Alien: Earth episode 7: Is Nibs dead at the end?

There’s just one Alien: Earth episode left to go, and judging by the way things left off at the end of episode 7, it’s going to be a dramatic finale.

But while the fate of pretty much all the characters is hanging in the balance somewhat, there’s one person in particular who really has a tough time of it at the episode’s conclusion: Nibs (Lily Newmark).

So what happens to the group’s most disturbed hybrid, and is she alive or dead? Let’s recap.

What happens at the end of Alien: Earth episode 7?

A big chunk of episode 7 takes place outside the Prodigy facility in the surrounding jungle, with Wendy (Sydney Chandler), Nibs, and Joe (Alex Lawther) attempting to escape the island after learning what’s happened to Tootles (Kit Young) and that Prodigy is tracking the hybrids’ every move.

With some assistance from Wendy’s new Xenomorph friend, the trio fights their way through troops of soldiers before finally making it to the shore where a boat is waiting.

Unfortunately, the escape is not to be. When Joe opens the door to the boat, his old soldier friends Siberian (Diêm Camille) and Rashidi (Moe Bar-El) are waiting with guns drawn. The trio is quickly surrounded. At this point, wielding her stuffed bird, Nibs delivers an iconic line – “Mr. Strawberry says fuck off” – to the surrounding soldiers, only for one of them to make the terrible mistake of casting her beloved companion into the sea. Nibs’ response is to rip off the soldier’s jaw, and a fight quickly breaks out, culminating in Siberian shooting Nibs, Nibs grabbing her by the face ready to kill her, and Joe shooting Nibs with an arc of the same blue electricity that Morrow (Babou Ceesay) used to stun the Xenomorph back in episode 2.

Is Nibs dead?

At first glance things don’t look good, do they? Not only has Nibs sustained two bullet wounds, but she’s also been electrocuted to the point where her body is twitching and her eyes are half open as she lies on the ground. Wendy’s furious “What did you do?” reaction also suggests that things might be bad for Nibs.

But maybe her injuries aren’t as fatal as they first seem. She is, after all, a hybrid with a synthetic body, and — unlike poor Tootles — her head remains intact. The bullet wounds will be nothing more than a minor inconvenience, but the bigger question concerns the kind of toll that electrical weapon may have had on her.

We’ve seen this weapon used before by Morrow back in episode 2. Its purpose appears to be to subdue an enemy rather than kill them, as the Xenomorph Morrow zaps wakes back up, unharmed, a short while later.

Obviously, Nibs’ body isn’t the same as a Xenomorph’s, but she is still a powerful synthetic. Our best guess is that rather than being killed, she’s likely been knocked unconscious. We’ll have to wait until the finale to know for sure, though.

Alien: Earth streams Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Hulu and FX.