For a show that ’s suppose to have humanity - change stakes , Extant has been a rather dull show . Instead of creating intriguing mystery , Extant lays bare the motives of most of its quality while jounce between its foetal MacGuffin and a its shrug - desirable anti - robotics drive . But in last night ’s episode , Extant actually managed to spin a seemly mystery .
The only explanation for Alan Sparks ’ behavior throughout this series is that he has die mad with grief over his girl ’s expiry . The mirage of Katie Sparks has very little in coarse with Katie herself . Alan Sparks sees her as a little girl with a balloon , not the mature woman who jettison herself into space to prevent the alien contagion from reach Earth . And while Katie was once a little girl , I somehow doubt that she emotionally blackmailed her father into committing villainous Acts of the Apostles .
And , for a moment , it seems that Alan may get his daughter back after all . At the end of last week ’s instalment , Katie Sparks appeared on the Seraphim , patently rescue from her safety valve fuel pod after two year in suspended animation . But everything about Katie ’s return is wrong . Before she get into the escape pod , she was fraught by the same foreign force that impregnated Molly — and she suspected she was infected with the same potentially viral lunacy as her crew Ilex paraguariensis . But Katie seems quite pleased to have been rescue and there ’s no sign of her young . What , the hearing is entrust to wonder , is going on ?
One potential explanation is that Katie is , in fact , just another phantom created by the alien . Maybe she was capable to manifest to the French spaceman as well as to Sean Glass . But Molly helpfully taper out that Katie show up on the Seraphim ’s cameras , which means that she is n’t a phantom .
One of the cause I ca n’t get behind Extant is that its lineament , despite being theoretically intelligent people , never ask the proper questions . They trust whatever it ’s commodious for the writers to have them believe , align themselves with whomever it ’s convenient for the author to pair them with . The characters ’ personality , late knowledge , or even mutual sense never enter into it . They are chess pieces or exposition machines , never citizenry with their own psyche .
But at least this episode rent pain in the neck to lure the interview — if not Molly and Alan — into a false good sense of certificate , to convince us that perhaps this could really be Katie Sparks . It avail that Sean ( the always marvellous Enver Gjokaj ) has no reason to consider that this woman is n’t Katie . She jokes with him , recalls their family relationship , shares her ostensibly honest poignancy over work under her father . Where so many of the characters have savourless , textureless conversation that simply get plot data , Katie and Sean in reality seem to have an interesting , active relationship . It ends up being quite sad when the show reveals it was all a facade .
Extant drops a clue to Katie ’s true indistinguishability when Molly finally come face to face with her offspring . He ’s no longer a fetus , but he ’s not an infant , either ; he ’s a child , around Ethan ’s apparent age . Katie ’s offspring experienced an accelerated growth spurt as well — so that she looks exactly like the adult Katie , whose torn - up torso is still hanging in the safety valve pod .
It ’s a great reveal ( although I imagine some witness figured it out along the way ) and a licitly frightening one . The ability of the aliens and offspring to create phantoms of bushed people has been a bit ho - hum , and not utilized to its full potential . But the idea that an offspring could actually exchange their deceased parent — now that ’s interesting , specially in light of the show ’s apparent musical theme of human advancement and defunctness .
It ’s interesting to see this revelation juxtaposed against the “ revelation ” that Odin is an anti - humanic subversive — something the audience has have a go at it for ages . It ’s frustrative that the hearing has watched Odin manipulate Ethan , knowing it ’s for his own political end . It ’s especially when we ’ve listen to the scientists go on and on about how important it is for Ethan to have the proper inputs , only to have a comparative stranger be alone with him for prolonged periods of metre . Sure , now we hump what Odin ’s end game is for Ethan , but like so much of Extant , it ’s just another piece of information , not one with much emotion or narrative atonement behind it . Hopefully , the time of year last will have more storytelling like the Katie patch and less like the Odin arc .
extantHalle BerryTelevision
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