Raised by Wolves Stays Weird and Gets More Intimate in Season 2: Review
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The post Raised by Wolves Stays Weird and Gets More Intimate in Season 2: Review appeared first on Consequence.
The Pitch: At the end of Raised by Wolves Season 1, when last we saw the fledgling human (and android) remnants on the far-flung planet of Kepler-22b, they were scattered to the four winds. Mother (Amanda Collin) and Father (Abubakar Salim) lay down their lives to send the mysterious snake-like creature Mother birthed last season into the planet’s core, only to come out the other side on the planet’s more habitable tropical zone.
Six months pass, and they’re eventually recovered and repaired by a robust colony of Atheists that’s since set up shop on the planet, led by a mysterious AI called The Trust that promises to hand the reins over to humanity as soon as they’ve sufficiently progressed.
Soon reunited with Mithraic defector Sue (Niamh Algar) and their crop of children, including native-born Campion (Winta McGrath) and the Mithraic children they “adopted,” Mother and Father believe they may have found the proper place for their children to live.
But integrating their family into a larger semblance of civilization brings its own set of problems: The Trust’s motivations are as inscrutable as its orders are absolute, making for a community tinged with frustration at its authoritarian control and the arrival of this new blended family.
Mother and Father’s lingering rifts from Season 1 remain, as do the Mithraic children’s mixed loyalties to their adoptive parents and their native religion. What’s more, atheist-turned-Mithraic madman Marcus (Travis Fimmel) is still out there, now fully mad with prophetic vision and seeking his own converts to glorify Sol’s light. And don’t forget the floaty space snake.
Gimme Shelter: Raised by Wolves was one of 2020’s biggest surprises (well, one of the surprises we liked: hi, COVID), a smart, elegantly-rendered and thoughtful bit of Golden Age sci-fi that continued producer Ridley Scott’s penchant for exploring the limits of artificial intelligence, and where that collides with religious dogma and the existential questions of our place in the universe.
What’s more, it was weird as hell, with smiling robots making dad jokes and turning into banshee-like murder machines, respectively. It’s the kind of work that feels like a lost paperback from the 1960s, written by a bearded fortysomething philosopher in a tweed jacket who talked about peyote way too much.
Raised by Wolves (HBO Max)
Season 2 continues that fine tradition, widening its scope but still drilling down on the characters that matter. A six-month time jump is a big risk, especially considering how difficult it can be to keep track of the myriad characters and complex mythology undergirding the history of humanity’s holy war in the far future, and how androids and this mysterious new planet fit into it.
But apart from a fairly clumsy beginning (including reams of exposition from one character or another, including the enigmatic Trust), Raised by Wolves hits the ground running in Season 2, laying the groundwork for the conflicts to come.
As always, the show’s presentation is pristine; Taboo and Pennyworth cinematographer Mark Patten takes over for regular Scott collaborator Darius Wolzski and brings some much-needed color to the proceedings with the warmer oranges and greens of the tropical zone that serves as the show’s major new setting.
Granted, the oppressive look of the show still presents some problems: the show persists in shooting so many scenes in a bleak, overcast day-for-night that leaves everything looking so grey it tires your eyes out to look at. But this new environment shakes that monotony up capably, with tall alien grasses and acidic seas that threaten to eat you alive.
What To Expect When You’re Expecting a Snake Baby: The performances remain as alien as the environments, which is really Raised by Wolves’ major asset. Collin and Salim are still fantastic as Mother and Father, their imperfect simulations of human speech and behavior belying incredible emotional complexity.
Separately, they wrestle with their individual responsibilities: Salim’s Father wonders whether to trust Mother again after the events of Season 1, and works to more actively integrate his children into an Atheist environment where they will be safe. Mother, on the other hand, reels from her experience giving birth to the floaty snake creature (dubbed “Number Seven”), and leads the charge to find and kill it.
(Fittingly with the fable-like nature of the show, things aren’t what they seem, and suddenly the question of whether to kill it grows ever more complicated.)
Fimmel, for his part, has grown ever wilier and more reptilian as Marcus, now a man driven by righteous purpose growing into a self-styled messiah. It’s a bit one-note, but he plays that note well, especially as we see the hypnotic effect it has on the Mithraics he ushers into his flock.
While the first season delved into the hypocrisy and malice of the Mithraics, it’s the Atheists who get more systemic focus in Season 2; we see the cracks in the foundation of the society Mother and Father have been programmed to support, one of helpless fealty to a robotic commander and enslaved enemies with bombs strapped to their chests for easy execution. One wonders how the show’s blended family, one who’s seen the evils of both tribes, will move forward from here.
Raised by Wolves (HBO Max)
#WheresSue: Granted, not all of this works, and there are moments where Raised by Wolves feels like it’s biting off more than it can chew. For one thing, the expanded cast of characters leaves little room for Sue, easily one of the first season’s most interesting characters (played by the incredible Niamh Algar; watch Censor if you haven’t).
Feeling aligned with neither the family nor the Atheists who’ve taken them in, Sue sets a hard boundary with her co-stars early in Episode 1, getting very little to do afterwards besides patch people up. The dynamic between her and Marcus was one of the most interesting aspects of the show, two atheist outcasts hiding in plain sight who slowly grew apart due to Marcus’ increased fanaticism. Now, with Marcus off on his own, but no clear place for her in the family, she’s given short shrift. One hopes she’ll get more to do later in the season.
What’s more, many of the new characters they’ve introduced in the season haven’t made much of an impression yet. The major exceptions are Marcus’ first new acolytes, Mithraic scientist Decima (Kim Engelbrecht) and her android Vrill (Morgan Santo), who’s meant to replace the daughter Decima lost on Earth.
Raised by Wolves works best when it uses the sci-fi canvas to explore the pressures and performance of parenthood, and these new characters seem to provide a new wrinkle the show hasn’t explored yet. But try to put names on any of the other main characters who’ve come into the fold, and you might have a bit of trouble.
The Verdict: What’s more remarkable about Raised by Wolves is its inability to be anything other than what it is: Season 2, for all its changes to the status quo, is unabashedly unlike any other sci-fi show on television right now save (maybe) Apple TV+’s Foundation.
Good shows stick to what works and double down, but great shows swing for the fences and give their characters intriguing new problems to solve, dilemmas to sort through, existential questions to contemplate. While the show’s canvas has expanded, it hasn’t lost its focus on the big questions of faith, identity, and family it’s been wrestling with since the pilot.
It’s hard to say whether the seeds of these crazy twists will bear fruit by the end of the season, given that we’ve only seen three episodes thus far. But they did it once before, and it’s our hope they pull it off again.
Where’s It Playing? Raised by Wolves huffs and puffs and blows your house down on HBO Max February 3rd, with new episodes premiering Thursdays.
Trailer:
Raised by Wolves Stays Weird and Gets More Intimate in Season 2: Review
Clint Worthington
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