Extant - Recap: The Fountain of Youth

The story is fairly straightforward. Sparks (Michael O'Neill) and Anya are on the run with the Offspring and "Katie", while Molly (Halle Berry) and Kern (Maury Sterling), still reeling from the death of Kryger last week, are hot on their tail. Of course, complications arise when Yasumoto's men capture Molly, as the Japanese businessman is growing more desperate as his disease consumes him. And caught in the middle of all this? John (Goran Visnjic), who is only just beginning to understand what's really going on with Yasumoto (Hiroyuki Sanada). Oh, and I guess Ethan (Pierce Gagnon) is still in danger, as Odin (Charlie Bewley) finally puts his master plan into motion. It's a busy episode, but it's an interesting story for how it brings all the disparate plot threads of the season together. There's a sense of everything coming to a head, and it adds a sense of danger and desperation to the plot that wasn't always there before. These are people with everything to lose, yet they're barreling forward as if they have nothing left to lose at all. It's actually kind of fascinating, to see the series structured this way, especially since we finally beginning to learn the massive scope of what Yasumoto is trying to accomplish, while Molly must decide just how far she's willing to go to be reunited with her child. All in all, "A New World" is among the best episodes of the series so far.

Credit: CBS

So Molly and Kern are after Sparks and Anya, and this takes them back to the diner from which Molly was abducted by Mason last week. There, they find the waitress, unconscious on the ground, and a little girl who saw the whole thing. Apparently, Anya demanded the waitress's car keys, but when the waitress refused, the Offspring forced the woman to zap herself with her own taser. In short, Anya is now all-in with Sparks, recognizing the momentousness of what they're now a part of, and making the decision to do whatever it takes to keep Katie safe. It's an interesting plot development that doesn't get nearly enough time, although I'm not entirely certain just how much time it really needed, since it's a development that is immediately understandable. This new "Katie" washes away Anya's grief and restores her family with Sparks, so it makes sense she'd be every bit as desperate as he is to maintain it. Of course, this harmony between the Sparks clan doesn't really last, as the Offspring somehow manages to escape, leaving Sparks with no other option but to pair up with Molly in an attempt to find the missing alien.

The urgent nature of the plot leads to several rapid-fire developments: Molly arranges a trade with Yasumoto, the child for her family. Yasumoto, however, doesn't know that Molly doesn't actually have the alien child. It's a plan that nearly goes sideways for Molly, if not for John's quick thinking. Just as Yasumoto is about to shoot her for deceiving him, John reveals that he was able to steal the sole remaining vial of the mysterious yellow substance Yasumoto has been trying to recreate. It's the same substance that has kept his disease at bay, and so he has little choice but to put down his weapon. Ultimately, Molly gets the chance to interrogate Yasumoto about his motivations, and this is where the plot comes to life.

Credit: CBS

We learn that Yasumoto is actually over 140 years old (!!!), and that his "disease" isn't a "disease," per se, but rather the effects of time. In short, his illness is simply that he's lived far longer than any mortal man should. Now that he doesn't have enough of the yellow substance to prevent him from aging, he's rapidly diminishing. We see him age right before our eyes, as his hair grays, crow's feet appear around his eyes, and his hands become wrinkled and covered in liver spots. But how did he even come to discover the substance in the first place? Well, as Yasumoto explains, he had been a miner working with Claypool Industries in order to provide for his pregnant wife. However, he fell into a shaft that collapsed on him. With no rescue effort forthcoming, Yasumoto prepared himself for death...before discovering a strange asteroid from which a yellow substance oozed. Suddenly, he found that his injuries had been healed, and that the aging process had been stopped. When he was found several days later, Claypool Industries offered him a stake in the company to buy his silence. From there, he spent the next century researching the asteroid, plotting its trajectory, and divining ways he could recreate whatever circumstances brought the asteroid to Earth in the first place. Ultimately, he used the Aruna crew to accomplish this goal; and, later, Molly. The child is essentially a physical manifestation of this fountain of youth, capable of not only extending life, but restoring it. For Yasumoto, the offspring presents the potential for "a life without the consequence of death." He essentially tries to convince Molly to help him by promising that she can have Marcus back, and it seems as if he's actually getting her to consider the magnitude of what he's suggesting. Yet before Molly can really process all this, Sparks appears and causes mischief. Molly is just in time to stop him, but he reveals that she's already helped him more than she knows.

Credit: CBS

Turns out, the Offspring used Molly to change the flight path for a space station carrying an astronaut by the name of Shawn Glass. We see Glass as he accepts a transmission from a mysterious vessel claiming to have found an escape pod that belongs to his station, and it should be pretty obvious what's coming next. Naturally, when it was revealed that Katie's body was never recovered, and that she set herself adrift in an escape pod, it was only a matter of time before she reentered the narrative, as she does here. Yes, Katie is alive. Unless it's just another projection of the Offspring or whatever force is causing apparitions of dead people to appear.

Credit: CBS

There's certainly more than a few questions that are raised by Katie's survival, such as...well, HOW?! She was presumably adrift for years, and I doubt an escape pod has the necessary provisions for an astronaut to survive for that long, even in the snazzy future in which this show takes place. Also, if this actually is Katie, then nothing has really changed from when she sent her farewell message. She's still presumably infected by whatever overtook the rest of the Aruna crew, meaning she's still a danger. So why return at all? What's changed that she suddenly feels it's safe for her to make contact with other people? It's a mystery that's interesting enough in itself, but it's doubled by the reveal that the Offspring is on the loose, having either killed or incapacitated Anya. We can't see what he looks like, but we do see him escape from a distance, as he heads out into the real world to do God knows what. It's a killer cliffhanger, in more ways than one, as one would think he'd want to protect Molly, or those Molly cares about, in some capacity. Then again, we don't really know about his agenda. He could be coming to destroy the world, or he could be coming to save Ethan, who has a bomb unknowingly implanted in his body by Odin. All sorts of hell could break loose in the two episodes remaining, and that prospect is exciting.

"A New World" is easily the best Extant in weeks, and I'm genuinely intrigued by what the final two episodes of the season have in store. This is a show that started off strong, languished in the middle, but is looking to finish with a bang. I'm not sure if the show has the narrative legs (or the ratings) to continue past this single season, but regardless, I'm stoked to see how it all wraps up. And that's more than I've been able to say in weeks.