Once and Again Season 2 Episode 15
There'due south an old brusk story by Clive Barker, the creator of Pinhead and the writer-manager of Hellraiser, that I call back most a lot. It's called "Pig Blood Blues," and you tin read a pretty cute comics adaptation by Chuck Wagner, Fred Burke, and Scott Hampton right here. Go ahead, take a few minutes, I'll be here when you lot get back.
Anyway, erstwhile Clive, he wrote a line in this story that was frequently on my mind while watching this final episode of Raised by Wolves' extraordinary second flavor. The line goes similar this—
"This is the state of the animal…to eat and be eaten."
I won't get into who in the story says information technology and why—that's for you to discover—only I will say that at that place'due south something then perfectly fatalistic in that line, something that sums upwardly so much of what goes on in this flavor finale. The animate being, of form, is humankind, and it'southward their—our—fate to kill each other until some larger forcefulness comes to kill us all.
At that place are several such forces at piece of work in this episode, perversely titled "Happiness." Foremost among them is Grandmother, the ancient android Father repaired/resurrected. When Female parent decides to essentially swap her part as the children's caretaker with Grandmother in exchange for Grandmother'south emotion-inhibiting veil, she precipitates a disaster.
Grandmother seems alright. She says the correct words about ensuring "the everlasting life of man beings." After the transplant of the veil to Female parent, she seems almost morbidly preoccupied with the fear and hurting involved in caring for children. (Speaking as a parent, I hear ya, Grandmother.) She gets along well with Father, her partner until Female parent relinquishes the veil. She even laughs at his awful jokes, or at least his latest one, a "walks into a bar" fleck most evolution. (Does it hurt that actor Selina Jones, acting backside White Walker/Fremen–style blueish contact lenses, is as beautiful as Amanda Collin and Abubakar Salim, Mother and Father respectively? No, it does not.)
There's just i problem: Grandmother's definition of "human beings" is, shall we say, somewhat broader than that of Mother and Father. By various arcane methods—including, I shit you non, tainted video games; gaming will be the expiry of the states all—she is devolving the children into the sort of humanoid creatures that populate the acid bounding main. When Mother figures this out, the veil expands to seal her upwardly and swallow her whole. After that, it's like shooting fish in a barrel equally pie for Grandmother to plant her in a repaired hibernation chamber and knock her out, no affair how loud she screams.
That'due south when Grandmother reveals her big plan: "After the humans have gone into the water, the Entity"—that'south the strength called Sol—"volition return to its slumber." If that means turning kids like Campion and Tempest'southward baby, the starting time to show evidence of mutation, into bounding main monsters, so be it. (Side note: Perhaps the ancient android "Shepherds" were responsible for the overall devolution of Kepler-22b'south ancient humans, "we had to destroy the hamlet in order to save it"–style.)
Earlier 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 kill Campion. In one of the more than upsetting moments in contempo television history, she bucks every expectation viewers of traditional television might have by looking into the wounded brute's soulful, plaintive, puppy-canis familiaris eye, then jabbing her arm through it 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.
Besides horrified is Campion, who has deduced that the serpent was Female parent's child. He has no dear for his "sibling," though; rather, he loves Vrille, the android that the serpent 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 as Mother is imprisoned by Grandmother, the force of religious belief marches on. Among the atheists, a little girl offers up a pendant she fabricated in award of Mother: "Lamia the Snake-Killer, Lamia the God."
And elsewhere, Lucius, the sole surviving Mithraic, has begun receiving messages from Sol at present that Mother's strike on the serpent has disrupted the temperate zone'southward electromagnetic field, exposing it both to cold weather and transmissions from the Sol Entity. (For what it's 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 way down into a pit.) Lucius now believes he is the true rex and prophet, and he shoots Marcus, then crucifies him upside-down on the tree that sprouts from the ophidian'south carcass. (In an extraordinarily gross sequence, Father shows the older children ancient footage of a person becoming a tree, just as Sue did.)
But once once more, information technology seems as if the Entity has tricks upwards its sleeve that neither human nor android can foresee. No sooner does Lucius turn his back on Marcus than the erstwhile super-powered prophet disappear from his upside-downward crucifixion. He is now somehow floating in the air, upside-downward like the tarot deck'southward hanged man…and that's how the episode leaves us.
Information technology feels as if we're far, far beyond where the show left us at the terminate of Season One. Fifty-fifty though some of the earlier plot threads were left dangling—remember when hooded humanoids were a thing?—most 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 serial' leads, developed and child alike, are complemented by gruesome and gorgeous sci-fi/horror imagery. In general, there'southward a sense that annihilation tin happen at any moment, and all nosotros can exercise is go along 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 plough. This is the land of the animate being…to consume or exist eaten.
Sean T. Collins ( @theseantcollins ) writes virtually TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him , really. He and his family alive on Long Island.
Source: https://decider.com/2022/03/17/raised-by-wolves-season-2-finale-recap/
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