The Nevers theory corner: Is Amalia True is a space alien?

HBO’s new series The Nevers continues to chug along, serving up twisty dialog, richly imagined characters, and plenty of super-powered action scenes. This fun riff on the X-Men tells the story of a group of people living in Victorian London — mostly women — who wake up one day to find that they’ve been gifted with extraordinary powers. In the parlance of the show, they are Touched.

Most of them don’t remember how they got these abilities. The deranged Maladie (Amy Manson) seems to be the only person who remembers what we saw at the end of the pilot episode: a beautiful alien spaceship (or at least that’s what it looks like) glides over London, shedding glimmers of light as it tumbles out of the sky. Everyone the light touches gets powers, but all save Maladie have it wiped from their minds for reasons as yet unknown.

But is Maladie the only person who remembers what happened? Fans suspect that lead character Amalia True (Laura Donnelly) may know what’s going on, too. In fact, some theorize that she may be an alien herself…or at least that her body has been possessed by one. Remember that she tries to kill herself in the opening moments of the show by jumping into a river, but when the ship passes overhead she awakens and swims to the surface. Who is she now?

Let’s look at the evidence, such as it is, as curated by ScreenRant:

• In the first episode, when the Beggar King (Nick Frost) threatens to cut up Amalia’s face, she leans into his blade and says, cryptically, “This isn’t my face.”
• Similarly, in the second episode, Maladie — who we’ve established seems to have special insight even if no one believes her on account of her madness — accuses Amalia of being able to change her skin. Does Amalia have some kind of shape-shifting ability we don’t know about? Or are these references to her identity not being what it seems?
• In the fourth episode, Amalia battles Lucy (Elizabeth Berrington), who has betrayed her confidence. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Amalia says, referring to the sometimes destructive nature of the Touched powers. Lucy asks if Amalia is responsible for everyone getting their gifts. Amalia denies this, saying that she was just left behind. Left behind by whom?
• Speaking with Penance Adair (Ann Skelly) after missing the funeral of Mary Brighton (Eleanor Tomlinson), Amalia says that they don’t have funerals “when I’m from” because there isn’t enough time or ground. That’s a weird way of putting it. Is she from another dimension, or planet, or possibly the future?

Also, Amalia having some kind of extraordinary past could help explain Amalia’s incredible fighting abilities, which aren’t part of her turn, so far as we know. Where did she pick those up?

Evidence that Amalia True is an alien on The Nevers

Finally, there’s the mysterious message to Amalia hidden in Mary’s ethereal song, translated by Myrtle (Viola Prettejohn), whose turn allows her to understand any language (although she has no control over what language she speaks when she opens her mouth). Although the song gives hope to all of the Touched, the lyrics are directed at Amalia alone, as Harriet (Kiran Sonia Sawar) roughly relates:

"“Amalia, my lonely soldier,” something about wearing stripes. But she said, ‘I didn’t leave you. I went inside the city. I was damaged, incomplete. I had to heal. Soon, we will all be ready. But it’s dark, there’s a darkness.’ She said to everyone, all of us, ‘to gather and protect each other because of the dark.’‘Find me. Let them help those who will. Come below and find me. And come before the dark and we can save’… It ended there."

Is this the ship, or someone on it, talking to Amalia through Mary’s song? We know that the ship crashed somewhere in the city, and is now being excavated by Lavinia Bidlow (Olivia Williams) and the brutal Dr. Edmund Hague (Denis O’Hare). Surely Amalia will try and find it.

There’s one more wrinkle to all of this: during the scene where Harriet shares Mary’s message, Penance comforts Amalia, who begins crying. Amalia seems to know what this means in a way the other girls don’t, and Penance doesn’t seem far behind.

“Where it goes after Episode 4, I don’t want to spoil anything at all,” Ann Skelly told The Wrap. “But yeah, Penance is very aware of Amalia’s past and her mission as a whole and believes and trusts in Amalia.”

I don’t think Penance is an alien herself, but it seems like she knows about Amalia’s true nature, whatever exactly it is. We’ll learn more as HBO airs new episodes of The Nevers on Sundays.

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