Extant: Season One, Episode Seven – “More in Heaven and Earth”

First aired August 20th, 2014.

Molly (played by Halle Berry) has decided to stop playing defense and is ready to confront Director Sparks (played by Michael O’Neill) about everything. Working with Sam (played by Camryn Manheim), who’s back on Team Molly, they begin to investigate the space mission where Sparks’ daughter, Katie (played by Tessa Ferrer), died.

Sam finds out that the medical records for the crew were faked to appear normal and Molly discovers that the ship was meant for some sort of mining operation (the reason for which being unknown). Molly contacts the president of the now defunct company asking about the hexagon symbol and the mission, he agrees to see her but is murdered before the meeting. Molly goes to Sparks and makes it clear that she will not stop until she finds her baby. She follows him when he drives to the compound where it’s being kept. About two seconds after she gets in, an armed SWAT team moves in to capture her. While Molly is trying to get away, she notices a flock of birds outside forming the hexagon symbol. Her baby wants to say “hi” to mommy.

Molly’s going to have to really start watching her ass. If she keeps making more trouble for these guys, they’ll eventually make her “accidentally” fall out of a window, too. But at least all this forcefulness is getting some forward momentum plotwise. I know Molly really wants to be reunited with her son but, after that display with the birds, she should think twice about that. This kid went from possessing people a few feet away to making birds do aerial acrobatics in about two days. When he grows up, he’ll make Professor Xavier look like a children’s magician. At least the kid seems to like Molly, because this is one boy you don’t want to see have a tantrum.

Meanwhile, Gordon Kern (played by Maury Sterling) has Kryger (played by Brad Beyer) in his basement and is torturing him to get the video file of Katie’s space mission that he gave to Molly. Gordon’s doorbell goes off and, of all people, it’s his mother coming over to check on him because she hasn’t heard from him in a while. She’s worried that he might be using again or suffering from the same delusions his father had that caused him to almost crash a commercial airliner. Kryger later tells Gordon he knows about the visions he and his father were having, suggesting that the aliens could be responsible for them. It’s enough to make Gordon turn against the company and he and Kryger rescue Molly from the compound.

Is there a worse person than your mother to interrupt you when you’ve got a hostage? I broke out laughing at the thought that, because Gordon’s mommy wanted to check up on him, Kryger might escape. That all took a backseat to the realization that the aliens could potentially be who contacted Gordon’s father and told him to land a plane in a cornfield. I really don’t get how they would be capable of talking to a pilot on Earth. And why of all places a cornfield? Since Gordon’s father presumably never went to space, I guess we’re supposed to think these things have been to Earth before or are still here. I’ll have to see how things play out for before I make a conclusion. But at least now there’s another member of Team Molly who has some military training, so that should come in handy.

Ethan (played by Pierce Gagnon) has learned Japanese seemingly overnight and that has John (played by Goran Visnjic) thoroughly freaked out. One person it impressed was Hideki (played by Hiroyuki Sanada), who invited the family to dinner with his coworker/lover Femi Dodd (played by Annie Wersching). She disagreed with John’s views on the Humanichs project. John decides to lower Ethan’s learning capacity, but finds himself blocked from accessing it while someone else is able to activate Ethan as he sleep.

Elsewhere, Julie (played by Grace Gummer) is enjoying her relationship with Odin (played by Charlie Bewley), the man she met at the gym. He’s not as great as he seems. Odin is a part of a radical group that includes Femi Dodd. The group intends to eliminate robots because they believe they are dangerous to humans. Their first target is none other than Ethan, which explains why Odin has been wining and dining Julie.

I don’t know why anyone is surprised that Ethan is so smart. He may have the personality of a child but he also has the brain of a supercomputer. Since Hideki captured Ethan with Molly a few episodes back and Ethan is now speaking Japanese, I think Hideki has to be the one controlling him now. He’s probably going to turn Ethan into an evil, robot child-ninja, and I have to say that does sound pretty cool. So Odin turned out to be the John Connor of his generation and he’s looking to do a preemptive strike to prevent a SkyNet situation from happening. As I was watching this, I felt it might have been better if Julie had been behind this, working from inside to bring John and his research to a stop and destroy Ethan. It would have been a nice twist, especially since she hasn’t had a significant story yet. Here, she’s just a plot device that brings Odin into the mix.

Quotes & Thoughts

“You know, if I go through those records, he’s going to find out.” “Good. I want him to know I’m on to something. I want him to lose sleep at night.”

It might have been sweeter if the baby made the birds form a heart.

“When we outsource war to machines, we outsource our humanity to technology.”

Maybe the cornfield message was a joke and the aliens have a sense of humor.

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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