Extant: Season One, Episode Two – “Extinct”

First aired July 16th, 2014.

The second episode of Extant was just as fast-paced as the premiere, adding more intrigue to its central mystery of Molly’s mysterious pregnancy. From what I saw during this episode, she’d better pray she isn’t carrying twins.

Molly sees another vision of her dead boyfriend, Marcus, and passes out. She wants to be absolutely sure that she is pregnant and has her doctor colleague and friend, Sam (played by Camryn Manheim), give her an ultrasound. According to the test, Molly is carrying a healthy human fetus that is about fourteen weeks old. However, those hexagon-looking rings that were rising up and down inside her stomach say otherwise.

The “boyfriend” had to be Molly’s alien baby daddy checking in on his unborn child, although it would help if he learned to say something other than “it’s okay.” Originally, I expected her baby to be some kind of mini alien like the chestbursters from the Alien series, but now I think that she may be carrying some kind of alien virus or something, because those rings don’t look like any kind of fetus, alien or human. That’s what I love about this show: it constantly keeps me guessing and speculating.

Harmon (played by Brad Beyer), the astronaut who went up before Molly, takes her to his hideout and we learn more about what happened on his mission. Like Molly, he had a vision of a deceased loved one who tried to seduce him, but in this case it was his mother, which is all kinds of creepy. Molly decides to confront her boss Alan (played by Michael O’Neill) about everything and he denies any and all involvement (as if he would confess). Alan, in turn, informs Hideki about the new developments, which apparently tie into something that happened to Alan’s daughter. Hideki’s involvement is revealed to be that he’s dying after a machine tells him he has just over 100 days to live.

Now we know why Harmon didn’t have any alien baby mama drama: the aliens didn’t know that most guys in general don’t want to sleep with their mothers. When someone tells you not to trust someone, Molly, you should know better than to spill the beans to them. Now there’s a new layer to the mystery regarding what happened to Alan’s daughter and how far back all of this goes. I should have known Hideki would have some kind of terminal illness. That’s another common reason these guys are after aliens or alien technology.

The rest of the episode centers around John and his Humanichs program. Now that they have funding, he’s hoping humanoid robots will be integrated into society as regular citizens. We get to learn more about how they are created. The consciousness of a Humanichs robot lives in a computer for a few years, learning as a child does before being given a body. And as they grow older they are transferred into new bodies that match their age. Meanwhile, John’s partner, Julie (played by Grace Gummer), seems less than thrilled that Molly is back in the picture.

Learning more about the Humanichs project was interesting since I was curious about it, especially the issue of raising seemingly ageless robot children. While that was all interesting, it didn’t measure up to the action of the episode’s main story. Julie is being set up as being attracted to John but I think maybe she’s more interested in being a mother to Ethan (played by Pierce Gagnon) and being the one to change his batteries. Ethan was shown acting more childlike, as opposed to his creepy Orphan behavior from the premiere, but I’m sure that’ll return eventually.

Quotes & Thoughts

“I’m not worried about the robots destroying us, Dr. Woods. I think we’re perfectly capable of doing that ourselves.”

Spending three years of your life inside a computer does not sound fun at all, although there would be unlimited internet access.

“Sometimes people keep secrets so that other people don’t worry about things that they don’t need to worry about.”

That space version of Jenga looks like so much fun, I hope it becomes a reality someday.

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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