TV REVIEW: Extant Shows us What Molly’s Been Looking for in “Care and Feeding”/”A Pack of Cards”

By Chelsea Hensley

I can only assume from the now recurring two-hour “events” that Extant is not long for this world. CBS is obviously in a hurry to air the remaining episodes, hence putting them back to back now. We’re far enough along that it’s easy to determine if the show’s one that would be missed if it didn’t return for a second season, but I’m still unsure of where I stand on it. It has so much promise it’s disappointing that it doesn’t live up to it, and it’s even more disappointing that we’re so close to the end, and I’m still not sure if I know any of the characters.

Molly is particularly hard to pin down. There are times when I think I have a handle on her motivations then another episode will come along that effectively shoots those down. Since we’re now in the home stretch, it seems that Extant’s figured out what it wants to do with her, but I’m hesitant to say so when the next episode could go in the opposite direction. but since we are so close, I’m confident that this is Molly, and the confusion about her character comes a lot from the show keeping a lot of her past shrouded in mystery.

It can all be traced back to Molly’s relationship with Marcus and its tragic end with a car accident that killed him and their son and left Molly unable to bear children. This makes sense, with the show kicking off with Molly having a vision of Marcus in space and returning pregnant. But in all these episodes there’s little that can be said about Molly and Marcus other than that they were together and really loved one another. I wish there was more about them to draw upon to believe their is so important to Molly’s present-day motivations.

Halle Berry as Molly Woods. Image © CBS

Though there’s no doubt of Molly’s love for John, it’s clear that Marcus and their son is the family Molly’s been holding out for. With John she has an android son she still hasn’t connected with, despite her readiness to defend him to suspicious outsiders and occasionally take him to the park. It’s always been John who’s been the most eager to integrate Ethan into their family, while Molly refused to give up her solo mission to stay home and be a mother to a boy she didn’t love as a son.

It’s not the same with the offspring, who is clearly the stand-in for Molly’s son, at least in her eyes. When she’s finally invited to meet him, she doesn’t meet him at all. She just revisits a conversation with Sam following the car accident where Sam assures her that they’re all fine and lets Molly meet her son. Though none of that’s real, and the offspring’s intentions toward Molly are growing increasingly murky, Molly’s are very real and very clear. She loves him, he’s her son, and while everyone else is either plotting to harm him or use him, she just wants him to be with her.

In the hopes of finding the offspring, Molly allies with Yasumoto. Paired up with Dr. Mason, it’s the first time we’ve seen Molly talk about her experience aboard the Serafin without all the doom and gloom. Seeing Marcus again wasn’t scary, though it was emotional. Becoming pregnant with “his” baby, though miraculous, wasn’t of concern. It’s a gift for Molly to be able to relive that portion of her life but importantly to see it going in a happier direction.

It’s the same for Sparks, who allows a vision of Katie to spur him to flee with the offspring for its own protection. There, he’s eager to reclaim his and his ex-wife’s family by ensuring the offspring’s safety, going so far as to kill the kindly proprietor when she gets close to shooting the offspring and offering up the sheriff when the offspring gets hungry.

Image © CBS

But while Molly’s trying to reunite with her son and protect him, she’s unaware of what he’s doing elsewhere. Despite Harmon’s warnings, Molly walks straight into a what appears to be a trap set by the offspring, inputing codes that alter the course of the other astronaut’s solo mission. What the offspring needs that for is still a mystery, but he wasn’t above manipulating Molly to get it, implying that their affection is mostly one-sided. Even when vision!Katie tells Sparks that the offspring wants to be with Molly, it doesn’t ring as true. Whatever Molly may think, it’s looking increasingly likely that the offspring is more villain than victim.

Which brings us to Harmon’s final warning: that Molly will have to be the one to stop the offspring because she brought him there. His lame death aside, I’m not convinced that Molly would suddenly be onboard to “stop” (whatever that entails) her baby from fulfilling his goals. Though it’s apparent betrayal and manipulation of her will surely alter her opinion, Molly’s been so set on this baby that her willfully hurting it, as she may have to, doesn’t seem to be an option.

Then there’s Ethan. We’ll get to see how far Molly’s maternal instincts run when it comes to him as he creeps closer and closer to danger. Apparently no one in the future blinks at a strange man spending so much time around a little kid he’s just met, because the only showing of disapproval anyone shows is when Odin switches out Ethan’s power core for him. Ethan’s interest in Odin is almost painful to watch, coupled with Ethan and John’s consistently tense interactions. With Ethan rebelling against John’s rules, he’s more open to Odin’s fun and games, even taking fire to his hand so he can experiment with his robot flesh. Of course as soon as John and Ethan make up, Ethan gets onto an elevator with Odin, most likely to disappear.

These past few episodes have been particularly good ones, though they suffer from the now clearly weaker earlier hours of the season. Now that the show seems to have hit full throttle with its storytelling, having revealed lots of answers to its questions, it’s Molly’s gradual search for a family that she really loves that is strongest.

Stray Observations

• I’ve given up on anyone in the Woods clan growing any instincts. John says so himself that he has no idea how far the ISEA conspiracy goes so naturally he goes to Yasumoto for help, and of course that doesn’t go well.
• Are we seriously about to have some kind of oppression analogy with robots being used as cleaning devices?

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