Raised by Wolves S2E3: “Good Creatures”

The following contains spoilers for Raised by Wolves S2E3 “Good Creatures” (written by Julian Meiojas and directed by Sunu Gonera).

Welcome back, dear reader, as we continue to review the HBO Max series Raised by Wolves with the Season 2 Episode 3, “Good Creatures.” This was a fairly Father-centric episode, and he had quite the rollercoaster ride. He tries to be the protector and once again fails. He stumbles into being a creator and has some minor success. Then he tries his hand at Robot Wars and finally experiences the sweet taste of victory.

Largely though, this episode did not have a lot of forward momentum. New relationships are forged and old ones are renewed. Some wheels are set in motion, but no big reveals just yet. Our roller coaster is just coasting through some turns right now…but we can see a few big hills and a loop-the-loop or two up ahead.

Father and Hunter stand on a ridge line looking down into the valley below — *Buddies or something*

Father’s Descent

The Trust continues working to separate Mother from her old alliances, this time targeting Father. As Lucius correctly surmises, the children do not take kindly to the idea of Mithraic prisoners being used as bait. Father’s utilitarian mind set only sees the end goal of keeping his children safe from a monster, not seeing that he has become a bit of a monster himself.

On top of that, Marcus points out that the blast radius on the packs is 15 meters, while the range on the shepherd’s staff is 10 meters. Are we to believe the data-driven supercomputer in charge was unaware of the jeopardy this would place the shepherd in? Doubtful. So it would seem the Trust’s plan was to either take Father down a notch, or take him out completely.

Returning from the hunt, Father is at a real low point. He was defeated utterly by Marcus, expending another of his nine lives. He lost all of the Mithraic prisoners he was in charge of, forcing a redirection of the entire Collective to seek and destroy Marcus. He’s lost face in the eyes of the children. And as the final straw, once he reboots back to life, he finds out that Mother broke her promise—made upon their partnership—by bringing Seven back alive.

Raised by Wolves S2E3 - Mother reaches a hand out to touch the giant serpent on the muzzle — *Mother’s care giving protocol kicks in*

Mother’s Journey

Mother is experiencing her own highs and lows in this episode. Her hopes that the serpent was destroyed in the lander crash have proved fruitless. Not only is the serpent alive, but its first move was to attack Campion. This monster is her responsibility. She’s willing to sacrifice herself to make up for this transgression against Father and the children.

On the warpath, she impatiently blows through a trap set by Cleaver and a hunting party of Atheists. He tries to tattle on her to the Trust, but only ends up being ordered to stay with her and help. Mother allows them to tag along up to a point, but when the ascent goes vertical, she leaves them in the dust.

Once she does catch up to the beast, she hesitates to deliver the killing shot. Her hesitation allows her to discover that it is actually a gentile herbivore, and she lures the serpent down from the mountain with pumpkins. The beast is docile to the point where Campion’s comparison to a dog, albeit a very large flying dog, is not too far off the mark.

So now her care giving program is telling her to protect Number Seven. She implores Father that she needs it in her life. It is a part of her. Father, on the other hand, really has it in for Number Seven. His care giving program is still telling him that it is a direct threat to their family. He refers to it variously as a “filthy reptile,” “wretched thing,” and the “dangerous animal Mother captured.”

Father worries aloud, and rightly so, that Mother is still being manipulated by the Entity who tricked her into carrying it to term in the first place. Her pledge to control it is just another empty promise. Campion assures Father that he’s seen no signs of latent aggression in the serpent. However, he’s failing to recall that it showed signs of jealousy when it felt Mother was giving his brother Campion a little too much attention.

Father raises an industrial android over his head, cheering humans surround in the background — *Father victorious*

Father’s Ascent

Frustrated, Father goes to his shed to clean up his wounds. He accidentally gets some of his fuel blood on the ancient android corpse and it absorbs it right up. Fascinated, he adds more and the corpse begins to transform, covered in a golden silicon moss with a “troublesome” cowl forming over the face. In light of Mother’s continued betrayals, his little project is taking on a deeper meaning for Father, as now she is “not the only one capable of creating life.”

He attempts to steal some fuel blood from the colony’s supplies and luckily gets rescued by Sue. Sue has been doing her own research into the serpent, and she’s starting to put two-and-two together about its origin, six months ago. She quizzes Father on the lost baby again, and he cuts her off claiming no connection to it and no right to speak of it. Now she knows that he knows.

Taking Hunter with him to negotiate, Father goes to the proverbial other side of the tracks. Wherever humanity goes, a black market is going to always pop up. He tries to barter for some fuel blood, but instead gets talked into fighting Billy. Father finally gets to show what a 2122 Generic Service Model is made of, taking down this mechanical Jason Voorhees to the cheering adoration of the human crowd. Live it up, Pops. It’s probably all downhill again from here.

Sue sits at her desk, a look of realization on her face — *Sue pieces together the clues*

Quick Takes

A couple of quick takes on the rest of the episode and other tangentially related things:

This is a bit of an errata. Last week I mentioned the two dedications at the end of Episodes 1 and 2. That was intended to be a placeholder that I would go back and expand upon to explain who they were. The first one, TanNa Young, was a production executive at Scott Free productions, working specifically on Raised by Wolves. Rodney Agulhas is much more obscure. I’ve even asked the Reddit r/raisedbywolves community and no one has an answer beyond “probably part of the production crew.” Alas.
Campion has not inherited Father’s ability to tell jokes. His “unless you’re a pumpkin” joke landed as flat as a pancake, though he obviously thought it was hilarious.
Speaking of jokes, the one that Hunter was referring to was the one that Father started to tell after Hunter rebooted him with the Morse code password (back in S1E9). It started out, “An android, a black hole, and a glass of milk walk into a bar.” At the time, Father promised he’d “finish this joke at a later date.”
Hunter is already off though, because he thinks the joke is about a cat (not an android), a black hole, and a glass of milk. Did he really mix it up, or is there something more nefarious going on here? Father did not correct him.
I love the look on Lucius’ face as every single one of his comrades walk past him to go join Marcus’s new church.
Redditor u/nusually discovered some interesting connections with the name Vrille and a late 19^th century sci-fi story called “The Coming Race.” I would not rule it out as a possible inspiration for elements of the show.
Speaking of Vrille, is it just me, or are they trying to set her up to be a love interest for Campion?
Does Marcus really like Father for some reason? After all, he merely disabled Pops, when he normally beats up on androids to the point of sickening Sue.
What does it mean that Cleaver is “wearing someone else’s eyes?” If you are going to replace your eyes, wouldn’t you select a pair that do not require corrective lenses? Maybe something happened on the ark voyage to Kepler-22B and his selection was limited? That was definitely a very strange reveal, especially in light of the importance of eyes to necromancers.
Cleaver sees Mother as a weapon. Does he get that from the Trust? The Trust also conveyed to Sue that the serpent has “strong weaponization potential.” Considering that the only enemy the colonists know about is the lone Mithraic terrorist, why is the Trust so interested in collecting weapons? Does it somehow already know of the Entity and its potential hostile intent towards humanity?
Sue has been promoted from medic to full-fledged doctor now. Congratulations are in order.
Mother is also moving up in the ranks. Cleaver finds this out the hard way. She also orders the colonist to get back to their tasks.
Campion points out that if Father ever breaks down, they can just transfer his mind to a different body. Another Chekhov’s gun to watch for later this season.
If Number Seven wasn’t the one that dragged the research station into the acid water, then there is apparently some other monster, one that can withstand the acid water, lurking out there.
Mother is quick to declare the serpent an herbivore, but let’s not forget the massive amounts of blood, human and android, it needed during gestation. Omnivore is not out of the question.
It’s being played rather obvious, but neither side is turning out to be the good guys here. The Atheists consider sacrificing their Mithraic prisoners a viable method of killing the serpent. When the tank soldiers were shot last episode, Decima told Vrille they were “only Atheists.” Neither side has been changed by the experience of destroying their home world.
The Trust is so obviously setting Paul loose to find Marcus, and is totally going to track him via Mouse. Brain chipped indeed.

Raised by Wolves S2E3 - Campion stands in their habitat, barely controlling himself from laughing — *Campion cracks himself up*

Best lines of the episode:

“You once told me I had a penchant for melodrama.”
“You know that android?” “It’s complicated.”
“The only thing that’s going to bring purity to this planet, Marcus, is your death.” “Let’s agree to disagree for now, OK?”
“My mother broke my neck once.” “What happened?” “Sorry, that story’s restricted.”
“I would like that. To not have to mimic, but to simply be.”
“What happened?” “You died again.”
“Father…Not again! What happened?”
“Love…be the death of us all.”
“Yes, even the serpent has rights.”
“What do you two idiots know?”
“What makes you think I’m not going to tell Mother? You think we’re buddies or something?”
“Cause they’re impure, like you.” “(Laughs) Amen, kid.”
“I wouldn’t say I was ‘beat up’ exactly.”

In The News

Here I try to point you to a few of the more interesting and informative news items over the last week related to Raised by Wolves:

This is old news, so to speak, but I meant to mention it last week and forgot. If you want to get caught up on Season 1, particularly with regard to theories and analysis like we try to get into here, let me recommend two interviews Aaron Guzikowski did with the Stuck at Home podcast on YouTube. There is one interview before the finale, and a follow-up interview after the finale. Both are excellent and they get a lot of hints and answers out him. Highly recommended.
Collider has a more current interview with Guzikowski. He still stands by the original plan of five seasons to tell the whole story. His tease for Season 2 is regarding Mother’s internal conflict between protecting her original children and the connection she feels with Number Seven.
HBO Max released a couple new posters for Season 2 to their Instagram account [source: Reddit].

This week on the official podcast, co-executive producer Abby Ex was the guest. She is described as “the real MVP behind the show” and considers her role more so “creative producer.” She mostly just had stories from on set to share, but there were a few things worth noting:

While Season 2 is more about exploring character dynamics, she does say they are still stepping up the weirdness. That’s a relief.
The crew likes to pull pranks on each other. They also have a lot of gag reel moments.
She calls the tanks “habitanks.” At least, that’s how I’m hearing it. Perhaps the name is taken from a NASA lunar lander concept from a 2007 study, though those seem more “habi” than “tank.”
She hints that Paul will be staying with Marcus from here on out.

Paul, Campion, and Holly walk away from the settlement, tossing their fruit collection bags aside — *Playing hooky*

Conclusion

Now that all three of the potential prophecy-fulfilling Orphans are gathered together, what will be the Trust’s next move? Will it take this opportunity to pick off two more of the competition for Mother’s affection, or wait until the kids are clear? And what will happen when Father pours five gallons of fuel blood into his little side project? Grandmother is coming.

That’s all for this week. Please let me know your thoughts and feelings about this week’s episodes, and any theories you have on what’s to come, in the comments below. Remember that 25YL will provide continuing coverage of Raised by Wolves throughout Season 2 and beyond.

All images courtesy of HBO Max