Noah Hawley says he didn't intend for the Xenomorph to become Wendy’s pet

Alien: Earth Episode 7 further expanded on Wendy’s curious connection to the Xenomorphs and accelerated her influence on the hostile, perfect organism. While initially referred to as the perfect killing machine, free from delusions of morality, Noah Hawley's Alien series sets a new precedent – asking the question, is there more to this perfect organism?

In a fresh interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hawley expresses his intended purpose for having Wendy communicate with the Xenomorph was to ask bigger questions, not make the Xenomorph look like her 'pet'...

The Hollywood Reporter: Now we know from James Cameron’s Aliens that xenomorphs can communicate with each other. And if they can communicate, then the next iteration of that idea would be someone not of their species attempting to communicate with them. I assume that’s the inspiration for Wendy’s relationship with the xenomorph, but isn’t it always a bit of a risk when you take the scary monster and turn them into something that seems domesticated?

Noah Hawley: There are a couple of things. Obviously, there’s that moment in Cameron’s film where the queen communicates with the drones. Is that a pheromone? Is it telekinetic? Is that a frequency we can’t hear? We don’t know, but that always seemed really interesting as something to explore.

The other thing, of course, is that an Alien movie is a two-hour survival story, and a television show has to be an ongoing series. You have to use the monsters in a different way. You certainly want to use them in the classic way, but you also have to figure out how to sustain having monsters in your show when the reality is they would kill everyone, or that you would kill them — and then that would be it. Bringing in other creatures allowed me to take the pressure off the xenomorphs to fill that void.

He goes on to elaborate:

There’s also this idea of the hubris of people — that classic Jurassic Park thing of “just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.” And the naiveté of children, as well. There’s a romanticism that can happen in kids. She wants to believe that it’s not these creatures’ fault, that they didn’t ask to come here, and we shouldn’t experiment on them the way that she’s being experimented on. You can understand the rationale. But it doesn’t make it safe to make friends with one.

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.

Curiously, the execution of the intended purpose for this Xenomorph communication phenomenon has had the opposite effect; audiences and most fans now quite literally see the Xenomorph as Wendy’s pet. Emphasizing the possibility of an alliance between Machine and Xenomorph is nothing new, its been explored plenty in Ridley Scott's prequels, but the execution of such a concept has differed significantly. Wendy seems to have control or significant influence over the Xenomorph, giving it commands – to which the Xenomorph obeys.

Historically, Xenomorphs have played a submissive role only to calculate their overthrow of whoever or whatever has contained them. But now, we have a robot, inhabited by a 12 year old girl, instructing an extraterrestrial killing machine to fetch and follow. How will this alliance / connection flourish? Time will tell...

Check out the entire interview to read more of Noah Hawley's remarks and insights for the series so far.

Do you think having Wendy be this connected to the Xenomorph was a good idea? How do you interpret the interactions between Wendy and the Alien? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!