 What's up guys and welcome to One Take, I'm Gil and today we're talking about raised by wolves episodes 8 and 9. This video will of course be full of spoilers through episode 9 and there are some big questions. Who or what is growing inside mother, what is with those cards and what happens when you eat a necromancer's eye. We'll talk about all that and more in today's breakdown but first some overall thoughts. I thought there was a lot to love in both of these episodes, there was some pretty intriguing world building around the mythology of the necromancer's, the history of the mythraic and the mysteries on Kepler-22B, there was also some great character stuff, especially between Sue and mother and mother and Carl. I had a few nitpicks I'll get into in the details but overall really solid episodes and I'm hyped to see where we land in next week's finale. Before we get into the details just a quick reminder, if you're enjoying these videos please go ahead and hit that like button, hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon so you get notified the next time we do a video. You're especially going to want to do that because I've got a couple more raised by wolves videos coming out in the next day or two. One will be a deep dive into some theories I have around the cards and specifically the vision mother saw in those cards. We'll definitely touch on that in this review but there's a lot more to go into which I'll do in that video. Without further ado let's jump into the episodes. Let's talk about mother and the med bot named Carl. Every android on this show including mother, father, the one we saw back on earth and Carl, every android has their own unique voice that strikes this great balance between robotic and a little bit human. Carl here definitely sounds like an artificial intelligence, he sounds like an android but there's a touch of melancholy in everything he says. Throughout the episode his blood is being drained and you can hear him getting weaker and weaker. It's also that great line when mother is draining the blood from all of the other med bots where he says, I hope to see my brothers again but this isn't at all what I had in mind. Again, sounds like a robot but made my heart sink. He also just has great inflection to every line he says, what are you doing? I'm a doctor, not a blood bag. That's unusual. So I loved Carl and I can't tell how much of the emotion is actually in his performance and how much I'm projecting onto him but I think that was part of the brilliance in the delivery of all of his dialogue. So I loved Carl, he was great and I felt very bad for him when he died. Carl also tells us some pretty interesting stuff about necromancers saying that they are full of surprises and the dark photons which power them are a poorly understood technology. He says that the Mithraic built them by following formulas encrypted in scriptures with no real understanding of the underlying concepts. He says that the technology which powers you was a gift from soul passed down from heavens at the dawn of man. I love this revelation. We've been wondering how the Mithraic were able to develop such an intense advanced technology and it seems that it was given to them. Carl says it was given to them by soul. I say it was given to them by the intelligence on Kepler-22B which might be one in the same. I've also had a feeling that this intelligence could somehow tie into the origins of humanity itself and that makes me wonder if Carl's mention of the dawn of man could be a hint that that's the case. On the other hand it could just be Mithraic propaganda like mother said where maybe it's mixing fact and fiction. Maybe the technology was handed down to them by the intelligence but it had nothing to do with the dawn of man. It could just be something that happened in relatively recent human history. We also get the reveal that mother is pregnant and we don't get a lot of detail on what exactly is growing inside her but we do learn that it's partially carbon based so it sounds like it's going to be this bizarre hybrid between artificial and biological. Also when mother plugs into the sim later we hear the voice of simulation campion tell her the future of humanity is growing inside you. Now if you've watched any of my previous reviews or if you've watched my theory video then you know that I subscribe to the theory that there is some kind of intelligence living on Kepler-22B. From simulation campion's line the future of humanity is growing inside you. My thought is that whatever mother gives birth to the intelligence sees it as the next step in human evolution. Perhaps the intelligence is trying to create the perfect organism and he thinks this is it or this is one big step in that direction. That by the way would be a theme really Scott has explored in some of his other sci-fi works. By the way there's some great symbolism at the end of episode eight where we see the destroyed Ark and standing in front of it mother is holding her abdomen so that destroyed Ark represents the death of humanity as we know it and growing inside mother might be the thing which ultimately replaces humanity. This would seem totally at odds with the mission that human campion sent mother on back on earth. He seemed to have a pretty positive view of humanity he wanted it to continue and thrive on Kepler-22B. So I'm thinking that the intelligence here on Kepler-22B has been able to somehow manipulate events on earth. That includes handing down necromancer technology to the mythraic and it includes manipulating campion to reprogram mother and send her on this mission. Ultimately allowing the intelligence to impregnate mother with the future of whatever is going to replace humanity. This should lead to a pretty interesting conflict because mother clearly still feels a strong connection to humanity. Between adult campion, child campion, Tempest and the other children she still cares for humanity and I wondered if at some point she's going to have to make a choice between the child growing inside her and her human children. Eventually Tempest catches up with mother and as much as I've complained about some of the children feeling a little bit underdeveloped I don't feel that way about Tempest. In Tempest's case I fully buy her relationship with mother and it was great seeing the two of them finally get reunited here. They find Otho the prisoner in the ark and I have to say when they found the androids head in his backpack that felt very riddly Scott to me I easily could have pictured them finding Michael Fassbender's head in there. Also mother asks the android if the helmet allows for blood flow the android says of course which felt a little bit funny to me because I guess that means that the mythraic have often needed to drain blood from the prisoners. Now mother needs the blood here to feed her fetus but perhaps blood can also work as a general fuel source for necromancers and that's why the helmets have been built to allow for easy blood flow. When they leave the ark mother tells Tempest she wants to go where the delivery is most likely to be successful by that I think she meant let's head for the caves so I can give birth without the mythraic finding us and she would know where to find them because she's been patrolling the planet. On the way there they see the sun reflecting off some metal and when they get close we see that those are the cards which we previously saw on the hooded figures hide out under one of those serpent skeletons. Also in this scene at one point we cut to pretty far away and we hear breathing as though somebody's watching mother and Tempest so I've got to assume that's the hooded figure that we know was in possession of those cards. Later we'll get into the vision that mother had when she looked at those cards but one question I had in this moment was did the hooded figure want mother to find those cards or was he keeping them there and mother just happened upon them. My guess is that they were clearly left out in the open the hooded figure probably would have known that the sun would reflect on them and call attention to them so I think he intentionally left them and wanted mother to see them. Again when we talk about the vision later we'll also talk about why I think the hooded figure would have wanted mother to find the cards. Now let's talk about Marcus's descent into madness. Travis Fimmel does a great job in these episodes of making some scenes between him and Paul incredibly uncomfortable. Basically Paul and Sue come up with a plan to run away and ditch Marcus. Marcus starts to get suspicious of this and that ultimately leads to like I said some tense scenes of Marcus questioning Paul and Marcus locking up Sue in one of the silos. Throughout all this I thought Travis Fimmel did a great job of selling it but I did find the transformation a tad frustrating mainly because I don't think we have a full grasp on Caleb as a character and what he was like before he became Marcus so I don't have a full appreciation for the transformation he's made also just because of how drastic a transformation it is i.e. he's gone from being a non-believer to kind of begrudging acceptance of the voice speaking to him and now to full-on hardcore faith to the point where he'll turn against his own family. So because it was such a drastic change to me it feels a little bit more like mind control and less like he's still Caleb but just has become a believer because of everything he's seen. I find the mind control idea a little bit less interesting but like I said Travis Fimmel's doing a great job of selling it so it's still interesting to watch. Now we do get a couple of tidbits about Caleb. One there's a flashback to Earth when Marcus and Sue are boarding the Ark and before they leave a child atheist explodes which leads Sue to say we're traitors. Caleb tells her we're not traitors as long as we have each other's backs. So I interpreted this as further evidence that Sue is much more dedicated to the cause of atheism than Marcus is. We also got a very graphic dream sequence of Marcus cutting off his own face telling himself that he knows who he really is which to me indicated that Caleb is still in there underneath the Marcus exterior though outside the solution I'm not seeing much of that but maybe it's set up for the finale. By the end of these episodes Marcus has fallen very low and maybe in that low state some of his old self some of the old Caleb will start to creep back in and we'll see some of the internal struggle that I'd like to see between Marcus the believer and Caleb the atheist. Marcus's breakdown leads him to be somewhat abusive towards Paul and Sue. Holly and Vita are witness to that and I've said that the last couple of episodes I found the changing allegiances of the children from the Mithraic to the androids to be a little bit questionable but I totally bought this being the final straw for Holly and Vita because up to this point they've really only seen mother and father try to protect them and now Marcus the essentially leader of the Mithraic is being a jerk. So at this point I'm fully on board with the children changing sides and wanting to fully be with mother and father. During all this Campion has still been locked up in his silo but with Paul's help he's able to escape. Now my brother and I got into a little bit of an argument over how realistic it is that Campion could dig his way out with the monster's claws so if any of you out there are engineers and have an opinion on how physically possible this would be or how easy it would be definitely let us know in the comments. Anyway Campion's able to get out and he burns down the church as a distraction so he can leave. When Campion gets into the woods father chases after him and I gotta say I loved the cinematography of father chasing Campion through the woods. To me the foggy strange looking woods added to the feeling that we're heading into uncharted territory here. Earlier in the episode Sue mentioned to Paul that they've actually seen very little of the planet. She tells him that they should go exploring we should go on a sort of adventure which felt a little bit like a plug for season two and a good reminder that we've seen very little of Kepler-22b we should all get excited to see new environments and see some new things of this planet. During the chaos while the church is burning down Sue, Paul, Holly and Vita also leave so Marcus has been abandoned by his wife his son and now he also seems to have been abandoned by Sol because he no longer hears his voice so he's getting more and more frustrated which eventually leads him to cut off father's finger the one that's been twitching for a few episodes so you've got to feel bad for father. Luckily Hunter had already pieced together that father's twitching finger was actually sending Morse code the message Sol is the light which turned out to be a password that Hunter was able to use to unlock father's old personality. Now in the scene where Hunter reawakened father the actor Abu Bakr Saleem really shined because before he tells the joke that lets us know father is back his face just ever so slightly changes you see a subtle smile creep up and just by that subtle facial change we know father is back. That was a great triumphant moment also we finally get to see some evidence of Hunter's 205 IQ and we've got to talk about father's joke when he first wakes up he says an android a black hole and a glass of milk walk into a bar unfortunately he doesn't get to the punchline because they're interrupted now I tried to figure out what the punchline could possibly be I don't really know all I can come up with is I bet it has something to do with the Milky Way galaxy. Anyway father tells Hunter that he needs to get Marcus to take him on the expedition to find the children and I totally bought that Hunter would go along with father's directions because similar to the other children he's seen the breakdown in the Mithraic he's also seen how mother and father have gone out of their way to protect the children plus we've seen a few signs that Hunter feels guilty about getting father killed. So I totally bought that transition and Hunter does get Marcus to bring him on the search for Sue and the children Marcus brings Hunter and the other Mithraic back to the structure in the desert hoping to hear the voice of soul but he still hears nothing then he turns on Hunter tries to interrogate him when he gets no information he sticks Hunter's arm into the structure expecting to burn it but Hunter is unscathed now I interpreted this as the intelligence is maybe done with Marcus it whispered to him it manipulated him and it used it for whatever purpose it needed maybe it just wanted to get Paul and Sue on mother's side and if that's the case mission accomplished so it's done with Marcus but maybe it still has a role that Hunter needs to play and that's why it chooses to protect him that night Hunter and father are able to steal the lander and leave after that the Mithraic really starts a turn on Marcus especially Dorian the one who was supposed to be on guard when father and Hunter escape Dorian speaks out against Marcus so Marcus slits his throat then good old Lucius finally gets Marcus to admit he's an imposter and this ends with Lucius bashing Marcus over the head with a rock and shoving mother's eye into Marcus's mouth first I really hope that Marcus was right the other episode when he said that there could be other ships coming because if this arc is all that's left of humanity then they are dropping like flies and I really don't like our odds second sticking the eye in Marcus's mouth was definitely not something I saw coming so what's going on there we know very little of the necromancer's nature but maybe it's known that their eyes are poisonous it could be a tactic that they used back on earth when you're backed into a corner if all you have is a necromancer's eye you shove it in the enemy's mouth now if it doesn't actually kill him maybe it'll do something interesting to his mind we've clearly seen hints that the necromancers can affect your brain mother is able to make the children fall asleep a few episodes ago they thought Marcus was turning into a ticker which to me sounded like somebody that gets infected and like a zombie turns into somebody dangerous so maybe necromancers have a way of infecting your mind and making you dangerous so if the eye doesn't kill him I have a feeling he won't fully be himself when he wakes up and I do think he's going to wake up because it's hard for me to believe that that is it for Marcus I don't think he's going to die here but perhaps someone will have to come to his rescue and pure speculation here but thinking through who could show up to save Marcus I wonder if it will be the mysterious hooded figure the one that was in the hideout the one who took the cards away when the mithraic found them and it seemed to avoid the mithraic a few episodes ago like I said it showed up grabbed the cards and left but maybe it witnessed all this it knows that the mithraic have abandoned Marcus plus Marcus is extremely weak so at this point he likely wouldn't see Marcus as a threat plus at this point I have to think Marcus feels pretty abandoned he probably doesn't have the highest opinion of soul or the intelligence I have suspicions that the hooded figure is acting in opposition to the intelligence and we'll get into why later but assuming the hooded figure is against the intelligence and now he sees that Marcus might also be he could see Marcus as a potential ally so those are the reasons why I think the next episode we might see the hooded figure show up to the rescue let's check back in with mother and company like I mentioned before Paul, Sue, Holly and Vita were able to escape while the church was burning later they meet up with campion in the woods and camp out to plan their next move while they're there Paul shows campion the mouse that supposedly soul returned to him and campion points out that the mouse fell down the pit then returned so did tally but when she came back she seemed evil previously I theorize that the intelligence is a supremely advanced AI that essentially transcended its physical form but hearing them once again call attention to the fact that things only seem to come back after they fall down the pit that makes me want to update the theory so maybe the AI has basically grown to consume the planet and reside beneath its surface when Marcus first heard the voices the structure in the desert gave off heat and when Paul fell down the pit and mother saved him he felt things getting very very warm so perhaps Paul felt that rise in temperature because the intelligence gives off heat or maybe its intense processing power causes the planet to warm in any case it seems like living things if they fall down the pit the intelligence gets access to them though I definitely still have some questions because the mouse seems to have a physical biological presence while the manifestation of tally seems to be more ghost-like later at the arc Holly finds an artifact from earth and my ears definitely perked up there because I'm very intrigued to get any details on earth's history and what got us to this point in this case she found the tooth of Romulus and Romulus is the legendary founder of Rome myth-rayism was one of the religions practiced in Rome before Christianity took over so this sort of ties things to our timeline and there's also the myth of Romulus and his twin brother Remus who were partially raised by a she-wolf which sounds familiar now it's been unclear to me so far whether this show uses our timeline and just branches off into a possible future or if it's using an entirely alternate history finding this tooth and tying things into ancient Rome suggests to me that it is using our timeline and it further suggests that myth-rayism somehow had a resurgence on earth in recent human history in this show and I'm guessing that the intelligence had something to do with that then Sue and the children finally reunite with Tempest and Mother by following a trail of blood and when Sue draws a gun on Mother all the children surround her to protect her once everybody's reunited a few interesting things happen first Sue goes out of her way to help Mother going so far as to transfuse some of her own blood I thought they played this whole sequence really well I felt like I understood Sue deciding to ultimately aid Mother even though she was hesitant at first first she saw the children trusting Mother so that gave her a little bit of reason to give her a chance second I think both of them bonded over the fact that they're both raising children that aren't biologically theirs and finally Mother agrees to keep Sue's secret that Sue isn't really Sue and she isn't really Paul's Mother so I think Mother agreeing to keep that secret helps build a little bit of trust with Sue I also want to point out the moment where Mother tells Sue I understand that sometimes we must lie to spare the feelings of humans when she says that she looks at Campion so I think in that moment she's thinking about the embryos so I think Campion taught her that lesson sometimes lying protects a human's feelings and we have to talk about that insane vision Mother had she picks up the metal cards that were left by the hooded figure then looks closely at the one which seems to show two larger figures surrounded by five smaller ones she looks closely at it and seems to sort of unencrypted and that unlocks this vision she has to me the vision looks like a bunch of hooded figures essentially worshiping the birth of some kind of a mechanical being now in the last episode we learned that the designs from necromancers were taken from encrypted Mithreg scriptures so I assume that's what these cards are they seem to have Mithreg symbols on them and they unlocked this memory so I think Mother is seeing a piece of history something that maybe took place on this planet a long time ago now why would the hooded figure leave these out for her to find perhaps it doesn't have the technology to read the cards itself it can't unencrypt them but it knew that Mother could so maybe it left them out so she would find them maybe in the next episode the hooded figure will approach her and try to get her to share with him what she was able to see now I could spend this entire review talking about what Mother saw in that vision and what it all means I do have a lot of thoughts on that so like I mentioned at the top of the review I will be posting a video later today deep diving into all that I'll put the card here so you can click right to it the headline is that I think it has something to do with the birth of the intelligence itself so check out that video to hear more detail Mother's woken up from this vision when the prisoner reverses the blood flow and we find out that if you take necromancer blood and inject it into yourself it gives you superpowers now honestly I found that to be a little bit cheesy it kind of reminded me of Bane from Batman and Robin not that it looked bad but just the concept of taking this liquid in and it blows you up to be super strong felt a little bit cheesy but it was pretty satisfying when Tempest threw the android head away and we got to see Otho's head get crushed by that bucket I'm also assuming that they showed us this so we would know it's a possibility so we know in the future another character might take in necromancer blood and similarly it's soup up we also get the reunion of mother and father it was great to see them together again also Mother asks father is this a memory that confusion to me is further evidence that what we saw from that card was a historical event so she lived in a memory for a few minutes seeing the birth of whatever that thing was and after living in a memory now she's not sure if she's back in the present or still experiencing some kind of a memory going back to those cards Paul hears a voice and we can't make out exactly what the voice is saying at least I couldn't make it out but anyway after Paul hears the voice he picks up those metal cards and then burns them all to me that says the intelligence does not want mother or anyone else accessing the information on those cards so that makes me think the hooded figure might be working in opposition to the intelligence the intelligence doesn't want anyone seeing those cards but it seems like the hooded figure does so that's what makes me think the two are opposed to each other and that's why earlier I was thinking that the hooded figure might want to team up with Marcus after burning the cards Paul decides to let Campion in on a little secret Paul tells Campion that soul is the one who put the baby in mother and the baby is going to change everything how does Paul know this he says he can just feel it so I think no real surprise for us there we already heard from simulation Campion that the baby is what's next for humanity so when I hear Paul say the baby is going to change everything that's right in line with the idea that it's going to be some kind of an advanced life form created by the intelligence anyway I think we can wrap it up there a lot of really intriguing developments in these episodes and we know they're not going to wrap everything up in episode 10 because there are more seasons coming but I'm very curious to see how they decide to leave things off at the end of next week's finale anyway let me know in the comments what you thought of these episodes did you enjoy them as much as I did what are your theories about where we're heading next put it in the comments and we'll keep the conversation going with that one more quick reminder if you enjoyed this video please go ahead and hit the like button hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon so you get notified the next time we do a video and you'll get notified when we put out the theory videos I mentioned earlier with that thanks for watching and see you on the next one take