Home Truths
Story Time
Episode 3 of Raised By Wolves begins back at the settlement. Father looks over the bloodied remains on the farm. Inside, Mother sits with the children and starts telling them stories. Specifically that of the three little pigs.
10 Years Earlier
Just like before, we’re world-building again and this time we’re back 10 years ago. 1000 Mithraic passengers make a 13 year journey to Kepler-22b on the Ark of Heaven. Their bodies travel in hibernation until they’re awakened. Among them is Marcus. While they’re in hibernation, the minds are kept busy through a virtual world. As they revel in the enjoyment of family life, Marcus suddenly awakens to find himself among the wreckage of the ark. His son, Paul, happens to be one of the children taken by Mother before the ship crashed.
A Call To Action
Marcus sits with the other survivors and asks for some soldiers to get their children back. With the Necromancer ensnaring the children in her robotic grip, the high-ranking Ambrose refuses to hear it until they find survivors. Unfortunately one of the people who didn’t survive is his partner. While Marcus watches on from afar, he thinks back to the past where we see a series of brutal challenges he faced as a child. This includes being groomed from a young age to fight in this war with the necromancers. With the Necromancer screams closing in, the survivors all seek refuge underground. Ambrose – under the guidance of Marcus – sends one of the androids out as bait. Mother predictably catches up to it though. After stealing its eye, Mother takes to the sky and utters a piercing scream at the crash-site before leaving. Meanwhile, Campion continues to pull away from his parents. Before Campion heads inside though, Father hands over a claw from the destroyed creature and reminds him that the threat is real. That’s not the only threat either, as Tempest stands up screaming at Hunter. As she does, she suddenly starts sputtering and spewing blood. It’s here Campion starts to suspect that Mother may be the root cause of all this disease. After all, given she’s been built to destroy it makes sense that, even subconsciously, she’s the one responsible.
Deception
Campion sets to work and tricks Father, using a distraction to divert attention away so he and the others can escape. As they head off, the children are separated from Paul who goes searching for Mouse as he crawls across the ground. With the soldiers on the move upon learning of Paul’s arrival, Mother gets moving too. She finds the children missing and immediately goes on the war-path. However, Father has something to show her. As he brings up the pictures up on the ship, he reveals that the carbos they’ve been feeding the kids are actually radioactive. That’s the reason for their death and not, as we’ve all suspected, Mother’s doing. After calling her a good Mum, they head off in their separate directions to bring the kids back. Father manages to bring the main group back while Mother hones in on Paul’s location. Campion meanwhile, figures out the truth about the food and the illness. He apologises and backs out the ship. Only, just as he does, one of those creatures shows up and looks set to attack. Thankfully, Father manages to save Campion, locking this creature up inside. As the episode closes out, Mother goes searching for Paul. Paul however, slips down a crack in the ground and winds up precariously hanging from a branch leading to a great abyss deep below.
The Episode Review
With some interesting ideas, episode 3 continues to bring the same themes as before to the foreground. On top of that, the show does well to keep things intriguing with its cast as we learn more about Marcus and his past. Given the cliffhanger ending, this is definitely a show to return to and the various morality ideas are definitely fascinating. Of course, the show also comes with a fair amount of philosophical questions which definitely get you thinking. While this third episode isn’t as strong as the season opener, there’s enough here to be pretty optimistic about the future direction of this series.
