Raised By Wolves Season 2 Episode 3 Good Creatures Review- What Has Marcus Become?

A fantastic Raised By Wolves Season 2 Episode 3 developed the growing power struggle between Lamia, Father and their kids. Soon a choices will have to be made.

Just when you think things can’t get any weirder or any more thought-provoking, HBO Max’s sci-fi series delivers something that manages to top even the best episodes of Season 1 and raise the stakes for Season 2. Raised By Wolves Season 2 Episode 3 is everything we have loved about the series, which leans as far into the sciences as it does spirituality. Universal truths are exposed, revealing human frailty in whatever form that life takes.

Raised By Wolves is an unexpected delight because the show feels more meaningful than just a space show with robots and the end of Earth as we know it. The raw love between Mother, Father, and their children always rang very true, just as the cruelty of Marcus and the Mithraic also came through in sweeping waves of violence and heated faith. In Season 2, everything we thought we knew has been flipped while still maintaining the beating heart of what made the first season so good.

The dynamic between Lamia and Father is contentious. It was already breaking down in Season 1. Parents disagree and often argue about the best way to raise their children. That is typical, and these androids are no different. The only difference is until Raised By Wolves Season 2 Episode 3; traditional gender roles had been flipped. Mother was the stronger, stricter provider while Father acted as the caring, nurturing guide for the family. He had to defer to her more times than not and felt useless as a result. That’s why he agreed to take the prisoner bombs out to find Marcus. He needed purpose. He wanted to feel worthwhile even if it killed him.

Lamia laments that Seven is her child and her responsibility to kill even if it results in her death. This only further antagonizes Father. She manages to track down the serpent and lures it back to the colony rather than kill it once she realizes it is a herbivore and could not have been the thing that killed the settlers. Father is furious, though, as he doesn’t view the serpent the same way as the human children. Being a parent means different things to these two, and their parenting programs are at war with one another. After what happens to the children in Raised By Wolves Season 2 Episode 3, they should worry less about the differences between each other and more about where their children are. Holly, Campion, and Paul are now with Marcus’s group.

After being nearly destroyed by Marcus, Father feels even more weak and useless than he did already. Marcus should not have been able to defeat him so easily, which raises significant questions about what Marcus is. Paul is convinced he is the orphan prophesized about, but it just as easily could be Marcus, who is also an orphan and appears to now be endowed with superhuman strength and abilities. His congregation is growing in numbers. He promises sanctuary and freedom while the Collective dispatches pain and fear. Of the rescued Mithraic only Lucius stays with Father and the Collective. He doesn’t trust this newly evolved leader.

Marcus seems supernaturally gifted. The black ooze that shifts across his face could be the source. In any case, his group, including enigmatic Vrille and Decima, are building a community complete with snakeskin solar panels and security systems. Something has changed in him. He is still devout, but now he is kinder and gentler. Paul and Campion are now visiting him as well. Paul is eager to keep his religion alive, while Campion is naturally curious about anything new. Curiously this new Marcus doesn’t seem as dangerous as Season 1’s version, but that doesn’t mean everyone with him is safe. Travis Fimmel has developed a complex character that flits from patient and wise to violent and cunning in the blink of an eye.

Raised By Wolves Season 2 Episode 3 asks big questions about what it means to be alive and have a soul. Vrille’s(Morgan Santo) comments about faking emotions until they are real could be a clue about what has happened to Marcus. Is he becoming something more than human or android? Did Kepler-22b sustain a lifeform long before Earthlings came? If so, what are its motivations?

Vrille has some worrisome things to say about her mother and past events. Why did Decima break her neck, and does she mean the real Vrille or the android version? Santo is fantastic this week, creating a mysterious character that could be as important as any of the main players. Part coldly distant and sympathetically childlike, she is a cipher full of answers waiting to be unlocked.

Instead of recognizing the threat Marcus, The Trust, or acid-dwelling sea snakes represent, Lamia is preoccupied with Seven, and Father is slowly bringing an android back to life. How this is possible, we don’t know, but in what appears to be a vampiric rebirth similar to that seen in Hellraiser, the rearticulated android is filling in and waking up. Father is ecstatic, thinking he has created life just like Lamia, but we know very little about this life form, which could be more dangerous than Seven.

Mother and Father are both changing. They seem more human, which is not necessarily a good thing. Father still maintains his parenting protocols and has coupled that with an understanding of what it means to love your offspring. He knows parents shouldn’t outlive their kids and worries he isn’t as good a dad as he would like to be. They are both very common concerns. His desire to be seen as a protector is worrisome, though. Pride cometh before the fall, and his android vampire and fight club pride spell future trouble. Hunter and Tempest are excited about his win over the larger android, but the camp and Father’s violent streak are unsafe.

Visually Raised By Wolves continues to be stunning. Now that the world has expanded to include the tropical zone, it has become a pastel Andora brimming with strange and beautiful life. The starkness of the barren side of the planet and the droids’ utilitarian clothes are in sharp contrast making their behaviors even more alarming. Mother and Father are changing just as much as Marcus, and all of them may have to decide which side they are on.

Find all our Raised By Wolves coverage here.

Stray Threads

• If Campion is right, something is communicating with Seven. Why and what is the larger serpent that killed the settlers? Is the mother’s milk inside Seven something Lamia provided or something the other entity did?
• Why is Father reluctant to trade the Sol pendant? Does he see value in the religious artifact? Also, the prisoner camp holds lots of Sol relics. That could be important to Marcus, who needs a clean data card.
• Tarantula seems like the worst name for a complex. Welcome to my home said the spider to the fly.