'Raised by Wolves' Episode 10 Review: Mother's new child changes the nature of the entire series
Spoilers for 'Raised by Wolves' Season 1 Episode 10 'The Beginning'
'Raised by Wolves' began with a simple hook — androids raising a family on a near-barren planet. It was a show that explored family, faith and feelings from two beings firmly outside the realm of all three — androids Mother (Amanda Collin) and Father (Abubakar Salim).
Even when the Mithraic came, causing Mother to unleach her Necromancer powers, the show still held on to that core when Mother kidnapped the children from the Mithraic ark and began raising them as her own. Everything changed, however, when the Mithraic took charge of the settlement and ended that familial experiment. Since then, it's become almost an entirely different show — one that may not appeal to those who were hooked by its original premise.
One thing that's especially frustrating about the finale of Season 1 is how little work it does resolving stories and how much work it does setting up a larger, grander Season 2 instead. Instead of answering any of the show's many mysteries, it raises even more, with the revelation that there's a secret history to Keppler-22b that lies at the heart of all the show's seemingly supernatural circumstances.
Given how, even before the pandemic, big budget HBO series could have year-long gaps between seasons, there's no telling how long it's going to be before the show's return or if we'll even remember what it's all about without an episode that's just pure recap.
There were glimpses this episode of what the show used to be as Mother (Amanda Collin) and Father (Abubakar Salim) have the polite, android version of "Tell me his name!" when Father discovers that Mother has gotten pregnant by another man. The pair's strange approximation of human affection has time and again given rise to familiar human emotional patterns, and though Mother and Father were never married, Father still remains consumed with jealousy.
Androids processing human emotions in their own unique ways is one of the best parts of the show, and one we've seen too little of — especially given how brilliantly it is performed.
Sadly, this conversation is soon interrupted by an alien attack as we discover the shocking fact that there was once a civilization on Keppler-22b and that the planet's population has slowly been devolving. There's not enough time to process the implications of this revelation, however, as Mother's pregnancy reaches a crucial point, and she gives birth to a bizarre and terrifying creature whose existence changes the show completely.
The show has been on this path for a while, but this birth cemented it: from the moment a flying snake with miraculous powers appeared, 'Raised by Wolves' stopped being a show that explored themes of humanity and turned into a sci-fi blockbuster capitalizing on a love for complicated twists with staggering implications. It's the formula that made shows like 'Westworld' and 'Watchmen' so popular.
While this worked for 'Watchmen', it's because that series had one story in mind, one that was told by the series' end, with all its major mysteries laid to rest. 'Raised by Wolves', however, has veered distinctly into 'Westworld' territory, where each Season brings on increasingly complicated mysteries that forever change what the series is really about.
It's tragic, however, as 'Raised by Wolves' had such a unique heart. It's premise — equal parts fascinating and thrilling — made it unique among TV shows and that heart has been overshadowed by everything that has happened since.
The mystery presented by the voices and Keppler-22b's past is a fascinating one, but any fans looking for satisfaction from Season 1 are going to have to wait for a long while. The past few episodes have made it difficult to predict where the show was going, and now that we're here, the end result is somewhat disappointing and hollow.
This is in keeping with the show's aesthetic — it never promised clear cut, simply answers or a happy ending. However, any ending would have sufficed, and HBO's trend of sacrificing resolution for setup is one that's starting to wear thin. All episodes of 'Raised by Wolves' Season 1 are now available to stream on HBO Max.
