'Alien: Romulus' movie spoilers! Explosive ending sets up franchise's next steps

Spoiler alert! We're discussing important plot points and the ending of “Alien: Romulus” (in theaters now), so beware if you haven’t seen it yet.

For decades, the Xenomorph has been the No. 1 big bad of the “Alien” movie universe. But have you met the Offspring?

A new creature enters the franchise canon with director Fede Alvarez’s “Alien: Romulus,” a back-to-basics entry set 20 years after Ridley Scott’s original 1979 “Alien” and 37 years before James Cameron’s 1986 sequel “Aliens” – and it pays homage to those and other installments. (Miss that black goo from “Prometheus”? It’s back!)

In “Romulus,” Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny), her android “brother” Andy (David Jonsson) and friends plan to escape their cosmic mining colony run by Weyland-Yutani – still the worst corporation ever – and venture to a new planetary home. A mission to steal travel-ready cryo pods from the abandoned space station Renaissance goes awry when they run afoul of an army of Facehuggers and a hive of Xenomorphs. (And it's not so much empty as everybody on the thing was gruesomely murdered.) A fight to survive ensues, and not everyone makes it out alive.

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Let’s talk about the wild finale, a familiar returning face and the human/alien hybrid Offspring that’ll likely spawn a ton of online “Alien” chatter:

What happens at the end of ‘Alien: Romulus’?

In addition to discovering a bunch of nasty beasts on board, the young explorers learn that the Renaissance had a lab researching how alien genomes can help mankind and even evolve us into higher life forms. Rain and David end up the final two of their group still alive after defeating the Offspring (more on him in a minute) and shooting him into the destructive rings of their colony planet. Rain is also not a big fan of Weyland-Yutani (who is, really?) so rather than return all the alien research to them, she and David head out on their nine-year journey to a new world. Rain gets a happyish ending a la Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in the original “Alien,” though David needs some serious repair work.

Are there any ‘Alien’ cameos in ‘Romulus’?

“Romulus” not only borrows the claustrophobic vibe of the first “Alien’ movie but also one of its stars. Ian Holm, who played android crew member Ash and died in 2020, appears via animatronics and Hollywood wizardry as Rook, a synthetic lookalike found aboard the abandoned Renaissance with only the top half of his body intact.

The youngsters plundering the Renaissance get Rook up and running, but like Ash, he’s not working for the good guys. His primary mission is to get the alien research to Weyland-Yutani scientists and wants Rain to let him take control of her ship to do so, but she denies him, leaving Rook to perish as the Renaissance is destroyed.

What’s up with this Offspring thing?

“Alien: Resurrection” in 1997 introduced the Newborn, a human/alien hybrid and Xenomorph-like creature with humanoid features and a skull head. The Offspring in “Romulus” looks much, much cooler and appears via bonkers circumstances: When Rain’s pregnant friend Kay (Isabela Merced) is mortally wounded, she injects herself with an alien genome in a desperate attempt for survival, but instead alters the bun in her oven in the most disturbing way possible. She rapidly goes into labor and gives birth to a gaunt and terrifying monster who shares facial similarities with the ancient Engineers (see: “Prometheus”) and has a super-creepy maw in his mouth a la the Xenomorphs. (Fun fact: The Offspring is played by 7-foot-7 former Romanian basketball player Robert Bobroczkyi.)

The creature kills his mom and is defeated, though we don’t see his dead body after he apparently falls to his doom. Maybe he’ll be back for a sequel? Speaking of …

Does ‘Alien: Romulus’ have a post-credits scene?

Nope! But there are certainly avenues to go if Alvarez or someone else wants to continue to dig into the time period between the first two “Alien” movies. The next movie (or two, if we’re thinking trilogy) could continue Rain and David’s journey, perhaps running into the Offspring again or other beasties. Or a film more directly leading up to the events of “Aliens” – since there are nearly four decades of untapped storytelling there. And heck, what “Alien” fan wouldn’t want to watch a movie specifically about the various shenanigans at Weyland-Yutani, because there’s got to be some whistleblowers around that place.

What is next in the franchise pipeline, however, is “Alien: Earth,” a Hulu prequel series out next year created by Noah Hawley (“Fargo”) set 30 years before the original “Alien.”