Raised By Wolves Season 1, Episode 2 recap: Pentagram

Raised By Wolves Episode 2 recap: The truth about Marcus.

Raised By Wolves Episode 2 begins with a flashback to Earth during the Battle of Boston when the Mithraic and atheists were still at war with one another, and the planet was on the brink of collapse.

Two atheist soldiers named Caleb and Mary are in the thick of it when they encounter a damaged medical android named Albert. Upon reading his processing systems, Caleb realizes this android has pertinent medical data on Mithraic soldiers who will soon board the ark and get the heck off Earth. He realizes they have an opportunity to escape together if they use the android to undergo plastic surgery and disguise themselves as designated ark passengers.

The droid surgically alters Caleb’s appearance to look like Captain Marcus Drusus, while transforming Mary into a woman named Sue (Niamh Algar). Episode 2’s exposition reveals to us that the Marcus we met in Episode 1 is an imposter.

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The new Marcus and Sue study the Mithraic religion and then kill their old selves. By searching through their things, they learn they have a son named Paul (Felix Jamieson). Paul was referenced briefly in the first episode by Marcus, and we officially meet him in hour two.

On Kepler-22b, Marcus struggles to survive alone — and likely concussed from Mother’s attack — in the unrepentant cold.

He finds his way to the giant pit, which we learned gave off tremendous heat in Episode 1, and Marcus tethers himself to a nearby rock so he can get some much-needed sleep, the pit serving as a giant outdoor space heater.

Raised By Wolves Episode 2 recap: What’s the deal with Mother’s eyes?

In Episode 2, we finally learn the mystery of Mother’s eyes and why she wore a blindfold at the end of the first episode. Mother’s eyes are what allow her to weaponize. Returning to Kepler-22b, the first thing she does is take eyes out of one of the dead Mithraic soldiers and stash her real ones away.

She also uses a heart to restore Father, informing him of what happened while he was decommissioned and expressing how they get a fresh start with these new children from the Heaven ark. As a show of trust, and in the hopes they can move forward and return to the way things were in the past, she even shows Father where she’s keeping her real eyes.

Fundamentally altered by the horrific slaughter he witnessed by Mother’s hand, Campion begins to mistrust her. Even when Father assures him she cannot cause much harm without her eyes; Campion still expresses his discontent and wonders what her real motives are. The two disagree on how to handle Mother’s eyes. Campion thinks they should be thrown into a hole so she can never weaponize again, and Father understands they may need her for protection.

Unbeknownst to Mother and Father, Campion sneaks into the hiding spot and steals the android eyes. That night, a few skeletal-looking creatures crawling on all fours start meandering through the homestead. One scales the dome where Tempest is staying.

A frantic Mother runs to Father for her eyes so she can protect them. He realizes Campion stole them and confronts the boy until he drops them. With them, Mother swiftly eliminates the threat.

The moment she weaponizes herself is a tense action sequence in which Mother systematically kills several of the animals in an explosion of red just as she did to the Mithraic. Each tries to attack a fleeing Tempest, and it looks like Mother could easily kill her by mistake. Thankfully, she appears to have acute accuracy in her ranged attacks and warns the girl to close her eyes. It’s one of the coolest sequences in the episode.

Later, Mother and Father realize something is strange about the arrival of these creatures. They’ve lived on this planet for more than a decade, thought they knew everything, and yet their sudden appearance begs the question: what other secrets is this planet hiding?

Mother remains in her weaponized form for a while, shooting into the sky to carefully monitor the terrain.

Elsewhere, the skeletal creatures find Marcus near the pit and push him into the hole. Luckily he’s still tethered to the rope, so his unconscious body dangles precariously over the abyss. The signal he sent out in the last episode must have worked, as a few other Mithraic soldiers find him thanks to the signal coming from his device. They carry him out on a stretcher.

Raised By Wolves Episode 2 recap: The new children try to find their place on Kepler-22b.

Among the new children taken from the ark are Vita, Holly, Tempest, Paul,  and Hunter. They’re all nervous about their new surroundings, and none of them exactly trust Mother, especially after witnessing her slaughter the Mithraic soldiers on the ark. They remain steadfast in their belief that Sol will help them.

Despite Mother banning religion and taking their pendants, the children still pray and discuss their deity. They believe Mother is something called a Necromancer, which seems to be a higher form of android, something special that Father is not.

Hunter (Ethan Hazzard) believes Mother was the one who got all of Campion’s previous siblings sick and killed them, that she might not have even known she was doing it. Campion processes this, but if that were true, how would Campion have survived?

Later, the children learn how to work the land to grow crops and take care of the homestead. Hunter,  who brags that his IQ is 205 and above everyone else in the group, thinks he’s above such menial labor. Father gives credence to this, inviting him to hear some jokes made entirely for geniuses, but after one, Hunter decides he’d rather hang out with the others and get his hands dirty after all.

We also learn that one girl, Tempest (Jordan Loughran), is pregnant. Mother can tell and takes her into separate barracks, so she doesn’t have to exert herself on the field. There, Tempest reveals she was raped by a Mithraic Heliodromus, which is the second highest-ranking member of the church.

She says he raped several people during their time in stasis, which is monstrous for all sorts of obvious reasons. Mother actually killed the man who assaulted her a few days before he was scheduled for execution.

It’ll be interesting to see how her pregnancy plays out; the entire situation is very dark and unfortunate. Let’s hope Tempest survives it all.

Stray Observations from Raised By Wolves Episode 2

• From where did these creatures originate? Forbes recap of the episode wondered if Mother might have triggered something when she crashed the ark. It’s possible, what if that giant explosion rattled the habitat of these beings?
• I was disappointed when Father was killed off so quickly in the first episode, happy to see him back.
• I admit I was a little shocked by Tempest’s admission because it instantly made me think of the many sexual abuse cases hidden by the Catholic Church, and I’m sure that was part of the intention.

The first three episodes of Raised By Wolves are now available on HBO Max. New episodes debut on Thursdays.