The last three episodes of Raised By Wolves season two felt like they were setting us up for an epic battle between Mother, Grandmother, and No. 7, but what we are given instead is a prime example of that old proverb: “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; and fool me a third time; wrap me head to toe in a latex cocoon, make me watch you steal my family, and then send me into forced hibernation.â€
Mother got duped again! After being manipulated by “the signal†into getting pregnant with No. 7, and then manipulated by her own caregiving program into carving a path for her spawn to run rampant, she fell into a third trap by way of Grandmother, whose take on insuring the everlasting life of human beings is to devolve them into sea creatures.
Towards the end of the finale, Father tells Grandmother that Mother is so emotional she’s almost worse than a human, and this ends up being the case even with the use of a borrowed sensory filter veil. In episode seven, we learned of Mother’s plan to borrow Grandmother’s veil in an effort to dull her caregiving program enough so she could effectively battle No. 7, and that did work here, but all other aspects of her plan got away from her pretty quick.
Once the veil is transplanted, Father is quick to ask Mother if she still recognizes him as her partner, which she does, and if she still feels that her children are her top priority, which they are. From there, she quickly locates No. 7, and the two do a sort of Superman/Lois Lane dance in the sky for a bit until she shrieks in its face and sends it tumbling back to the acid beach. Injured in the sand, No. 7 stares at its mother with big sad eyes that trigger my own caregiving program. Although it did end up doing a lot of damage, and wasn’t, by any means, the sort of child Mother had hoped for to call her own, in the end, it was just another weaponized tool of manipulation put into play by “the signal,†same as Mother, Sue, Grandmother, and ‘ol drippy hands Marcus.
As Mother and child stare at each other, right before she reaches into one of those sad eyes to pull out its processor, it’s hard not to feel for this creature. Flash forward into No. 7’s teenage years, if it had been allowed to live that long, you can almost hear the echo of its teenage angst door-slamming howl of “I didn’t ask to be born a murder worm!!†Rest in peace, little toothy butthole mouth. I hope you’re out there eating lots of pumpkins in that big butthole cave in the sky.
Not only was it a huge mistake for Mother to enlist the help of Grandmother, but she doubled down on that error in enlisting Marcus, who has only ever had his own interests in mind. When she first brings him to Grandmother to discuss her plan to transplant the veil and kill No. 7, Grandmother asks if she trusts him, and Mother says, “the entity betrayed him. He hates it. Our goals are in sync.†But that is far from the case. Their goals could not be more different because Mother cares about people too much. More than she cares about herself. And Marcus only cares about his own misguided and/or stolen power.
“Your mind has been damaged by traumatic events. You are vulnerable to the entity’s signal,†Grandmother says to Marcus, sizing him up. And ain’t that the truth?
We don’t quite know what it means when she follows this up by telling Marcus that he’s not as strong as he thinks and that the signal will always return to fertile ground, but the big “A-ha†moment comes at the very end of the finale when he gets crucified upside down on Sue’s stump by Lucius, only to float up into the sky, still upside down, and drip blood on his head.
After Lucius crucifies Marcus, he sits and waits for him to die, wanting to revel in his big revenge. So if Marcus truly did die, and then all this floating and bleeding stuff happened after that fact, it leads me to believe that “the signal†is now behind the wheel of the body that was already stolen by Marcus’ original form, Caleb. Looks like the fertile ground found a new farmer.
Grandmother, sans veil and ready to mingle, is doing some seed planting of her own. With Mother out of the way, she’s making moves on Father and handing out new video games to the children that are actually programming tools to help with their devolvement. While Mother surveils from the Tarantula, trapped in latex and unable to defend, she sees her children talking about how they’re glad she’s gone and that they can’t wait to go into the acid water, which, all of a sudden, doesn’t seem to harm them.
The children are mutating at a rapid pace. Campion is getting calloused skin, and Tempest’s baby is already showing signs of mutation as well. When Mother inquires about this to Grandmother, just prior to being forced into hibernation, she’s told that the children are still human beings, just simpler and happier versions of themselves.
“After the humans go into the water, the entity will return to its slumber,†Grandmother says. “Then I promise to release you.â€
Well, no. Grandmother has already proven that you can’t trust a word she says. And the entity has zero plans to slumber as it’s currently floating upside down over the colony and dripping blood everywhere. If this show doesn’t get picked up for a third season so I can see where this is all going, I’m gonna shriek.
Closing Signals
• I can’t stop laughing thinking about someone sneaking a peek at this notebook on my desk where, in a shaky scrawl, I’ve written, “GRANDMOTHER IS DEVOLVING THE CHILDREN!!!â€
• Since Tempest’s baby was fed milk directly from a sea creature and is already showing signs of mutation, I wonder if it’s going to grow into some hybrid of a human/No.7 type being.
• “I don’t understand why you would choose to love a machine,†Mother (a machine) to her son, Campion.
• Not like I really care but … where’s Paul?
• Grandmother was sure quick to snatch away that second seed pod that Vita uncovered. Suspicious.