CATCHING UP: Extant – Season One, Episode Eight

First aired August 20th, 2014.

After escaping the compound, Molly (played by Halle Berry) has a powwow at her house with Kryger (played by Brad Beyer) and Gordon (played by Maury Sterling). Gordon explains that someone outside the company wanted her baby. While he doesn’t know who it is, viewers know that it’s Hideki (played by Hiroyuki Sanada).

Hideki wants to keep Molly alive for the time being since she is the baby’s biological mother and may be needed further down the line, despite Sparks (played by Michael O’Neill) feeling that she’s too dangerous alive. We also learn that Hideki has been kept alive using a substance from same location the aliens were found and believes the baby is key to creating/finding more of it. Gordon feels that the baby will eventually react violently to being held captive, and that, since Molly is its mother, she can bond with it. The baby is scheduled to be moved to a new location and Sparks goes behind Hideki’s back and orders Gordon to kill Molly. Instead, he and Molly make a plan to intercept the baby while it’s being transported.

So these aliens are able to produce some sort of substance that acts as an all-around cure for humans, sort of like vampire blood does on True Blood. I think Hideki had a point about keeping Molly alive for the time being, as she may be needed to communicate with the baby or donate an organ for him. What he and Sparks should have done was compromise: keep Molly locked up somewhere so she’s kept alive, yet no longer a threat in terms of going public with everything. I especially liked Gordon’s reasoning that Molly could be the one person to keep the baby from retaliating against humans. Given how he’s been treated, who could blame him?

The night of the transport, the baby’s containment chamber is filled with some kind of gas and the plan to move it is canceled. Molly and Kryger infiltrate the compound but Gordon is unable to clear a safe path for them to the baby’s chamber. Kryger still has Gordon’s fingerprints, so they use them to access an elevator. However, Sparks sees this and realizes Gordon betrayed him. He organizes a firing squad to kill Molly and Kryger when the elevator arrives, but the baby uses his mind control to force the guards to kill each other. Molly goes to the tank but Kryger riddles it with bullets, believing it too dangerous to be kept alive. And yet, when they look inside, they find only the body of a scientist. While attempting to escape, Molly is chased and cornered by Sparks, who shoots her point blank in the chest. He checks the body and it transforms into his dead daughter Katie (played by Tessa Ferrier), who tells him that “he” needs to be protected. Sparks turns around and sees a little boy with glowing eyes hiding in the corner.

There’s not a chance in hell Molly is actually dead. It would have been a major plot twist this early into the show, but she’s the central character and it wouldn’t work. I don’t know how she’ll survive that gunshot wound, but since she’s in the previews for next week it’ll happen. It looks like Sparks is now going to pull a 180 and start protecting the baby, who’s now at least ten years old, I would say. Although I don’t know how happy the kid is going to be about Sparks taking care of him since he just tried to kill his mother. Whatever this kid is, he’s proven that he has a strong attachment to Molly. Of course, whether it’s an emotional connection or the kid has something bad planned for her because she was his mother/host body, remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Ethan (played by Pierce Gagnon) goes to the park alone and notices some boys putting cherry bombs inside a robot in the park. They beat him up to take his bike but run off when they see the robotic parts through his torn skin. John (played by Goran Visnijic) finds him and takes him to Julie (played by Grace Gummer) to be repaired. She explains that, since the robot can no longer perform its function, it will likely be destroyed. This leads Ethan to wonder what his function is. When John sees a video message from Molly telling him what her plan is and that she may not come back, he rushes off to save her. Unfortunately, he leaves Ethan in the hands of Julie and her new boyfriend, Odin (played by Charlie Brewley), who is part of an anti-robot group currently targeting Ethan.

John rushing off to save Molly would have seemed more heroic if he actually knew where she was and didn’t (albeit unknowingly) leave his kid with a psycho. Ethan questioning his own existence as a human/machine was inevitable, although it was really just alluded to rather than discussed in depth. When Ethan was cut up and covered in mud, I was reminded of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator after he gets the hell beaten out of him in the movies. He’ll have to channel the Terminator next episode when Odin makes his move on him. I have a feeling the group wants to make a statement and might kill him publicly or broadcast it.

Quotes & Thoughts

“We still have hunting bomb on the main transformer. I can blow it. I can use the thread to clear the lab.” “Let’s just shoot each other here and save them the trouble.”

I bet the kid is going to have a long tail like that creature from Splice.

“I can’t walk away now.” “Screw it, I’m already dead. If you go, I go.”

Seriously, who wears high heels when they are out on a spy mission?

If you enjoyed Manny’s review, you can find the rest of his work right HERE on Sci-Fi Bloggers. You can also follow him on Twitter @KN_Manny.

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