ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Alien: Earth Episode 8 BREAKDOWN! - Ending Explained and Predator: Badlands Easter Eggs!

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

ScreenCrush The Podcast tackles all the movie and TV hot topics, offering reviews and analysis of Marvel, Star Wars, and everything you care about right now. Hosted by Ryan Arey, and featuring a panel of industry professionals.

Welcome back Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Airy, and this is all of the Easter eggs references and little things you might have missed in the finale of Alien Earth Season 1. So the finale gives us a really well-earned resolution, brings the Lost Boys full circle, but also I love how it leaves the door open for lots of different storylines to explore in season. And they may have also canonized one of the strangest aspects of alien lore. So the episode opens like every other intro this season, showing us flashes from the last episode, a few frames at a time, splice between a slow-moving close, shot of a xenomorph. But one thing we neglected to mention in all of our previous breakdowns is the intro's score. The score was done by one of Holly's longtime collaborators, Jeff Russo, who's worked with him on nearly all of his projects, from Legion to Fargo, both amazing shows you should really watch. So the intro comes from an eerie blending of cream's 1967 classic

Strange Brew, which is also one of the few lyrics that we actually hear, alongside Kill What's Inside You, which of course is fitting for a show about xenomorphs. So we open with Arthur's abandoned body on the beach, just like the discarded dollhead in the episode 4 opening, looking like food for the crab feeder from House of the Dragon. Now, crabs essentially are the vultures of the ocean, scavenging food to survive, just like the Osilius uses the dead to survive. And we see this subtly foreshadowed as the brave little crab on his chest defends his body. And then we turn to Dame Sylvia, leaving flowers by the gravesite that we discovered last week. Now, as the Zeno stalks her in the background, that is the callback to the episode's title.

The title of the episode is The Real Monsters, which is, something that the show has subtly been asking us all season, and that's a fair question. As we've said in our breakdowns before, as iconic of a movie monster as the xenomorph is, they're not really the bad guys of this series. They're just simply creatures doing what they need to survive, even if the way they do so is extremely brutal. As much as the aliens seem like Apex predators, they're really just prisoners to capitalist interests. They only act, according to their natural instincts and basic need to survive, but the same cannot be said for Dame Sylvia. Throughout the show, she tries to convince herself and others that she's trying to do right by these children.

But clearly, she knows exactly what she's done. She tries to justify her actions by showing the hybrids, empathy, and love. But at the end of the day, she knows that she's actually talking to robots that have the imprint of a human mind and those real children are buried in these graves. But she has romanticized her actions rather than justify them, which is exactly what Wendy calls her out for in episode six. What if you're what's wrong? She is one of the few people who actually leaves flowers at the kids' graves, which is sweet, but it's still a very direct acknowledgement of the reality of what she's done. If she really believed the kids were still alive, she would not be memorializing them.

But even now, she continues to lie to herself, saying, Just growing pains. She dismisses the very real impact the recent revelations are having on the kids as simply a part of growing up. Now, as we've said in our previous breakdowns, she is the perfect representation of the Mizaru, one of the three wise monkeys that we see all over Neverland, who metaphorically represent how Prodigy's corporate assets cope with the nightmares of their employment.

Dame has always chosen to look away, to ignore all the wrongs that Prodigy has done, and like her monkey metaphor, the other thing she never sees coming is the Zeno. Lucky for her, though, plot armor is in good supply here, and the Siberian and her crew managed to get her back to safety before getting an update from Adam on how the island's situation has progressed.

They have been cut off from the rest of the world because of a cyber attack from Utani, And the Zeno is wrecking havoc on the island. We also see a shot of the vacant boat dock where we ended last episode. So I think we can assume they evacuated via helicopter due to the way the water is disturbed next to the boat. Although we never actually do see them take flight because helicopters are expensive. We see images of these toys flash across the screen as Adam updates us on the hybrids.

Now this is a visual with the double meaning. So in Peter Pan, Native Americans were the lost boys' main adversaries. So it shows how they've switched sides. But obviously, the depiction of Native Americans in that Disney movie really didn't age well. Like, it's really a fence. We're not even going to show a clip from it. It's really, really bad. Similarly, Prodigy also has tried to fit the hybrids in a box that makes them easier to understand, which ultimately backfires on them as well. We see Boy listening to Adams' update from his desk, clutching a prescription bottle.

Now, normally, he's finging with some kind of toy or stimulus, playing into his Peter Pan persona. But the more the walls closing around him, we see that Boy has a very unique response to fear. or doesn't that's scared to me. Right, and that's the point. As compulsive and narrow mind as he may seem, there's one thing he clearly understands. Showing fear means he's relinquishing power. It's why he works so hard to steal the specimens in the first place.

They're terrifying, and he can use that fear to intimidate his rivals and seize power from them. He learned this at an early age. And we can see how that core belief shapes his encounters throughout the episode. Here is one of the few moments when he is genuinely scared. Clutching his medication is a visual way of showing us that he's second-guessing himself, that he may not have thought this through,

something that Kirsch reminds him of later, and when he does, he rejects it, chucking the pill bottle at the wall. I also want to shout out the great camera work in this scene. See, the camera is attached on a rig that is fastened to his roly chair. So every time he spins or moves, the camera stays fixated on him, which creates a very disorienting moment for the audience and really puts us in his shoes. If you ever saw Naren Aeronovsky's Requiem for a Dream, he uses the same technique to show people who are addled and high, walking around and having anxiety. Now, in his worst moment, though, boy is still arrogant enough to think, that he knows better than everyone, even more than the doctors who prescribed him. He is dealing with the reality that he may not be the prodigy that he thinks he is. And instead of accepting it and trying to defend himself, he stubbornly tries to convince himself otherwise, which is why

his focus immediately turns to the Osselas, since it still holds the potential to give him the thing that he claimed to want from the very beginning, as we saw in episode two with Dame. I want to talk to somebody smarter than me. And if you like that Osolish, you will love this come visit the Maginot Zoo t-shirt that we designed for our merch store. Guys, we have so many fun Alien shirts for you. We have the Alien Hunter 8-bit cartridge shirt, the jazzy chestburster like this scene from Spaceballs. Hello, my baby, hello my honey, hello my raccoon gal.

And this Zeno cereal shirt. In addition, you can buy exclusive merch at our very last live show in New York for Comic-Con weekend, October 10th on Friday at City Winery. Guys, I am so excited for you to see this live show. If you were at our New York show a year ago, this one is completely different. It is so much fun. We have exclusive breakdowns, Q and... Binaise, weird puppet stuff. And the best part is I get to meet you guys face to face.

That's by far the best part of the live show. Like what we're doing right now is fun, but actually being in the same room and geeking out together, that is what the live shows are all about. So they'll take a link for those are below, along with all the merch links. Can't wait to see you there, New York, Comic-Con weekend, October 10th. Then we hear Jeff Russo's score come in once again as we transition from Boy's Fascination with Wendy on screen to the room where the hybrids are held, which is accompanied by these low cello-like sounds. So according to this article from the AV Club, these sounds were made from a special instrument,

which I think is pronounced bastemophone, which is essentially a massive metal triangular cello that makes this eerie sound, which Russo has used throughout the series. It sounds like a mix between a cello and the creek of a giant spaceship, and we have heard it used throughout the series to heighten the threat posed by the monsters

that are lurking in the background. However, here it is used to build momentum for the real monsters, the hybrids. We see this exemplified in the very next scene, lost boys bicker amongst themselves trying to assign blame for the current situation. All five of them are in the same cell together, and the overcrowded cells seem like a blatant callback to Alien 3, which took place on a Fury 161, an all-male high-security prison. I also think it's interesting that they are in a round cage, round like the tree that the lost

boys lived in in Peter Pan. So then Wendy completely dismantles the Peter Pan metaphor for the Lost Boys, but not in the same way that we have earlier. Earlier critiques of Prodigy's propaganda were mostly around how the metaphors didn't always fit exactly. But Wendy shows how applicable they really are by showing their true intentions, specifically when she says this to Curley. In the book, Wendy Darling is Peter Pan's favorite. And then she grew up. And that made Peter mad. And so he kidnapped her daughter Jane. Throughout the season, we thought that boy might be secretly borrowing elements from darker renditions

or retellings of Peter Pan that have come out over the year. But this is actually part of the canon sequel Return to Neverland. And Disney even made an animated movie with this plot. Now, throughout the season, have also talked about how Curley isn't really a Curly, but rather a Tinkerbell. She is constantly fighting for attention and favoritism, just like Tinkerbell, who can't exist if people around her don't believe in fairies. But through Wendy completing the Peter Pan parable, Curley finally finds her new identity, her own, which just so happens to be the name of Wendy's daughter. Now, this is not only a way for her to reclaim her own independence, but also to show that she has found a new mentor. We also see that Nibs has not only been fully restored, but she's even

been cleaned up and given a fresh new shirt. No idea how they managed to do that, given to the Island is run by a skeleton crew, but it seems like every time they fix Nibbs, she gets just a little bit more feral. Now, most would assume that the side effects from these reboots are making Nibs worse, that she's losing parts of herself every time. But it's actually one of the first dominoes to fall that caused Wendy to question her very nature in the first place. Are we are who we are because of our memories? Does losing those memories make us less human? Can we be human if we were never human? So while Nib's hissing and growling may seem like she's lost her humanity, this is actually the first sign of the Lost Boys,

all of their humanity. We see Nibs lead Wendy to this epiphany after she mentions ghosts, which helps Wendy to realize that their nature is undefined. See, ghosts do certain things because they're ghosts. People do certain things because they're people. But because hybrids are a new concept, their nature is yet to be defined. They could be people, they could be sense, or they could be monsters. And of course, they choose the latter. We see Wendy start to make this realization when she says, we've been afraid of them, but I think they should be afraid of us. which seems like a nod for this famous line from V for Vendetta. People should not be afraid of their governments.

Government should be afraid of their people. Especially since she is preparing to fight back against the powers that control her, like V. She makes direct eye contact with Boy as she delivers the message straight to his face before summoning the Zeno from all the way across the island. Person, how's that Xenomorph here are those little ficky sounds from so far away? Well, as we talked about in our previous breakdowns, Wendy is communicating with the Xenomorphs through seismic communication. So this is a behavior most commonly found in insects that allows them to communicate vast distances

using particularly high or low frequency vibrations. Elephants can use low frequency vibrations to communicate messages in a 20-mile radius. While the sounds we, the viewer, hear from Wendy, are quiet, we know that these vibrations occur at a super high frequency way above anything than we can hear. So it's entirely possible for her to reach the xenomorphs anywhere on the island. Now, as Boy sees this, we see him start to freak out a little bit more, calling on Curse for help, showing how his mental state is unraveling. Now when Curse warrants him about the dangers of keeping Morrow in captivity, he responds with,

So you think I should just give him back? He came here to kill us all and steal our toys. Once again, referring to his many living assets and employees as his toys, showing how even as everything comes crashing down around him, Boy has an unchanged view of the world that everything is an open sandbox full of toys for him to play with. And this shows just how childlike his delusions are. And then we see Curse read Boy pretty hard when he says, Sir, a defining symptom of ADHD as severe as yours is impulse control problems. Which is a fair callout given everything we've seen this season.

In fact, we go so far as to say the Boy Cavalier doesn't just have problems with impulse control, but it's actually controlled by his impulses. Ooh, bird. The entire company ebbs and flows with his latest hyperfixation, and it's only made worse by the fact that he sees all of his employees as disposable assets that he can do with as he pleases. feel about your eyes. But boy sees these impulses as part of his genius. And as soon as Kirsch presents them in any kind of problematic light, he immediately rejects it, throwing his prescription away and validating his false perception that he is the smartest guy in the room,

just like his earlier conversation with Adam. Now, as prodigies patrol sweeps Names' office, one of the officers reveals the facility is... Alerts a hard orange. Which really makes you wonder what a code red looks like, because I cannot imagine a worse situation than this. We then see Wendy hacking into the TVs around Dame's office, playing the kids' interviews for the hybrid program. The way she uses the TVs to haunt her like this echoes the way that we see spirits possessing television and horror movies like The Ring or Poultergeist, and it also goes back to the idea that they are a ghost. They're not quite dead, not quite alive, they're somewhere in between. They're something new, and she has the ability as a ghost to haunt Dame. We then turn to Marrow and Joe,

who are also trapped in a cell together. Now, the opening shot spirals around Marrow's body, recreating one of the opening shots from Alien Resurrection after Ripley was cloned. Now despite this being the finale, there is still a lot of learning to do about Morrow. And we get a bit more after Joe asked him if he was aboard the Maginot when it illegally parked itself inside a building. And Morrow replies with, As a yesterday conversation, I don't look back. So this starts to flesh out the cold cyborg clichés motive a little bit more. After losing his daughter, his only goal was to complete the mission. He had no purpose otherwise.

He used to have another purpose. Back on the Maginot, we even saw, saw memories of his daughter. But after seeing everyone perish on that ship, he has realized how paralyzing and vulnerable human emotions can be. So now he has conditioned himself to be less and less human, not out of resentment, but just to evolve and survive. And if there's one overall theme in this entire franchise, it is evolution and survival. So we see the lost boys continue to haunt the rest of prodigies, starting with the security patrol. After being jump scared by a mold scrubber, we see the secret security elevator open, the same one that Kirsch opened for Slightly and Smee, last episode. Now, instead of avoiding the obvious trap, they walk right in. The hybrids immediately

hack into the elevator and trigger a false self-destruct sequence, which visually echoes the scene where the same sequence was activated aboard both the Nostromo and the Maginot. However, as the countdown progresses, their panic is interrupted by Smee, counting the numbers down himself as he is playing hide-and-seek. So this gives the same mix of eerie childlike nostalgia and very real panic and terror that we have seen from Boy all series long. But the way the hybrids embrace this, is different. Boy views life as a game, a sandbox full of toys for him to play with. But this is only because he is so rich and with that wealth comes power. The hybrids, on the other hand, naturally have this kind of power. They don't have the same limitations as humans. The world really is

their sandbox. Everything in the world is a game for them and they are winning. We see just how much Wendy has grown up when Smee questions her about Joe or whether or not Joe is one of them. She finally realizes that this guy is not really her brother. He is not her. family, but Nibbs is. Remember, Wendy was one of the people who helped sell Nibbs on the idea becoming a hybrid in the first place. Joe is the one who has to earn his place in her new family, but Smee is able to convince her in the most Smee way possible. He's one of us. One of us!

Which is all it takes to send Wendy into some contemplative flashbacks. There we see Joe in the same deployment vehicle his crew used in the first episode, reminiscent of the M577 armored personnel carrier from Cameron's aliens, and it shows shows us that he really wasn't lying when he said that he couldn't get back to her. She recalls a letter she sent him and narrates it as she reads it, talking about her recovery. Now, when she's bad mouthed in the nurses, she says, She uses the S word, a lot. Which could mean one of two things.

She could be talking about the first S word that most of us think of. What word is that? Shit. Oh, that's a pretty bad word. Now, if so, then this shows that Marcy was a pretty sheltered kid. I mean, it's pretty low-tier cuss word. But another possible explanation for the S-word is, synthetics, which we know eventually became somewhat of a slur for artificial people from Bishop

and aliens. I prefer the term artificial person myself. Now this, alongside the overlapping images of what looks like riots and New Siam, seems to suggest that Joe might have been at the forefront of prodigy's colonization efforts when they purchased it as we saw in the articles from episode three. We also get another picture of Marcy and her dad played by director Noah Hawley himself, and we hear his voice reminding her to take care of her brother. Now she realizes that while she may not be Marcy, Marcy is a part of her, and that's enough to convince her to unlock the gates. Maro distracts the guard by asking him for a cigar, which seems to be his favorite because he was smoking one on the Maginot while rifling through his daughter's memorabilia. Specifically, he is

asking him for a coheba, which is a rare luxury Cuban cigar before knocking the guard out with the door. And we see him using the metal punching mitt they had welded to him to prevent him from accessing the cyborg arm underneath, but he weaponizes it against them, just like every other preventative measure that prodigy has taken to keep themselves safe. Now, as Joe leaves, he tells Maro he plans to save the kids and he responds with, We better save the children because I'm going to burn this place to the ground. Which sounds like the cold, heartless threats we're used to hearing from him at this point. But the fact that he still encourages Joe to save them shows that he does have a sliver of humanity left,

which is what ends up taking him pretty far when he takes on Kirsch in the next scene. I absolutely love how Holly decided to set up this final face off. So we see Kirsch working in the lab with two guards behind him. And as he pivots over what looks like an old, hollowed-out desktop Mac from the 90s, Back to where he was seated before, we see the two guards outside replaced by red splashes of blood. Kirsch remains working until the very last second before they actually start trading blows, ricocheting a bullet off the Plumacare's glass cage, and as we later see, that's all it needs to escape. But how to fit through that tiny hole?

Well, as we see later, the Plumacare clearly takes inspiration from the octopus, which can squeeze their boneless bodies through and possibly small holes, and they share even more similarities we see later on. Now, as they fight, Marot taunts Kirsch with... You know the story of John Henry and... his 10-pound hammers. Referencing the famous American folk tale about a legendary steel driver who wanted to prove he could outwork any machine. He ended up winning the duel but losing his life in the process, something that Curse reminds him of later on. However, the story of John Henry is based on the

story of a real man of the same name who died from scoliosis, a curvature of the spine, much like the one that Maro gives to Kirsch. Jeez, these guys really like comparing fairy tales to the story, don't they? Right, and it's all part of Holly's retrofuturist style, blending the traditional with the futuristic. Just before Marrow is about to get the last word, we see the plumcare scurry in the background using some sort of camouflage. Now, this is yet another trait barred from the octopus, who blend themselves into their environment by controlling specialized color cells in their skin. However, as we see later, they don't change the color of their skin to match the environment, but rather to change to a pigment that bends light around it, just like the cloaking device that predators use. So this, alongside the fact

we have seen some plumacare-like creatures in the trailers for Predator Badlands, is some pretty strong validation that it could be native to the Yatcha homeworld, but we just don't know for sure. As Kirsch gets the slip on Morrow, we even hear more of Russo's incredible work with the show's score when we hear this, which are the iconic drums used in the score of 2001, a space odyssey. It's fitting, given how that movie talked about and how the tools and technology that man used led to both their evilation and their inevitable downfall. And we see this echoed in the score here.

as we pan over to the hybrids waiting for Boy. Now, as soon as Wendy hears him coming, she signals for the xenomorph, who crawls into the sewer pipe, likely the same one it escaped from, just as Adam recounts it to Boy in the last episode. The xenomorph exited the facility through a waste pipe. Boy walks in with the same toy ball. He's used all season long to test the hybrid's reflexes, showing how he, even in all the chaos, his arrogant worldview has not changed. But that all shifts when Wendy shows him who holds the real magic when she snaps her fingers and opens the cell. Now, as intimidated as Boy is, he still refuses to show any sign of fear and gives him to his impulse to tell a story, which is where we finally get the details on Boy that we have always wanted.

He, of course, reveals that he killed his father at the age of six and replaced him with Adam, something that we see teased as Joe enters a room with Adam quietly charging in the background. Now, we had a theory a couple weeks ago that Curse was going to be the synthetic of his dad's, so we were close, but... I was wrong. And I'll be honest, somehow this one took me by surprise, but in hindsight, it was pretty obvious. Now, the dude is literally named Adam with the T, you know, like the basic component of all matter. But of course, that also sounds like Adam with the D, who was the first human in the Judeo-Christian creation story.

So it makes sense that Atom would be Boy's first creation. But as much as Boy is able to mask his own fear, the full truth comes out, and the lost boys finally start to see him for what he really is. He's no longer the magical boy genius who whisked them away to a fairy tale land. He's a narcissistic murderer who sees the hybrids as Your floor models. And keep in mind, This is the hybrid's prime example of what it means to be human,

and his example is what pushes them to not only reject their own humanity, but also to embrace themselves as the real monsters. Now, Nibbs takes it literally, growling like a feral cat before attacking the guard. And Smee also embraces his inner monster and snarls a boy when he's running away. Now, they're the ones that boy and the rest should be scared of. And remember, in this hyper-capitalist world, the people who create the most fear hold the most power. And we see this, as Wendy tells Boy to, Run.

As if he's being oblitered, to the fact that they're the real threat, and now he's playing their game. Wendy even calls her plan, hide and seek, remember? Showing how boys' childhood metaphors have come full circle. Now, before they park, curly ass if Wendy will call her Jane. Now, this is not only her real name, or at least the name of the kids she think she is, but also it's the name of Wendy's daughter,

the same one that Peter Pan kidnapped after Wendy grew up. By pledging herself to Wendy like this, she shows not only that she's committed to the cause, but that she's finally starting to grow up herself. This is followed by yet another 2001 Space Odyssey drumbeat, underscoring just how monumental that growth was. And then we get several shots of predators catching their prey in various ways across the facility. First with Adam, who manages to snag Joe for a closer look at the eye, then with the Xenomorph, who's making its way through waves of security guards in the hallway

before it focuses on Dame in her office. And then Nibbs drops down from the ceiling behind her, just as we've seen the Zenos do many times throughout the series. But instead of leaping onto her like she did in episode four, she is in complete control and opens up a creepy smile. So the Lost Boys evolution into monsters continues as Slightly and Smee find Kirsch and Morrow, and slightly gives some well-deserved payback to Maro's broken face, even after Marro confesses that he didn't actually hurt his mother.

It's some sweet vindication for everything he's going through, but Maro's confession reveals the human side of him that he resents. What do you mean by that? Well, at the end of the day, he knows that human emotions make them vulnerable. He's learned that lesson over and over, And up until this point, it seems that he's essentially done everything he can to remove that limitation. But even after everything he did to complete the mission, there's still some lines that he refused to cross. It's a tiny sliver of humanity, and it may not be enough to redeem him, but it's certainly one hell of an arc,

and I hope we get to see more of it in season two. And like I said, we have thoughts and theories on season two that we'll talk about a little later on. And then Adam leads Joe into Boy's office as Joe starts to question him, and he replies with, We're not monsters, we realize your sister has rights. Which is not only a call back to the title of the episode, but also the complete opposite of everything they actually believe. Obviously, the hypocrisy is just a plot to get him into the same room at the eye, who he tries to escape from by retreating into its empty cage. And think about the symbolism here.

All series long, we've heard that humans used to be food. We used to be animals. We used to be prey. And in this moment, Joe reverts to that. He reverts to being a caged animal just to survive. And then we see just how intelligent theosalus is as it not only goes for the handle, but then proceeds to use the food tray as a way to sneak in. But right, doesn't that mean it could just escape any time they left it alone in the room?

Yeah, that's a plot hole big enough to drive a semi through, but Wendy snaps in before we can even process that. So then we see just how powerful she is that she goes toe to toe with Adam, freezing him mid-fight, showing how her technokinetic abilities go far beyond making robots, quote, Ice Age 4. And this means that she can not only control xenomorphs, but also synthetics. So Wendy is a hybrid because she is the hybridization of these biggest non-human threats in the universe, xenomorphs and synthetics. But Wendy is clearly more concerned about the human threats.

Of course, her biggest conflict is with Joe, and even after saving him, she still wants him to make his case, which frustrates her and forces her to realize how different they are. Joe argues, We're food to them. No, your food to them. Which calls back to what Kirsch told her on his way to the crash site. You told yourself you weren't food anymore. We then hear Wendy say, I don't know what I am.

Now, as strong as her convictions seemed up until now, she still doesn't know who she is, she is. But we think we do. See, in fact, this episode may be our first clue that she is not just a synthetic alien queen or some kind of parallel like Ripley 8 was, but that she's actually the xenomorph goddess. A goddess, okay, Chris, now this didn't weird. No, hear me out. The goddess is a character that appeared in the Alien Comics Bloodlines and Icarus. She is a biomechanical, female entity that looks pretty much like a venomized version of Hela. She appears in the recurring nightmares of those who are subdued by facehuggers. And while we don't know a lot about her, we do know that she is xenomorph royalty and haunted those who were somehow able to remove their chestbursters after incubation.

In these nightmares, she essentially translates the entire purpose of the xenomorphs to the rest of the galaxy, which is to keep arrogant civilizations in check by eliminating those that grew beyond their capacity. Now, given that alien bloodlines and Icarus both take place way further down in the franchise's timeline, and we saw Wendy testing out her haunting abilities earlier, it's possible we could be watching the very creation of the xenomorph goddess. But even if she isn't, she is incredibly powerful and now she knows it, which should make boys scared, but he doesn't seem to be showing it when we turn back to him and he's skipping through the halls.

That said, he is doing this in a bulletproof vest while frantically making phone calls for backup whenever he can. He is scared, but he refuses to show it because he sees showing fear acceding power. Even after coming face-to-face with the xenomorph, all he can say is, I think I pissed myself. With a smile in his face as if the whole thing is one big joke. We then see the Plumacare finally get its 10 seconds of fame

as it scoops up Siberian while trying to secure the lab. Just before it strikes, we get a closer look at how its camouflage works, which bends the light around it like the Yacha's camouflage. And if this plant is from the Yacha homeworld, then this might be the natural source that the predators reversed and engineered their technology from. The way it attacks also links back to its octopus inspiration, spreading itself like a net.

And as we learned from the documents on the Maginot, it then uses the enzymes to slowly paralyze and asphyxiate prey, similar to many carnivorous plants like the Venus flytrap or pitcher plant. As the episode closes out, we see Wendy visiting her collection of victims inside the cell that once contained her. Dane, Boy, and Curse are posed in a very specific way that almost looks like a triptych. Or I could go for a biscuit, yes, please. Not a biscuit, does sound good, no.

Not a biscuit, a triptych. This is a famous style of religious painting that uses three panels, often depicting the events of the life of Christ, which we see reflected in the poses. Specifically, Dame is posed like Mary in depictions of the Annunciation, while Boy is seated in the center, like Christ on the cross, and curses posed in a way that looks like Jesus' body after being removed from the cross. Together, they tell the story of Christ without the resurrection, which is important because the resurrection meant it was his ascension to divinity.

So this image essentially deconsecrates the story of Christ. But what's that supposed to mean? Well, to deconsecrate something means to remove its divinity. So, when you deconsecrate a church, it's no longer seen as a house of God, but rather just a house. Wendy is doing the same thing here. She is deconsecrating the Neverland narrative that Prodigy has been perpetuating this whole time. With two Zena Morse under her control and anyone who would stop her behind bars, the season ends on our final needle drop with Pearl Jam's Animal. Holly said in interviews before that he chose to end each episode on these

powerful ballads to celebrate what we just saw, and this is no exception. As the title implies, the song is about embracing their natural animalistic side, specifically against greater powers that just seek to exploit you, which is the final choice that Wendy and the Lost Boys make. They have not only rejected Prodigy's lies, but they refuse to be controlled any longer, just like all the other loose animals and Prodigies Research Center. Now, like I said, all of this is so weird because this takes place before the first Alien movie. It's a prequel to the entire franchise. So I wonder, is season two going to simply show us the continuation of what happens next, or are we going to see a massive time jump like we

saw between alien and aliens. Like if the next season ends by resolving various storylines with Utani, well, are they going to go into some kind of suspended animation? Are the kids going to go into space? Is it not going to be Alien Earth anymore? I don't know. And that's the exciting thing about this show. This is all new territory for the alien franchise. There's so many teasers for them to pick up as well. We saw the Osseless escape and find its way to author. Yutani's forces are arriving to Neverland. But right now, this is everything we know about Alien Earth. This season has been an absolute blast to cover. And I want to know what you think. Did the series hold up for you? Are there any important details we missed? If you love the video, let me know in the comments.

And if you hated it, yell at Dodd. He wrote it. His links are below. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe, smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.