Headscratchers / Apothecia

• What did the alien expect Jessie to do in order to free it? And how did it escape from the hole when it couldn't initially do so?
  • I had assumed that it was able to finally jump the biochemical barriers and adapt itself to Earth after it ate the human corpse Jesse gave it. Going from that, it had either wanted her to do that from the beginning or just jump down to it so it could posses her like it did in the end.
• How does the alien latch onto and possess Jessie? I didn't see any hint of how it managed to do so - was there a subtle clue in a panel that I missed?
  • When Jessie goes to see it in its tank, she's told she needs to wear a full suit and mask. This implies that there's some amount of danger in getting so close. She takes off the mask when she's talking to it though. We know the monster can spread by spore, so it's likely that it took advantage of Jessie removing her mask and got her to breathe a spore.