Extant - Recap: Molly and the Magic Mystery Circle

Mainly, the big drawback of this technique is that while we may know certain things about what Sparks (Michael O'Neill) is up to, or why Sam (Camryn Manheim) is lying to Molly (Halle Berry) about her pregnancy, or what Kryger (Brad Beyer) is planning, Molly doesn't know these things herself. That means we need to take up value screen time so she can figure these things out. And that's screen time we could be devoting to any number of things that are exponentially more interesting, such as what this funky symbol actually is, or why Sparks felt it necessary to cover up the real circumstances of his daughter's death. Granted, we inevitably get to these issues by the end of the episode, but getting there doesn't forgive what is mostly a boring journey towards an exciting final five minutes. That said, "Nightmares" does offer up some fairly interesting directions for the series to take, as it weighs the pros and cons of giving away too much of the mystery too soon. Could the show stand to move a bit faster in getting to wherever it's going to go? Probably. But considering that this is a mystery drama, it's kind of crazy to think that we know so much about the mythology, and about the circumstances of the show's inciting incident. If nothing else, Extant deserves a little credit for not taking the better part of forever to reveal valuable information, even if that information doesn't always forgive the bland hour that preceded it.

Credit: CBS

The first half of "Nightmares" mostly centers on Molly making it her mission to get to the bottom of various mysteries we already know about: on John's (Goran Visnjic) suggestion, she bugs Sam in order to listen in on her conversations with Sparks. Through this bug, she's able to learn why Sam lied to her about the pregnancy, and just what, exactly, Sparks has on her. We then have Molly attempting to figure out what's up with Kryger, since Sparks is flipping out following a break-in at the ISEA headquarters. Apparently, Kryger swapped right-hand fingerprints with Sparks's right-hand man, Gordon Kern (Maury Sterling), which allow him to enter the building without a problem. Through his break-in, Kryger is able to obtain classified footage from the "accident" that allegedly killed Sparks's daughter, Katie (Tessa Ferrer), an astronaut who'd gone on a mission not unlike Molly's. And throughout all of this, Molly has to deal with Ethan (Pierce Gagnon) suddenly obtaining the ability to dream -- well, have nightmares. She helps him come to grips with what's happening to him, even if she doesn't understand it herself, by explaining to him what it means to have a subconscious, calling it the "secret part of you."

Naturally, this interesting subplot gets the least amount of time in the episode, as we don't really touch on what it means for Ethan to obtain the ability to dream beyond John expressing his genuine scientific enthusiasm over the development. Neither John nor any of his colleagues know how it could have happened, since Ethan wasn't programmed with the ability to dream -- not due to their own choice, but rather because they haven't actually figured out REM patterns to simulate dreams in Humanichs yet. Julie (Grace Gummer) is downright intrigued, but she has her hands full herself with a handsome, mysterious stranger she meets at her gym. The man, named Odin (Charlie Bewley), has a cybernetic arm similar to the legs she herself has, and she arranges to provide him with an upgrade in order to reduce the noise his arm makes, as well as improve its movement. What this has to do with anything is beyond me, unless it's to establish Odin as a villain, which seems about right. He has an ambiguous conversation with Ethan in the lab, noting that while Odin was the Norse God of War, he was also the God of Poetry. Maybe it was just the British accent, but I got vague villain vibes from this guy, as if he were a double agent of some sort tasked with infiltrating the Humanichs Lab. Although it's hard to know what purpose such a mission would actually serve, so I'll reserve judgment until we actually know more about Odin. For all we know, this story could just be a way to flesh out the world, and illustrate how other people interact with Humanichs technology in this future.

Credit: CBS

As for the non-human entity in the box in ISEA's containment facility, it appears to be causing hallucinations in people who come into contact with it. One of the scientists working on the project goes crazy and murders his colleague after the mysterious concentric-circle symbol appears on the back of his head. Apparently, the man claims that he was ordered to kill his colleague by a woman he'd once worked with -- who died several months earlier. Basically, more people are beginning to hallucinate now, lacking all rational explanation for their actions other than the presence of a symbol they can't explain. It's that very same symbol that Kryger recalls having seen during his own mission in space, briefly flashing on one of the video monitors while waiting for a message from ground control. However, ISEA wrote it off at the time as a test pattern, with no further explanation given. Kryger doesn't buy the explanation and neither does Molly, who is spooked by having walked in on Ethan making a drawing of the symbol in his room, explaining that this is what he saw in his nightmare. This becomes important later, since the nightmare seems to have improved Ethan's cognitive powers, allowing him to decode the indecipherable transmission Kryger stole from ISEA and handed off to Molly before getting himself captured by Kern. What it reveals blows the case wide open, as we see footage of what really happened to Katie Sparks.

Credit: CBS

Katie explains that all of her crew members have gone crazy, hallucinating and killing each other after the appearance of a small "circular rash". The madness is contaminating each of them one by one, including Katie herself, who decides she's going to jettison an escape pod to send her into deep space, far away from civilized people she can contaminate. However, she orders her father, in her last words, to not recover the fallen ship under any circumstances. Whatever virus has broken out cannot be allowed to spread. Molly is understandably horrified, realizing that Sparks knew there was a virus up in space and sent her anyway.

But why?

We still don't know yet, but it seems primarily motivated by Sparks's inability to truly process the loss of his daughter, as he goes to the containment field housing the alien fetus, and asks the fetus, "Show her to me." And so the fetus projects an apparition of Katie as a little girl, giving Sparks momentary peace. But what's the end goal here? Is it really important enough to endanger the lives of everyone on Earth? As Kern stated, if this fetus is already forcing people to kill each other in the fetal stage, what kind of damage will he do once he's grown? That's the million dollar question, and it's one I hope Extant gets the chance to answer.

Of course, those exciting questions don't really rescue the show from a boring first half that drags along. Extant, far more often than not, has illustrated that it's good at pacing a story, which is why this kind of misfire is all the more confounding. Hopefully, the show gets back on track, since it's been a pretty compelling track to be on for the past six weeks.