Season two of Raised by Wolves is off and running with the first two episodes released today. Episode two, titled “Seven,” contains conflicts that were set up in the season opener as well as bring back the giant flying alien snake. Mother’s (Amanda Collin) maternal instincts continue to run high and Marcus (Travis Fimmel) grows his flock. The show continues to bring its focus on the “good” and “bad” guys that lead last season.
This episode opens with Marcus who has one human woman and one robot child now part of his flock. If you doubted Marcus’ leadership abilities you’ll soon see he has a spark that others are inspired by. We can also see he’s rather erratic jumping around rocks with a sea of acid splashing up around him. It’s not until later in the episode that Marcus brings in a defector from the atheist colony and we can see he’s not so much growing religion, but a cult.
That is juxtaposed well with Campion (Winta McGrath) who may actually be the messiah foretold. In a key scene early in the episode, he aims to return an egg to a nest. In a confrontation that should kill him he’s let to live, which has symbolic and story implications.
Photograph by Coco Van Oppens / HBO Max
If this episode shows how Raised by Wolves has grown since season one it’s how it can juggle multiple characters at once with ease. Campion, Marcus, Sue (Niamh Algar), and Father (Abubakar Salim) are all on their own story arcs here. Sue is healing folks as one of the main doctors, while Father takes a bunch of humans wearing bombs into battle against the flying snake.
Collin continues to be a major highlight of the series showing how Mother may say a thing, but she’s feeling something entirely different. She can simply stand in a field and tilt her head a bit and you’ll be drawn to her. She also looks super badass with giant bolts on her back. The Mother character also shows she may have some of her killer abilities at her fingertips even though they were turned off. It’s also incredibly weird to see her leaking milk from her stomach as she still mourns her seventh child.
Fimmel is also great fun to watch as Marcus. He’s erratic and seemingly very lucky as he takes risks assuming his god will protect him. It’s also fun to see how Fimmel plays each moment showing how he is quite good at certain skills, but also winging it. This character continues to have some heavy plot armor though as he avoids death and easily takes out trained soldiers.
Speaking of bad guys, the atheist colony continues to be an intriguing new element to Raised by Wolves. They’re supposed to be the good guys, but we’re reminded they’re very immoral and care very little for deserters and those who oppose their rules. One can imagine an alien world being colonized requires an iron fist in some circumstances, but they are so unrelenting it’s hard to see how they will succeed.
The special effects around the flying snake are a bit underwhelming, however. It’s definitely in the “good enough” category, but it’s fairly obvious a CGI creation is floating about. The team smartly had it pull a container of people into the acid sea at one point so that we couldn’t see it yet it’s as dangerous as anything on the planet.
Raised by Wolves episode two is a great follow-up to a good opener. It’s the kind of episode that flies by in a good way with a lot going on and a variety of entertainment throughout.
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