[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Alien: Earth Episode 4, “Observation.”]
The Alien universe has changed forever thanks to what just happened in Tuesday’s (August 26) episode of Alien: Earth. In it, synth Wendy (Sydney Chandler) communicated with a baby xenomorph in its own extraterrestrial language. She even patted the delighted little creature on the head… without losing her hand.
The development was not in the original script, and the actress revealed her reaction to it to TV Insider. “It shocked me at first. I was like, ‘Did I read this right, or have I gone insane?’” Chandler remembered of the first time she read the scene. “But it was interesting after exploring it and playing it and seeing where that takes Wendy. It was nice for her to have something fully her own that no one else is connected to. It gives her autonomy and a connection to something else that may or may not feel alien or alone. One of a kind.”
A newborn extraterrestrial on a strange planet might just sense that it is in the company of an equally singular creature in Wendy. Her extraordinary abilities, even when compared to her fellow smart-but-childlike fellow synths known as the Lost Boys, have made her the favorite of Boy Cavalier (Samuel Blenkin), the tech bro inventor who made her existence possible. Chandler says, “She is like the Lost Boys, but not fully them. She is a sister, but not fully a sister.”
Patrick Brown / FX
When speaking the alien language, Chandler didn’t lip synch to pre-recorded audio but made the sounds herself (the final audio was finessed in post-production). “I don’t know how you guys didn’t laugh at me the entire time,” she says to Alex Lawther, who plays Wendy’s brother Hermit, in our interview above.
There had been hints Wendy was connected to the extraterrestrials — she experienced a painful buzzing in her head when they suffered — but the ability to communicate could be the first step in a peaceful existence between them and humans. But don’t hand Wendy the Nobel Peace Prize just yet. Chandler reminds us, “[The xenomorph] is a killing machine, but Wendy in her own way is also a weapon.”
Check out the full video interview above to see more of what they had to say about this episode and to see both Chandler and Lawther try out a few alien phrases.
Alien: Earth, Tuesdays, 8/7c, Hulu and FX