Alpha animal
Transfer of the designation to humans.
The term "alpha animal" is used as an animal metaphor for assertive, dominant people - primarily men - in leadership situations to characterize position and habitus within a group or movement. The term can have a partly positive, partly negative connotation. In the negative sense, alpha can be similar in meaning to authoritarian, dominant, unwilling to compromise, power-hungry, and unwilling to cooperate. The positive aspects can essentially be summarized by the following adjectives: self-confident, proactive, committed, self-reliant, and self-critical.
All persons within a group who do not have these characteristics would consequently become Betas.
Looking at Leon and Jamie now, they are clearly Betas. They do not take any responsibility within the DIK fraternity. They just follow Rusty. Tommy is not an alpha either. No Alpha would willingly take a scapegoat role for Quinn.
Quinn is an Alpha woman with the negative traits. Sage is also an alpha woman. Therefore, there will inevitably be a choice between the two. I am curious to see who will be the leader of the HOT's.
MC is an Alpha with the positive traits. Rusty is also an alpha, but a weaker one than MC, which is why he lets MC move up in the group hierarchy. The joke with Tommy is, he sees himself as an Alpha and that is dangerous because he is not one. When MC beats Tommy and wins, MC relegates Tommy to his place in the group. That is why there will inevitably be a major confrontation between the two. What Rusty does well, however, is that he is looking for a strong alpha who can replace him as group leader at some point.