Extant - Recap: It's a Boy

This is because, strangely enough, it stripped away all the family dynamics I had previously applauded the show for, in favor of doubling down on the mystery at the heart of the series. This gave the episode a sense of urgency and mystery it might not have had otherwise, as Molly (Halle Berry) must figure out what the ISEA did to her baby, while also worrying about whom she can -- or can't -- trust. In short, the episode worked because we didn't spend so much time bogged down by what was going on with Ethan (Pierce Gagnon), who's become a bit of a rough spot for the show, as he seems to exist more as an idea than as a character. That said, what I liked most about this episode were the smaller touches: although the ISEA has taken away her baby and turned Sam (Camryn Manheim) against her, Molly never once doubts her sanity, and never buys the story that she's been suffering from a case of hysterical pregnancy. She knows it's B.S., and never pretends it's anything other than the B.S. it clearly is, and that makes her much easier to root for, since a lesser show might have gone on this whole long character arc in which Molly doubts herself and must slowly work her way back around to the truth. Extant doesn't have time for that, and neither does "What on Earth is Wrong?". And it's that exigency that gives the episode much of its dramatic power.

Credit: CBS

So, after a series of nightmares-within-nightmares centering on the late Marcus (Sergio Harford), including a memory of the car accident he died in, Molly awakes in the hospital to find that doctors are telling her she was never pregnant. Her uterus shows no signs of ever having been pregnant, nor do any of her blood tests. And so begins the long con, as the ISEA forces a cover up to make Molly believe she was never pregnant. And it's actually a pretty elegantly executed cover up. For one, Sam pretends to have never heard of this pregnancy before, convincingly appearing to have no idea what Molly is talking about. She pleads with John (Goran Visnjic) to get Molly psychiatric help, even as Molly is stopping just short of cursing her out. "They'd better have a gun to your head," Molly warns her, indicating that she'd never forgive Sam for her betrayal otherwise. And, figuratively, they do have a gun to her head. As we learned last week, Sparks (Michael O'Neill) holds the fate of Sam's mentally unstable brother in his hands, so it's no surprise that Sam is selling Molly out, simply as a matter of priority. But what is a surprise is that Sparks somehow knew Sam would deliver such a convincing performance. Seriously, how many doctors are also incredible actors? I know Camryn Manheim is great, that doesn't necessarily mean that the character of Sam should be as good an actress as Manheim. Then again, one could infer that having a figurative gun pointed to the head of a loved one is incentive enough to turn on the acting skills, as Sam does here. The performance doesn't amount to much for Sam, since Molly sees right through it anyway, but it's still an impressive feat. And it made for a powerful scene, in that we see just how far the ISEA is willing to go to convince Molly she's crazy, as they've gone as far as to delete the text from Sam warning her about Sparks. In essence, Molly has lost one of her closest allies in this entire mess.

Credit: CBS

And worse, John is starting to have his doubts, as he's beginning to realize that nothing he knows about the pregnancy has independent corroboration. Everything he knows about it comes from Molly herself, and it prompts him to begin questioning whether or not Molly ever was pregnant. As he explains to Molly, John says he has no doubts that she believes she was pregnant, but he just can't be sure if she ever really was. In his own defense, John says it doesn't matter whether he believes her or not, since he's not the one she needs to convince. But this devastates Molly just the same, since she feels it does matter if he believes her. And so, in order to prove she's not crazy, Molly visits her father to reclaim the bloody towel she used to staunch the wound from her dog bite last week. The ISEA doesn't know about the bite, so they wouldn't have known to remove it like they did with the sample test in the garage. Molly rationalizes that the blood sample on the towel would indicate pregnancy, since she was very much with child at the time. And, true to her instincts, Molly is right: She really was pregnant.

And so Molly hatches a plan of her own, to get back in the good graces of the ISEA in order to figure out what's really happened to her baby. She apologizes to Sparks and convinces him to allow her to return to work, while playing music in the lab to prevent him from overhearing her conversations through security feeds. In essence, this episode's biggest quality is that it goes out of its way to paint Molly as someone intelligent, resourceful, and worthy of our investment. Between the bloody towel, the ISEA infiltration plan, and her own commitment to finding the truth, Molly proves to be one a compelling character who is not so easily dismissed, and that's important in a show like this. We can't have someone who is frequently vacillating between steely determination and uncertainty as our protagonist. Yet, what's even better about this is that Molly's efforts pay off, to a certain degree.

A colleague has created a new algorithm for viewing the footage from Molly's space mission. And, in applying this filter to the footage, he has discovered the existence of a spore-like entity within the space capsule that acts as an energy source, of sorts. Molly figures that if this filter reveals the presence of the spore in the worm test subjects she took into space, it'll work on her footage of her encounter with Marcus. So she applies the filter to the footage of her Marcus hallucination...and discovers separate, active streams of the spore coalescing around where the Marcus apparition would have been standing. Essentially, it's implied that the Marcus apparition was a creation of these spores. But what are these spores, and were they sent by some extraterrestrial being? And why would they choose to get Molly pregnant, if they're capable of choosing at all? And what does Sparks want with all this? The questions these spores create are as interesting to me as the spores themselves, especially since the episode features Sparks not only learning that Molly's baby is surviving outside her body, but thriving. But that's not all. As the scientist overseeing the project exclaims, in response to Sparks asking him what this thing is: "It's a boy."

Credit: CBS

These aren't the only conflicts, however, as there's a fairly potent emotional arc involving Julie (Grace Gummer), John's assistant on the Humanichs project. She feels a deep attachment to Ethan due to her role in his creation. But it turns out she has a connection with Ethan that goes to the biological level, as she also possesses cybernetic body parts. In one of the best scenes of the series, we go through Julie's morning routine, from joking with her lover to taking a shower and getting dressed: and, through this montage, we come to realize that Julie has cybernetic legs. It's a wonderful shot, her in the shower sitting on the little hoverchair, since she has no legs to stand on. And it tells us a lot about the character's damage by showing us, instead of outright explaining it to us. This becomes important later because Julie goes out of her way to make it known to John that she doesn't agree with his efforts to prematurely bring Ethan out of the coma that the ISEA soldiers put him into last week. In the process, she reveals to John her resentment over how he decided to adopt Ethan without consulting her, leaving her feeling as though she had no say in the matter. It's a heartbreaking conversation, but John isn't exactly wrong when he tells her that she doesn't actually have any say in the matter, since she's not Ethan's parent. Ultimately, Ethan awakes and is his normal self once again, but Julie has been put through the ringer, reminded that she's not John's partner, but merely his employee. It's brutal stuff, but effective.

All in all, "What on Earth is Wrong?" is probably my favorite episode of the series so far. It kept the narrative slim and focused, resulting in an hour that just flew by, for me. If Extant keeps this up, we could be in for some compelling stuff in the future.