Once and Again Season 2 Episode 17
At that place'due south an old short story by Clive Barker, the creator of Pinhead and the writer-director of Hellraiser, that I retrieve about a lot. It's called "Pig Blood Dejection," and yous tin read a pretty cute comics adaptation by Chuck Wagner, Fred Burke, and Scott Hampton right hither. Go alee, take a few minutes, I'll be here when you become back.
Anyhow, old Clive, he wrote a line in this story that was ofttimes on my mind while watching this final episode of Raised by Wolves' boggling second season. The line goes like this—
"This is the country of the beast…to eat and exist eaten."
I won't get into who in the story says information technology and why—that's for you to discover—but I will say that there'due south something so perfectly fatalistic in that line, something that sums up and so much of what goes on in this season finale. The beast, of class, is humankind, and it's their—our—fate to impale each other until some larger force comes to kill us all.
There are several such forces at piece of work in this episode, perversely titled "Happiness." Foremost amongst them is Grandmother, the ancient android Father repaired/resurrected. When Mother decides to essentially swap her office as the children's caretaker with Grandmother in commutation for Grandmother'due south emotion-inhibiting veil, she precipitates a disaster.
Grandmother seems alright. She says the correct words near ensuring "the everlasting life of human beings." After the transplant of the veil to Mother, she seems almost morbidly preoccupied with the fear and hurting involved in caring for children. (Speaking equally a parent, I hear ya, Grandmother.) She gets along well with Male parent, her partner until Mother relinquishes the veil. She even laughs at his atrocious jokes, or at least his latest 1, a "walks into a bar" scrap about development. (Does it hurt that player Selina Jones, acting behind White Walker/Fremen–style blueish contact lenses, is as beautiful as Amanda Collin and Abubakar Salim, Mother and Father respectively? No, information technology does not.)
There's just 1 problem: Grandmother's definition of "human beings" is, shall nosotros say, somewhat broader than that of Mother and Begetter. By diverse cabalistic methods—including, I shit yous not, tainted video games; gaming will exist the death of us all—she is devolving the children into the sort of humanoid creatures that populate the acid sea. When Mother figures this out, the veil expands to seal her upwardly and swallow her whole. Afterwards that, information technology's like shooting fish in a barrel as pie for Grandmother to institute her in a repaired hibernation chamber and knock her out, no thing how loud she screams.
That'due south when Grandmother reveals her big plan: "Subsequently the humans accept gone into the water, the Entity"—that's the force called Sol—"will return to its slumber." If that means turning kids like Campion and Tempest's baby, the first to show evidence of mutation, into sea monsters, and then be it. (Side note: Maybe the ancient android "Shepherds" were responsible for the overall devolution of Kepler-22b's ancient humans, "we had to destroy the hamlet in club to save information technology"–style.)
Before she realizes she's been had, Female parent uses the veil for the purpose she intended: killing Seven, the gigantic flight serpent monster that tried to impale Campion. In i of the more upsetting moments in recent television history, she bucks every expectation viewers of traditional television might take by looking into the wounded brute's soulful, plaintive, puppy-dog eye, and so jabbing her arm through information technology and pulling out its brain. I was equal parts delighted by this zig where your average narrative would zag, and horrified by the callous violence of it all.
Also horrified is Campion, who has deduced that the serpent was Female parent's child. He has no honey for his "sibling," though; rather, he loves Vrille, the android that the ophidian killed. Early in the episode he makes a copy of the writing Vrille did in her dying moments; "just some dopey Globe stuff," says Paul, who decodes it.
Even every bit Female parent is imprisoned by Grandmother, the force of religious belief marches on. Amid the atheists, a fiddling girl offers up a pendant she fabricated in award of Mother: "Lamia the Ophidian-Killer, Lamia the God."
And elsewhere, Lucius, the sole surviving Mithraic, has begun receiving messages from Sol now that Mother'southward strike on the ophidian has disrupted the temperate zone's electromagnetic field, exposing it both to cold atmospheric condition and transmissions from the Sol Entity. (For what it'southward worth, Paul and Marcus deduce that the transmissions come from cloak-and-dagger, a theory Lucius confirms when he announces his intention to descend all the mode down into a pit.) Lucius at present believes he is the truthful king and prophet, and he shoots Marcus, then crucifies him upside-downwardly on the tree that sprouts from the serpent's carcass. (In an extraordinarily gross sequence, Father shows the older children aboriginal footage of a person becoming a tree, merely every bit Sue did.)
But once again, it seems equally if the Entity has tricks up its sleeve that neither human nor android can foresee. No sooner does Lucius turn his back on Marcus than the one-time super-powered prophet disappear from his upside-down crucifixion. He is now somehow floating in the air, upside-down like the tarot deck's hanged man…and that's how the episode leaves united states.
Information technology feels as if we're far, far beyond where the show left u.s.a. at the stop of Season One. Even though some of the earlier plot threads were left dangling—remember when hooded humanoids were a thing?—near everything else has been woven into a rich, dense tapestry of body horror and that thin line between science and magic. Powerful performances by the series' leads, adult and child akin, are complemented by gruesome and gorgeous sci-fi/horror imagery. In general, in that location'south a sense that anything tin can happen at whatsoever moment, and all we can exercise is continue for the ride.
Raised by Wolves is mail service-apocalyptic TV at its finest. Humanity has go monstrous, and it faces the wrath of monsters in plow. This is the state of the beast…to consume or be eaten.
Sean T. Collins ( @theseantcollins ) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that volition take him , really. He and his family unit live on Long Isle.
Source: https://decider.com/2022/03/17/raised-by-wolves-season-2-finale-recap/
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