 25 seconds later, he choked on the machine. Don’t count the villains, right? Freddie Kruger never dies.

That battle is, on a certain level, a battle between a hero and a villain, right? And I’d like to poll my audience and who do I want to win this fight? Because I certainly don’t know. It’s like when I saw Captain America fight the Iron Man and I don’t know what I’m rooting for. Neither will die. You don’t want it to happen. But who is right? It becomes a question of whether you believe in authority or whether you believe in rebellion.

All the authorities of the show (Morrow, Kirsh, Boy Kavalier, Dame Sylvia) appear ready to finish the season and Xenomorph looms on it, potentially raiding. Will any of them fall off the board in potential season 2? If they are staying, how will this shape their journey?

What we’ve seen throughout history should not count the villains. The worst thing you can do is humiliate them or hand them defeat. There are always moments when someone humiliates the villain, and now all his love is gone.

Has Kirsh’s perspective on Prodigy Project changed over the season?

There is a moment when Kirsh says to the Hermit character – Hermit asks, how do you take care of your sister? And Kirsch says, “It’s like an onion asking, ‘How can I take care of the stars?’

And if he thinks he is created by and works for man, and in many ways he is programmed with some key instructions, without hurting or hurting humans, but he still knows that he is superior to all of them. It’s like a recipe for personality disorder. Think of everyone you know, I’m smarter than anyone else – you don’t seem to have a happy life before you. So I don’t think it’s his evolution, but it’s the feeling that he’s been in charge of these creatures and doing these experiments, and you’re beginning to realize that perhaps the experiments are also involved in hybrids and humans as well as there is greater permission given.

Can you talk about my favorite little guy? The alien eyes entering the body of Arthur (David Lisdaal) appeared to pave a new path for a potential season 2.

When I met this creature it was in this apparently dead cat. So I think we know it can bring the body back to life. For me, there’s something more iconic about it. If Arthur is the moral center of the show, perhaps the highest center of humanity who died due to the worst qualities of mankind, and is now not even allowed to rest in peace, there is some kind of ultimate corruption that occurs in the “pet sematary” way. Taking what you love and regaining it as someone else is truly the most embarrassing thing for the audience.

I understand that the show’s timeline excludes “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant” completely, but I was impressed by the fact that the events took place just before the original “Alien” events of 1979. Do you think potential season 2 will get closer to that timeline and consolidate it?

I think there is a bridge that you can cross rightly when you come to them. The majority of the acts of worldbuilding and creation in these first eight episodes was building something coherent in itself.

With success, starting from season 2 onwards, we need to really dig deeper and start thinking about how these two stories will connect in the long run. And that doesn’t mean I don’t have any ideas about it or have no ideas about it, but from a planning perspective – part of the reason I was successful in this business is knowing the problems that need to be solved today and the problems that I need to solve tomorrow. And don’t worry about the issue tomorrow. They are exciting issues – you realised 50 years later that you only saw half of the puzzle, and now I have to build the other half of the puzzle and follow the original fragments. I like that kind of challenge. If at some level I think constraints are innovation, then I don’t take on this kind of IP.

Are you working on writing this season 2?

No, it’s conversational at this point. You learn to be efficient and don’t work before yourself. There is an ongoing conversation. Clearly, the show is about to be wrapped up. You can really get a complete sense of what your audience is. Obviously, none of us, Disney or I–wish, have a successful, longer than necessary to win a second season on the air. Everyone wants to make this decision right. But we want to be ready to go again. I certainly know where I’m going. The moment they fire their first gun, I’m off the block.

This is a slightly unrespectful note at the end, but I’m just curious. All episodes of “Alien: Earth” ended with a metal explosion in the 90s. I lived for it! But what happens every week that music choice?

There are many quickie ways to talk about it, including classic movies, classic rock, etc., but in the end we made an arena show. We didn’t make the Paramount Theater show. I created the Shea Stadium Show. And I wanted to end with that level of emotion coming from Metallica or Jane’s addiction or Pearl Jam. You want a big feeling! And those songs – I’ll meet you, “Alien” fans, and I know you’re listening, because I’m listening to it too, right? There’s no rock and roll like the “Alien” movie.

This interview was compiled and condensed.