Alien: Earth Episode 8 “The Real Monsters” wraps the FX show’s first season with one heck of a regime change. We’ve watched for weeks as Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) and his cronies have treated Wendy (Sydney Chandler) and the other Lost Boys as toys, if not soulless tech experiments. Finally, in the Alien: Earth Season 1 finale, the tables turn…

**Spoilers for Alien: Earth Episode 8 “The Real Monsters,” now streaming on Hulu**

In Alien: Earth Episode 8 “The Real Monsters,” Wendy and the remaining Lost Boys — Nibs (Lily Newmark), Curly (Erana James), Slightly (Adarsh Gourav), and Smee (Jonathan Ajayi) — use their hybrid powers to wreck havoc on the remaining people in Neverland. They hunt down Prodigy’s soldiers, capture Boy Kavalier, Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant), and Dame Sylvia (Essie Davis), and announce their plans to take over. The final moments of Alien: Earth Season 1 feature Wendy dressing Boy Kavalier down, pointing out that he’s not Peter Pan. He’s never even been a boy. Rather, he’s always been a spiteful, miserable man.

With all of the grownups, except Wendy’s beloved brother Hermit (Alex Lawther), tied up or killed, the question is…what’s next? With the Lost Boys behind her and the Xenomorphs at her beck and call, Wendy slyly answers, “Now we rule.”

So what does a world ruled by synthetic super beings with the brains of traumatized children look like? Is it a good thing? A bad thing? And what can we expect from that final twist involving dead scientist Arthur Sylvia (David Rysdahl) and the Eye Midge? Are there plans for an Alien: Earth Season 2? Here’s everything you need to know about the end of Alien: Earth…

Alien: Earth Ending Explained: “Now We Rule”

Alien: Earth ends with Wendy and the Lost Boys rounding up all of the human, synthetic, and cyborg characters — the adults, if you will — and locking them in the same pen they start the episode trapped in. Wendy, leading the Lost Boys and controlling the Xenomorphs, wryly declares that now they’re going to take over the world. “Now we rule,” she says, as Pearl Jam’s “Animal” plays.

Is this a triumphant ending for Alien: Earth Season 1? Or a recipe for disaster in a potential Season 2?

“You could watch it by saying, ‘Well, damn right. These kids are going to take the Earth because adults are ruining it.’” Series showrunner Noah Hawley said. “So I think there’s something empowering to that moment.”

“Something about it made me think, like, I felt like I was in The Breakfast Club or something,” Timothy Olyphant said. “Like someone should walk off the campus and throw their fists in the air at the end.”

Hawley added that there’s also something worrying about the Lost Boys’ victory. “It feels like running with scissors a little bit,” he said. “You know, maybe think this through a little bit before you just take off here.”

Hawley revealed that the “central question” of Alien: Earth, to him, was whether or not Wendy and the hybrids would choose to be human or “other.”

“Because humanity is a choice now for them, right? They’re not human anymore and in order to remain human, they have to actively choose to be human,” Hawley said. “But as you see over the course of the season, Wendy says, ‘If this is what people are, then I don’t think I want to be people.’”

“So I think there’s something a bit chilling, too, about this moment where you feel them rejecting humanity.”

“It’s the ultimate conundrum. Where do we go from here?” Alex Lawther said, summing up the reticence we see on Hermit’s face when he realizes what’s happening. 

“Is that anarchy? I’m not sure because children aren’t necessarily anarchists. They like power and authority. They like things being quite certain, don’t they? They’re not very nuanced in their thinking,” Lawther said. “Maybe that’s the worrisome thing.”

Sydney Chandler said she thought the ending set up a “very dangerous, beautiful scenario.”

“I don’t think Wendy’s ever thought about politics. I don’t think she’s a politic-type girl,” Sydney Chandler said. “But for Wendy, she’s a black and white mind. You know, you’re good or you’re bad. And, don’t be bad, because that’s a very dangerous place to be.”

Erana James said she felt “a bit conflicted” about what comes next. “Seeing what these kids have gone through, these sort of horrors they’ve endured, and the trauma throughout this season, I don’t think I see them to be the best leaders going forward. However, on the other side of that coin, I don’t think that the people in charge were either, so I think a shake-up is necessary.”

Adding to the chaos? A late episode reveal that the Eye Midge, the super-genius alien who spent most of the season in the body of a sheep, had now taken residence in Arthur Sylvia’s corpse…

Alien: Earth Finale Reveals the Eye Midge’s New Host…David Rysdahl’s Arthur Sylvia

Were you surprised to watch the Eye Midge scuttle through the jungle and over the sand to take over the dead Arthur Sylvia’s body in the Alien: Earth finale? So was actor David Rysdahl.

“I did not know what was gonna happen with the Eye Midge,” Rysdahl said. “I don’t think any of us did. Maybe Noah did. You know, he’s always thinking 3 steps down the line, but when I signed on, he told me Arthur’s arc, and I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, beautiful.’”

Rysdahl revealed that it wasn’t until the day before the scripts for Alien: Earth Episode 8 were sent out that Hawley clued him in. 

“He texted me, he’s like, ‘I’m not done with you yet,’” Rysdahal said. 

“I think if you can keep David Rysdahl on the show, you should keep David Rysdahl on the show,” Noah Hawley told DECIDER, before calling the Eye Midge’s choice of new host “opportunistic.”

“The Eye Midge, I think, is a fascinating character,” Rysdahl said. “I think she’s so intelligent, and then also has an absurdity to her. You know, she has jokes. She finds the world kind of funny and I think that is such a fun person to play with. Like, the genius who thinks it’s all kind of crazy.”

Rysdahl went on to imagine what a genius like the Eye Midge could do with Arthur Sylvia’s “very smart” brain and how her experience within the sheep could affect what comes next.

“I think it’d be funny if Arthur, like, baas halfway through, you know?” Rysdahl said. “It kind of takes things with it as it’s learning about the world and it’s learning about it in a very organic way.”

“I don’t know, I think I’m going to let Noah guide that ship, but I’m excited to ‘yes, and’ whatever he puts out in the world.”

Will There Be an Alien: Earth Season 2?

As of publication, FX hasn’t yet revealed whether or not they’re making a second season of Alien: Earth, but everyone DECIDER spoke with connected to the production is hopeful they’ll get to continue the story.

“I have no idea where it goes next. You know, that’s the beauty of hoping for Season 2 to see where Noah takes us,” Sydney Chandler said. 

Timothy Olyphant said,“No matter where we end up, you know, I’m showing up to work with Noah and showing up to work with this cast.”

Other actors said the reason they wanted to return was to explore a few loose threads.

“I don’t think [Wendy and the Lost Boys have] come to terms with Tootles dying yet,” Jonathan Ajayi said. “Touch wood, hopefully we get a Season 2. I would love to really explore the fallout, the personal fallout of Tootles/Isaac not being there anymore.”

Another thing Alien: Earth Season 2 might explore? If any of the other hybrids have special abilities similar to Wendy’s abilities to control machines and chat with Xenomorphs.

“Part of the themes that we’re exploring is like this technology race where no one’s really taking the time they should take to figure out what could go wrong, right?” Noah Hawley said, when asked about this potential.

“You gotta walk a tightrope without making them too powerful on one level and then also not introducing things late in the game that feel convenient,” Hawley said. “Like, ‘Oh, look, he can fly and that’ll get them out of here!’”

“Well…it seems like Nibs can fly already,” Lily Newmark said. “There is that moment with Dame Sylvia. But if that’s not a real thing, and I just managed to jump really far, then flying would be incredible. No need for spaceships in that case.”

“I want to be able to float things with my mind,” Ajayi said. “Don’t let Smee be able to move things with his mind, because it’s chaos. I’m telling you. Chaos.”

“Please, Noah, if you’re listening, please,” he begged.