CATCHING UP: Extant – Season One, Episode Nine

First aired August 27th, 2014.

Molly (played by Halle Berry) isn’t dead (anyone surprised?). Sparks (played by Michael O’Neill) shot a vision of her created by the baby (for what reason I have no idea). The baby creates an illusion of a young version of his daughter, Katie (played by Shree Crooks), who tells him to help the baby escape.

Sparks takes the baby to a campground where he used to bring Katie as a girl, believing that by staying with the baby he has a second chance with his daughter. He even calls his ex-wife, Anya (played by Jeannette Arnett), with whom he’s been estranged since Katie’s death, to come to the campsite thinking they can reconcile. Things start to unravel after Sparks accidentally shoots the woman who owns the place when she nearly discovers the baby. Later, the sheriff comes around and finds her body so Sparks almost kills him too. Young Katie stops him, saying “he needs him” because he’s hungry for something other than food. At a later point, the sheriff is shown tied up and screaming while the hexagon pattern appears all over his face as the baby does whatever it’s doing to “feed” from him.

I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me until now that the baby could use visions of people’s dead loved ones to manipulate them into doing what he wants. It’s a smart plan for a month-old baby because now Sparks has gone crazy (well crazier) and will protect the baby (and his “daughter”) with his life. The baby appeared to be sucking the life force out of the sheriff, similar to the way Cell from Dragon Ball used to absorb people. Since the symbol appeared on him during this feeding, I’m going to take a guess that it was the baby’s way of saying that he was hungry. There’s almost no chance that’s actually what it means, but how funny would it be if the big meaning behind the symbol was that he was trying to tell everyone to feed him?

Meanwhile, in the underground lab, Kryger (played by Brad Beyer) is furious that the baby escaped and locks Molly down there because she wants to find him but not kill him. Kryger meets up with Kern (played by Maury Sterling) and they work together to track Sparks and kill the baby themselves. Molly makes an improvised rope to scale the elevator shaft and takes one of the black ops men hostage and uses his phone to contact Hideki Yasumoto (played by Hiroyuki Sanada). Yasumoto explains to Molly that he and the company “made a mistake” taking the baby from his mother and he wants to help her bring him back safely. She decides to accept Yasumoto’s help finding the baby and he introduces her to Dr. Mason (played by Owain Yeoman), an expert on extraterrestrial activity, to help her search.

The sheer amount bad decisions in this episode is staggering. All of the protagonists apparently checked their good judgment at the door. Kryger locking Molly in the lab to be captured was the tip of the iceberg. For whatever reason, Kryger and Kern believe that, once they track down this baby, they can just kill it. The kid has taken out entire teams of armed soldiers with just his thoughts, but these two guys are going to be the ones to take him out? I don’t think so. Molly deciding to put her trust in Yasumoto knowing he was the one behind everything ties for the prize of worst decision. The man stood in front of her and admitted that he wanted her to get pregnant and stole the baby, but she still accepts his help. Think it through Molly. He doesn’t exactly want to enroll the kid in school.

John (played by Goran Visnjic) also ends up going to Yasumoto for help finding Molly after watching her goodbye message from the last episode. Yasumoto gladly offers his “help” and convinces John to stay at his loft for his own “safety” until everything is figured out. Ethan (played by Pierce Gagnon) is having a blast hanging out with Odin (played by Charlie Brewley), oblivious to the fact that he wants to destroy him. However, Odin doesn’t do anything particularly bad with Ethan apart from letting him play with a lighter. Ethan later gets dropped off at Yasumoto’s to be with John, which is basically handing him off from one bad guy to another.

You have to hand it to Yasumoto, he’s a smart man. He’s got Molly working with him and, as collateral, managed to take her family hostage without breaking a sweat. They don’t even realize they are hostages yet. As far as they’re concerned, they’re just guests.

I’m disappointed that Odin didn’t make his move against Ethan after the setup last episode, that is unless you count letting him play with fire as evil. I don’t know what this guy is planning for Ethan, but I hope it’s worth all of this waiting. Perhaps he doesn’t even know yet and he’s just stalling for time.

Quotes & Thoughts

“We thought we could lessen the danger with it under our control. We were wrong. We took away the one thing it truly needed, its mother.” “And that didn’t occur to you when you were cutting it out of my body, or when you decided to lock it in some basement?”

People kept referring to the baby as the Offspring. That sounds better than just calling it “the baby,” so I’ll be referring to it as Offspring until it gets a proper name.

“That thing is out in the world now. If it can do that to that to a dozen highly trained operatives in a basement, what’s going to happen in a crowded train station or a football stadium?”

If Molly decides to raise this kid, he is going to need some serious discipline.

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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