Raised By Wolves Season 2 Episode 4 Control Review-Changes Everywhere In An Action Packed Hour

There’s a major shakeup for both camps and by the end of Raised By Wolves Season 2 Episode 4, more than one life is in the balance.

There is real urgency in this second season of HBO Max’s ambitious sci-fi series. In Raised By Wolves Season 2 Episode, 4 many pieces began falling in place. It feels like we are racing towards an eventuality that could be catastrophic for everyone who calls Kepler-22b home. By the end of the episode, two lives were lost, and even more, are on the line.

Paul, Campion, and Holly have all been welcomed into Marcus’s Mithraic camp. Marcus doesn’t understand or trust Campion, but for a while, he plays nice. Holly and Paul are easier to accept as they are both devout believers of Sol. Paul is willing to forgive Marcus, but not Sue for reasons that still escape me. It’s in these moments that the impressionable boy he is comes out. Unfortunately, the reunion is short-lived when the white rat the Trust gave Paul is revealed to be a Trojan Horse. Before he can get to safety, he is infected with a deadly disease. Marcus thinks Sol will cure him, but Campion knows Mother may be the only one who can.

Campion is often portrayed as a practical spiritualist. He is someone who can ride the line between religion and science. Although Paul and the Mithraic firmly believe Sol is talking to them and will guide them to growing the Tree of Life, I would posit Campion is the more reasonable choice. He has a foot in both camps and a questioning mind. He also values all life, synthetic and human. When the acid sea beast attacks Vrille, and he saves her, she is confused, but it is indicative of who he is as a person.

She helped him before, and he instinctively knows she doesn’t want to hurt him but has been ordered to. She is his friend, and after growing up with android parents, he values synthetic life as much as any person. For Campion, a person’s worth is based on their actions and innate goodness regardless of what runs through their veins.

After all the talk of being touched by Sol and being special, Marcus is the same opportunist he has always been. He isn’t divine; he just ate Mother’s eyes, imbuing his body with some of her exceptional strength. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it’s a testament to Travis Fimmel that I was actually beginning to believe some of Marcus’s ideologies. His words to Paul about forgiving and having faith in people are interesting. However, despite his super strength, Marcus has a softness, particularly in the early parts of Raised By Wolves Season 2 Episode 4. We don’t know yet whether that more accepting side was a by-product of Mother’s eyes. We also don’t know what having them inside him was doing to him long-term. Now that Mother’s eyes are back in her head, he has lost his strength in body, if not conviction.

It also sets up a brewing conflict between Marcus and Decima. Kim Engelbrecht(Decima) could easily have allowed her character to be a two-dimensional stand-in for all religious zealots. Instead, there are layers to her icy madness that we are only beginning to see. There’s darkness in her, and it’s possible Vrille’s death could cause that darkness to overwhelm her. Her death also reminds us just how bloodthirsty these people are and that Decima has a secret. Decima killed the human daughter, Vrille is modeled after. We don’t know why she did it yet, but there will be trouble once Marcus finds out.

Vrille has represented a bridge between the Atheists and the Mithraic worlds. She was a memory of a parent’s love and an artifact of a faraway war. She seemed genuinely scared and sad when hunted down and attacked by Decima. Although her programming doesn’t allow her to ignore commands, she still manages to find a way to help Campion escape which makes me question if there is more to her than we initially thought. She committed robot suicide rather than continuing with Decima, indicating some level of emotionality. Was that a construct of Decima’s daughter’s personality, or did she have free thought? Is she really gone? Perhaps the bigger question is, does Kepler-22b affect everyone, synthetic or human?

There’s something happening to Mother and Father. They are both becoming too human complete with the flaws we all have. Father needs to feel validated as a stereotypical man. He wants to feel strong and virulent. Abubakar Salim brings a desperatation to Father in Season 2. Salim is doing a remarkable job nuancing out the fears, frustrations, and anger in Father. His physical strength isn’t an issue, but his mental strength is becoming a problem. He craves praise from Mother and his children, and that need has led him to try to resurrect the synthetic form he found outside of camp.

When he finds the being missing, he thinks Mother destroyed it to hurt him. But in reality, we now know it was reborn into the glowing angel-like creature we have seen several times now. Is this synthetic creature Sol? Is it an AI or something altogether alien? It is also important to note that now both Father and Mother have brought life into the world. Mother grew and gave birth to Seven while Father helped the being be reborn.

Mother is also changing. Although she still has a strong maternal drive, she sometimes struggles to see the big picture. Implanting a control chip in Seven is both ripe for disaster and inhumane. Her conversation with Sue chillingly shows how far off track she has gotten. Mother thinks she sees all potential dangers, but she misses some glaring signposts. The many parallels highlighted between Sue, who is acting more like a robot these days, and Mother and Father, who are decidedly human in their interactions with the children over video games and consuming hallucinogenic substances, are powerful. Raised By Wolves seems to be leading us to the conclusion that faith and science can and should work hand in hand.

Mother defeated Marcus and returned to the Collective with Paul, but she essentially blew up their society when she shut down the supercomputer that controlled everything. With her eyes intact, she is a nearly indestructible weapon that is no match for the Trust. The supercomputer was calculating and cruel but served a purpose. Mother’s speech to the Collective about wanting a democratic society run by humans should be reassuring. Still, it is hard for anyone to trust her when she is a walking, talking weapon of mass destruction. I’m sure she thinks she shut down the computer to make the Collective a better place, but it was also out of anger. Without an antidote for Paul, she hopes Sue can cure him. Interestingly, both Marcus’s group and the Collective ended a synthetic life in Raised By Wolves Season 2 Episode 4.

Raised By Wolves Season 2 Episode 4 was a well-paced hour of high stakes. As many questions were answered, there are others exposed. About the only constant on Kepler-22b is the uncertainty of life. Find all our Raised By Wolves coverage here.

Stray Musings

• If the Tree of Life seeds are really in the Tarantula, will Marcus and his camp attempt to retrieve them?
• There is more religious imagery when Campion uses a slingshot to help Mother gain the upper hand against Marcus. David and Goliath, perhaps?
• Are there more synthetic angels out there, or is the one that saved Campion the same one that Father resurrected? Campion now has a connection to Seven and the angel if so.
• There was something so comical about Mother and Vita screaming at each other about the game and Mother thinking Campion was on drugs when he first returned to get her help with Paul.