Extant - Recap: An Unearthly Child

Yes, Molly (Halle Berry) finally meets The Offspring after what feels like an eternity. But what's crazy about this unearthly kid is that...well, he looks like a kid. No wild abomination of medical science or intergalactic genetics, just a kid with eyes that glow a yellow-ish hue, and a couple of alien-looking scars marking his face. Hell, the strangest thing about him is those scars, which make him look like some kind of cyborg. However, he's not. He's just a creepy kid who kind of looks like a cross between Molly and Marcus, interestingly enough. I'm not even sure he'd be all that scary if the entire encounter between he and Molly didn't take place at night, in near total darkness. But it did, and his eyes and faintly glowing scars made this feel straight out of the uncanny valley. Yet I loved that about this, since the creepiest things are often the most familiar. It's why so many horror films use children as the possessed/demonic beings, since it's a perversion of innocence and normalcy. This confrontation between mother and child is also interesting in how it brings out Molly's maternal instincts. It's in the way she speaks to The Offspring, treating him like a real human child who is still struggling to comprehend the world into which he's been born. She wonders how he's grown so fast (an interesting twist on the usual happy expression of how much a child has grown), and wonders what his goals are. And while this all seems like pretty straightforward stuff, Berry does a tremendous job with the material. Molly even tries to ease The Offspring's fears, coddling him in a motherly fashion, and keeping her own anger at bay when The Offspring refuses to talk to her any other way but through ghostly projections (of her father, of Marcus).

Credit: CBS

But the scene is important for other reasons as well, namely that it reveals that The Offspring's motives are not as cut-and-dry as we've been led to believe. You see, since this show might end up being renewed for another season and we need a hook for it, it turns out The Offspring isn't setting plans into motion for his own benefit. Rather, he's making preparations for the arrival of an unseen "other" force that is planning to come down to Earth and, presumably, wreak havoc. Molly is desperate to stop them, and pleads with her "son" for help. But The Offspring insists that she's the only one who can end all this. And so Molly must make the journey back up into space, to return to the Seraphim space station.

Credit: CBS

It makes perfect sense that a series that began in space would end there, and so I'm intrigued about the possibility of this becoming a straight-up homage to Alien next week. At the very least, the potential for a thrilling conclusion redeems some of the ho-hum business of "Before the Blood". For the most part, the episode has Molly attempting to figure out just what Sparks (Michael O'Neill) and The Offspring had her do when she was placed in that fugue state a few weeks back. In a sequence that illustrates that Molly is a much smarter, more resilient character than Halle Berry has gotten the chance to show, she deduces that they forced her to send the Seraphim station off-course by sending an asteroid warning to its navigation system. It's the sole interesting bit in this extended section of the episode, as Molly doesn't really get to do all that much with this information except mull over possibly returning to space to rescue the remaining Seraphim crewmates (Shawn Glass and Katie Sparks). Well, I guess she does get to reveal to Sparks that The Offspring murdered Anya. However, he doesn't seem to care, since he assumes The Offspring will just bring her back like it did Katie. But this all gets turned on its head once Molly receives a transmission from the Seraphim that reveals Katie is alive. Suddenly, Sparks realizes that, with his daughter on the Seraphim, he's indirectly condemned her to death, since the station is headed back to Earth and will be incinerated upon reentry. So now he's desperate to help Molly in any way he can, since he assumes his daughter is up there -- but is she really?

Credit: CBS

The conclusion to the episode suggests that she isn't. Shawn apparently has a romantic history with Katie, and it's a connection they reignite while stuck together aboard the Seraphim. They've lost all contact with Earth and have little choice but to prepare an escape pod for reentry within the next 24 hours. However, Katie just spent two years aboard an escape pod, and has an understandable panic attack when faced with the possibility of ending up in another one so soon. It's kind of crazy that no one seems to question how she could possibly survive for two years in an escape pod, but I suppose that's meant to be our first red flag, with her reticence to leave the Seraphim being the other, since the spores appear to be spreading throughout the craft, making a possible Katie projection possible. We pretty much get a confirmation of this when Shawn goes looking for oxygen suits and finds what looks to be Katie's body in a suit hatch. The fake Katie then seals him in the downstairs compartment, as things are about to take a more sinister turn, although what that turn could possibly be, I couldn't tell you.

Credit: CBS

But at least we now know what Odin (Charlie Bewley) is planning to do with Ethan (Pierce Gagnon), as Julie (Grace Gummer) discovers that Odin is an anti-tech terrorist by the name of Gavin Hutchinson. It doesn't long for her to find out, through a pre-recorded message to be released after the plan is completed, that Odin has installed a bomb in Ethan and plans to use it to have him destroy Yasumoto Tower. From there, he plans to blame sentient technology for the attack, claiming that Ethan destroyed Yasumoto Tower after learning his parents planned to shut him down. Of course, John (Goran Visnjic) and Molly have no such plan to shut Ethan down, a fact Julie reiterates towards Ethan early in the episode. But Ethan is inevitably swayed when he sees Molly together with The Offspring, while also spotting John interacting with a hallucination (as The Offspring's powers are now affecting him, too). So Ethan runs away, leaving Julie to give chase, and it's all one big race to the season finale. And you know what? It's pretty exciting, which is saying a lot for a storyline I've struggled to care about in the past.

"Before the Blood" isn't a perfect episode by any means, but it works as a tightly-paced setup for the finale, as Molly has decided to suit up and return to the Seraphim to put an end to all this, once and for all. And I'm excited for that conclusion, which is not something I was always certain about. So kudos to Extant, and its urgent approach to storytelling, which has made for a killer couple of episodes.