We’re still shook at the complete madness director Fede Alvarez unleashes at the end of Alien: Romulus. Just when you think it’s going to be your basic humans versus aliens movie, he takes things up a notch with a finale that might not work for everyone, but is unforgettable nevertheless. Let’s dig into what happens, what it might mean, how we got there, and all that spoilery stuff.
As we approach the end of Alien: Romulus, Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and Andy (David Jonsson) have killed enough aliens to make it back to their ship. There they find their expecting friend Kay (Isabela Merced), who was not feeling great earlier and secretly injected herself with mysterious black goo. Then, just when they all are about to settle in for some nice hypersleep, Kay’s pod ejects. Something is wrong. Her baby is coming and the baby is not human. As a result of the goo, her child is a very fast-growing hybrid of a human and a Xenomorph referred to in the credits as “Offspring.” It kills her, Rain blows it out the bottom of the ship, and all is well… save for everyone being dead besides Andy and Rain.
Within all that, there’s a ton to dig into, and let’s start with the goo. We’ve seen that goo before, most prominently in Prometheus where it had a similar destructive streak. In Alien fandom, its true name is Chemical A0-3959X.91. It was created by the Engineers, and it may be directly responsible for creating Xenomorphs and a whole lot more. It’s been around forever and is never, ever good. Here though, Rook (the Ash-like android made to look like the late Ian Holm) claims Weyland-Yutani was able to extract this from the Xenomorphs and they believe it’s a cure-all medicine. The implication is Weyland-Yutani didn’t want the Xenos as weapons, they wanted them to save humanity. Talk about a twist, if it’s true.
Which we don’t believe it is. The film shows the black goo was first able to heal a lab rat which then transformed into a hybrid and died, which is what the substance does in all the other movies. Was the company after the Xenomorphs or this mysterious building block they possess? Did Rook actually believe it was a cure or did he want it because it was a killer? And what’s become of the goo in the subsequent years? The film doesn’t answer any of this so we’re just left to speculate.
Then there’s the hybrid creature, Offspring, which looks like someone recently crowned World’s Tallest Man by the Guinness Book of World Records. The idea of this creature is almost directly lifted from Alien Resurrection where the Alien Queen birthed a human/Xeno hybrid thanks to its mom, Ripley. Here though, it’s the human giving birth, which is why Offspring’s a bit more human-looking. When that happened in Resurrection, it was not met kindly by fans and yet here, I feel like it will be. Why? Well, because unlike in Resurrection where the idea of the Queen having a human reproductive system is thrown in at the end, the coming of Offspring is slowly teased throughout.
First, we learn Kay is pregnant. Rook then talks about the goo and we see what it can do via the dead hybrid rat. So by the time Kay takes the goo, we know it’s a bad thing. Those tiny bits of information dropped throughout prepare us for what eventually happens. That then allows Alvarez to really flaunt the stunning, terrifying Slenderman creature he and his team have designed, which is both more beautiful and more terrifying than the hybrid of Resurrection. That’s another reason why the idea works better here. This creature is more interesting and realistic. Therefore, it’s even scarier. Offspring is going to give us nightmares for months to come.
As for if we’ll ever see the continuing adventures of Rain and Andy, only the box office gods know. We expect, though, if we do pick up the story as they make their way to the faraway planet Yavaga, something bad is bound to happen. It always does. Especially since now we know the Xenomorphs have a fail-safe system that puts them into stasis in space. That sure changes the ending of some of those other movies, does it not?
Where do you stand on the hybrid creature, Offspring? What about the use, and implications, of the black goo? Let us know below.
Alien: Romulus is now in theaters.
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