 What's up guys and welcome to one take I'm gil and today we're talking about raised by wolves episodes one through three All of which have been released on HBO Max This video will of course be full of spoilers for all three of those episodes If you haven't watched them yet and still want to hear my thoughts check out the link in the description Or in the card above for my spoiler-free review for the rest of you Let's get into it first some overall thoughts I was pretty blown away by this show Especially episodes one and two which were directed by Ridley Scott Besides the fact that the show just looks and sounds incredible the things that draw me in are One you can tell that they put a lot of thought into the world this series takes place in So when you watch the episodes, there's a lot of discovery that happens and I love learning about the mithraic culture I love seeing more and more of the history that brought humanity to this point That's one of the things that gets me excited to keep watching. There's also just the intellectual curiosity of Watching this grand experiment play out What happens when you give a bunch of children to androids and ask those androids to raise the kids? Force the belief system on them. How does that go on top of that? You have the growing conflict between humans and androids believers and non-believers So if I just sum up in one word what continuously draws me into this show It would be curiosity now specifically That's curiosity to learn about the world and see how the story progresses But the one part of the show that I'm a little uncertain about right now is the characters Especially in episode three when we start to spend more time with the mithraics and when the momentum Sort of slows down a lot happens in episode one and two things start to slow down a little bit in episode three And that's where focus really shifts to character And at that point I felt like there were a few plot contrivances and how the characters act and so far I'm just not super interested in any of the characters besides mother father and Campion though. I still thought episode three was solid big fan of episodes one and two so overall I feel pretty good and optimistic about this series to quote mother in episode one. I feel optimistic Anyway with that let's jump into the details But first just a quick reminder if you're enjoying these videos to hit that like button hit the subscribe button and the bell icon So you get notified the next time we do a video You're especially gonna want to do that if you're enjoying raised by wolves because I'll be doing these detailed breakdowns for every episode So definitely make sure you're subscribed first I just want to talk about how quickly things moved and escalated in episode one You have mother and father crash land on the planet birth six children Then as the children grow one of them at Tali dies by falling into a pit Then four more die from sickness, which will later learn is radiation poisoning Father wants to give Campion to the Mithraic So mother kills father then the episode ends with mother infiltrating the arc Popping a bunch of people and then crashing it now to my knowledge that arc is literally the last of humanity Besides the children that mother and father are raising the only other living humans that escaped earth are on that arc So when mother destroys it, she's dealing a potentially lethal blow to Humanity's ability to continue his very existence and it was all treated pretty casually It didn't feel like a monumental event in the episode and I liked that from mother's point of view This isn't a big deal. There is a threat coming a threat to her children So she goes into the ship and takes it out That felt a little unsettling to me because the show is presenting a sort of clinical breakdown of Humanity's potential Extermination, but it's treated so casually so that felt unsettling and I thought that was very effective on the other hand I will say that one aspect of the show which most underwhelmed me would be the Mithraic human characters And this is one example of that we see them later And I would expect them to have much more of a reaction to their arc being taken down and sure They're not happy about it, but I haven't really seen a grieving process. I haven't really seen them Deal with the fact that humanity may not survive Maybe that'll make more sense as the series goes on We don't know too much about the Mithraic culture So perhaps they are trained mentally to deal with this and this is actually a natural reaction for them Now we of course have to talk about mother. I love the mother character She has such an odd way of speaking every time she smiles It just looks a little bit off and it was pretty hilarious just how bad a job She did trying to convince Marcus and his crew in episode one that she's human She treats them to dinner. She keeps politely asking them to leave cut to the very next scene Marcus telling his group. She's definitely an Android One of the interesting aspects of both mother and father is that neither of them seem fully aware of their nature or their abilities For example, we see mother learn that she has the ability to mimic someone's face We see her learn that she can go into that crazy bronze attack mode and start exploding people Now in episodes two and three we come to find out that she's what's called a necromancer Which is a type of Android that generally belongs to the Mithraics But according to Marcus the atheists must have it captured her and reprogrammed her if she was reprogrammed That may explain why she doesn't fully understand her nature She has this foreign programming in her mind that is maybe what is running her on a day to day And she's not fully aware of what's beneath the surface in her true Necromancer nature now you have to wonder if she is a necromancer She is a war machine capable of doing incredible damage as we've seen if she's a war machine Just with some extra code added in telling her to be a mother and take care of these children You've got to wonder how strong that code is will it be able to hold and will it be able to fully suppress Her nature we've seen glimpses of how dangerous she can be and I've got to think that's going to be a pretty big source of tension Over the next seven episodes. Let's talk about father. I am such a fan of his character He adds a lot of levity to this show which could easily be a very dark and dour experience His propensity for telling jokes was hilarious and is a gimmick that could easily be overused But I thought it was used just the right amount my favorite moment with him I think is when we literally see him inventing jokes. He's pacing around at night thinks up a joke and says to himself That's a good one. I'll save that for the little one He comes off as a kind of tragic figure to me as Campion becomes more and more cynical and starts to tell mother and father that he knows their feelings are fake He no longer believes that they truly care for him It's really just what they were programmed to do and how they were programmed to act But at one point you hear father assure a campion I am real campion and in that moment and others like it I see somebody really genuinely Wanting to do good But he might not be capable of it as androids mother and father may not be capable of Giving campion the true care that he's looking for and all of this makes me wonder What is the nature of these androids? Are they capable of emotion? Is there something different or special about mother and father versus the other androids we meet on the surface? They definitely seem different I think we meet about three androids from the myth reyek between these three episodes and None of them come close to what we see from mother and father None of them really attempt to display the emotions that we see from our androids and at the end of episode 3 When the children are looking for the ark tempest is clearly starting to show some belief in mother She comments how it seemed like she really cared about the children and she's never seen an android act like that before So it could be as simple as mother and father were just programmed to mimic love and mimic emotion Do their best to be human, but I wonder if there's more to it than that. Are they conscious? Are they as conscious as human beings are I've got to think that's one of the themes will be explained In the next seven episodes now I want to talk a little bit about camping, but first one more thought on mother and father It's really interesting that they're even capable of having conflicting thoughts with one another It definitely makes the show more interesting that mother and father pretty quickly are out of sync But on the surface it seems odd that their programming would even allow them to be at odds with one another And I have to wonder if maybe that was intentional Perhaps their creator realized that the ideal scenario for the children that these androids will be raising The ideal scenario is that mother and father have to sort of counterbalance each other So I think that goes along with the general theme of how much of what we see from mother and father is pure Programming how much of it is something more complicated than that a sort of Emergent consciousness that allows them to in some ways go against their programming All of that is super interesting and I love it That's just one of the many ideas we're dealing with on this show. So going to campion I find his character pretty interesting and I'm enjoying the developments. We've seen so far after watching all of his friends die He starts to see how mother failed them failed to protect them and he cares for mother But he understands father's plan to ultimately hand him over to the myth rake when mother goes against them On that campion starts to see mother as their enemy and that is further accelerated when he sees mother's Destructive capabilities. So I think by the time that the new kids show up the ones that mother brought from the ark at that Point campion was already starting to not really trust mother So he was primed to instead place his trust in these children one moment I found interesting when campion is first interacting with the other children is when hunter asks Paul Marcus's kid to hand his mouse over to campion. Why was hunter asking Paul to give his mouse over? I think that was to create a sense of reciprocity Give campion the mouse and then he'll feel sort of in debt to us And it'll just accelerate the process of winning over campion's trust and it seems to work He pretty quickly aligns with the children against mother one thing we've seen shades of and I'm waiting to see more of it Is that campion was essentially raised by wolves? If you look at the title of the show campion is raised by these androids So you wouldn't expect him to be entirely human in his behavior And we do see a couple of small differences in his behavior. He doesn't pick up on sarcasm He's a bit more resourceful. He's the one who's leading them to go find the ark But I'm waiting to see more Significant differences when you see how odd mother behaves you've got to think that'll create some Bizarre emotional differences in campion versus children that were raised by humans. That's something I'm waiting to see There are also a couple of sort of mysteries around campion one Why didn't he succumb to the radiation the way the rest of the children did and two is he the subject of this? Prophecy that the mythraic talk about an orphan boy in an empty land will lead the mythraic to a place Where a city of peace will be built So there's that prophecy and there's the question of why did campion survive the radiation poisoning? So let's talk about the radiation first as a quick recap Basically mother father and the children pick what they call carbos from the vegetation on the planet They kind of look like giant potatoes But they have a pit on the inside They use the carbos for food and they use it for fuel mother and father tested them and saw no radiation No issues with eating them, but they never tested the pit and Apparently the pit is radioactive when you pick the carbos the pit starts to decompose and Poison the rest of the tuber with radiation So unknowingly the children were consuming these radiation infested carbos for years and that's what ultimately killed them So what's so special about campion? Why didn't he succumb? It seems like he has some natural immunity to the radiation and the only theory I have so far is that When mother gives birth to the six children or pulls them out of their little birthing boxes Campion stops breathing. She brings campion to her chest Hums and then campion miraculously starts breathing again Now mother doesn't know what all of her capabilities are so is it possible that that humming and Bringing campion to her chest had a physical effect on him Did it truly save him in the moment and potentially give him another gift give him some sort of immunity that protects him from the Radiation poisoning in episode one at campion provides some narration and he says something along the lines of This side of mother this dangerous side of her has always been a part of her and maybe something like it is a part of me too That makes me wonder if when mother saved his life as a baby and she gave him this immunity to radiation poisoning Who knows what else she gave him has she physically modified campion in some strange way That we'll learn about over the rest of the season now Let's talk about the prophecy for a second It seems that in the Mithraic religion they have a prophecy about an orphan boy in an empty land Finding a place where they're going to build a city of peace Before mother slaughters Marcus's friends and Marcus's group. They thought that campion might be the subject of that prophecy They've referenced it twice now So I have to think it's going to be an important part of the story My question is will it simply be a guiding force for Marcus and his group where they try to find Whoever is the subject of this prophecy? Maybe some of them think it's campion so they try to kidnap him for mother and that sparks a sort of religious war Or could the show truly delve into some mystical elements? I doubt it It seems like it's pretty focused on hard sci-fi so far But it's too early to say for sure Maybe over the next few episodes we'll be debating over who is the orphan in this prophecy Just like when we all watched game of thrones. We wondered who the true Azor Ahai is now We've got to talk about the creatures that show up in the second episode. They look so interesting Almost lizard-like but then when you have a glimpse at their face those look almost humanoid, but pointier They're also one of the interesting mysteries about this show Where did these creatures come from and why haven't they shown themselves for 12 years? They never attacked the gen one children They only showed up after mother brought the new kids from the Ark I wonder if it could have something to do with the strange weather patterns on the planet It snows every night. We get many shots of those crazy rolling clouds So who knows what the weather is like on the rest of the planet? Maybe they were in hibernation Maybe every certain number of years they go away and they come back Now I have a feeling there's more than meets the eye to these creatures And there's going to be some kind of a twist going into fan theory total speculation mode I wonder if maybe mother somehow spawned those creatures with the threat of those creatures out there The children are now more dependent on her and by protecting them from the monsters that helps her gain their trust We see that explicitly with tempest by the end of the third episode after seeing mother protect her from the creature Tempest is starting to wonder if maybe mother truly does care now on the surface It seems like mother is as surprised as everybody else to see these creatures manifest themselves But we know that mother doesn't understand her true nature entirely and a number of references are made to Maybe mother's killing the children without even realizing it now it turned out they were wrong She was not poisoning the kids. It was the carbos But maybe she does have some ability to create these monsters and she did it subconsciously as a way of Creating a threat which she can protect the children from and ultimately gain their trust I will say when you hear mother referred to as a necromancer That usually refers to somebody with magic abilities to raise the dead or bring back their spirits So perhaps mother can summon these creatures Maybe she's taking dead bodies from the Ark and turning them into these monsters Anyway, I might be going too far into speculation territory now But I just have a gut feeling there's some kind of a twist there and it has something to do with mother Now let's talk about Marcus. I love the casual reveal in episode 2 that Marcus and Sue are Impostors they're atheists who during the war found a medic robot and find records of the real Marcus and Sue Who are scheduled to get on the Ark and escape the soon-to-be-destroyed planet Earth? First off that medic android was awesome He was the perfect mix of creepy and hilarious I am curious why he so readily agreed to perform plastic surgery on these imposters to turn them in it to Marcus and Sue But either way he performs the plastic surgery the imposters Look exactly like Marcus and Sue after that and then they kill their original counterparts Taking their place on the Ark immediately these two characters get more interesting and on top of everything else now we have two atheists as Prominent members of the Mithraic group. So there are some pretty interesting ways they can go with this We already see Marcus getting a foothold as a sort of leader in the group as he rises up the ranks Is it possible that others will find out truly? He's an atheist and what kind of crisis of faith will that create for others in the group on the other hand? We know Marcus didn't exactly choose the culture he grew up in we saw that as a child He was forced to fight in a war. So perhaps now embedding himself in the Mithraic culture He will start to question his belief or his lack of belief and start to have an appreciation For the religion he's now pretending to be a part of or maybe his wife Sue starts to question things And we'll have some conflict between the two of them where one wants to remain loyal to the atheists and the other One wants to truly become a part of this religion So I mentioned up front that I was a little bit worried about will they be able to keep the characters interesting? This is one avenue that if it's explored properly that would definitely suck me in I'm a little worried about whether or not they'll be able to pull that off because episode 3 does start to shift focus to the Mithraic and a lot of what we saw to be honest didn't really work for me first you have Marcus and Sue finding out they have this child Paul and That should be a pretty big struggle for them They didn't have a kid all of a sudden they have a kid Sue does say up front I can't be a mother, but we don't really spend a whole lot of time in that mode We essentially flash forward 13 years to where now she treats Paul as her own son And she cares for him like a son that she truly has love for so it was pretty jarring to go from I can't be a mother to I am now a loving and caring mother I would have just liked to have seen a little bit of the transition there I also would have expected like I said earlier to see more of a reaction from the Mithraic to the destruction of the art They may have just watched humanity essentially go extinct and so far It doesn't really seem to be bothering anybody and lastly. There's the conflict between Marcus and the guy in charge I'm not really finding any of that too interesting Especially when it keeps cutting away from the mother father storyline, which I find much more compelling So as we learn more about the Mithraic culture, maybe that'll explain their behavior better Maybe it'll give me more of an appreciation for what we're seeing But for right now, that's the part of the show that probably interests me least Let's talk about the kids that mother brings back from the Ark Basically mother and father try to save humanity take two One question I have about these kids is they were living in a sim while they were in hibernation for about 13 years They said time works a little bit differently So I wonder did they truly experience 13 years of time? If so, these kids are in a pretty interesting position That essentially means they have the minds of 20 to 30 year olds But they're just trapped in the bodies of 5 to 15 year olds One aspect of the group I'm also intrigued by Is I think we're setting up to have some conflict between the children in terms of their differing faiths Hunter is very clearly a devout person and very anti-mother On the other hand, I mentioned it a couple of times But Tempest seems like she's starting to turn around and maybe begin to believe in mother So I have a feeling we're going to start to see some split alliances Where some are with mother and some are against her All of that's made more complicated by the fact that to some degree They will be reliant on mother and father to protect them Especially with these monsters running around Finally, let's talk about that weird cliffhanger at the end of episode 3 Basically the children are on their way to find the Ark So they can leave mother and father On their way there, Paul, Marcus and Sue's kid Get separated from the rest of the children He finds a stick doll Then he sees a hooded figure that sort of summons him He follows and then falls into a pit And lands on a branch that saves his life Now it seems like the hooded figure did that on purpose Tried to get him to fall into the trap But who is this hooded figure? So when the hooded figure first appears We hear something that should sound familiar Way back in episode 1 When Tali was playing with the doll And humming a nursery rhyme to herself Before presumably falling into the pit We hear her humming that nursery rhyme again When we see the hooded figure Now think back to episode 1 We never saw Tali's body So we can't say with 100% certainty That she fell into the pit It sounds a little ridiculous But by process of elimination It's hard to imagine who else it could be The other children all succumbed to the radiation poisoning So there were bodies to account for them We know it can't be mother or father Because we know where they are When this hooded figure appears And it seems unlikely that it's associated with the mythraic Because they consistently wear that white mythraic garb So I think it's Tali And I think about the title raised by wolves On the surface we assume that refers to campion And the other children being raised by mother and father Maybe there's a second meaning to that Maybe someone or something on this planet raised Tali And she has also been raised by wolves Going back into crazy fan theory mode for a second Maybe those creatures that attacked, tempest And have shown up a couple of times Are more intelligent than we realize And Tali was raised not by wolves But by weird lizard humanoid things In any case that was a pretty surprising cliffhanger Felt kind of like it came out of nowhere So hopefully it has a pretty good payoff Last thing I wanted to mention Up front I said there were a few plot contrivances Mostly in episode three That didn't quite work for me And I wanted to mention them here First I'll mention one that actually occurred in episode one Mother kills the group that's with Marcus She goes up to the Ark And indiscriminately kills a bunch of humans Crashes the Ark But if we rewind for a second Before she flew up to the Ark She gets face to face with Marcus And instead of killing him She smashes his head and throws him out of the vessel At first I thought this was a plot convenience They needed to keep Marcus alive But I think there's a chance That there's something more to it Maybe mother somehow knows That Marcus is truly an atheist Pretending to be a mythraic Or maybe mother and Marcus Have some sort of a past together That he doesn't remember Maybe she doesn't even consciously remember it So perhaps something built into her programming Or into her subconscious Stopped her from killing Marcus So I'm curious when they're going to pick up on that plot thread Fast forwarding to episode three Mother flies over to the Ark To look for omnibiotics That she can use to help cure the children When mother arrives She's already screaming And kind of gives her position away to the humans Which gives them a chance to hide underground And protect themselves from her I found that kind of odd Because mother could have just strolled in And from what we've seen of her destructive capabilities If she came across any of the mythraic She could have very easily taken them out So I'm not sure why she came in screaming Giving away her position Speaking of which Once the humans get underground They seem to be pretty safe But then they send up an android Which mother of course kills very quickly And that seemed like a really poor decision If you're hiding underground And you send out an android That's a pretty big risk That you're going to give away your position But they are setting up the guy in charge As maybe not the smartest And not the most effective leader So that one I can chalk up to Intentionally poor decision making Another one in episode three When campion and the children Make a run for the ark The way they get themselves some time Is campion brings father Into one of the stone structures And then traps him inside with a wooden board Now of course father can easily break out He can easily break that door down But instead of doing that He waits, he yells, he yells He threatens to break it down When he finally does The kids are gone So again that just felt a little silly to me When you know how dangerous it is For these children to leave the area When you know how angry mother will be If she finds out you let the kids go You punch your way out of that door immediately You don't wait for campion To have a change of heart and let you out I also found it a little silly That mother and father tested the carbos For radiation poisoning But never checked the pits And the last one is that When mother is trying to find paul And she's just shouting for him You don't need to be afraid If you're out there I want you to scream as loud as you can We've seen that mother has the ability To mimic other people's voices So it seems to me the best course of action Would have been to just mimic one of the other children And call for paul Then he immediately would have come running So none of these are major complaints I recognize that it's sort of nitpicking But it just worries me a little bit That most of those complaints I have Are about episode three So it feels a little bit like they put a lot Into the first two episodes They got Ridley Scott They made those episodes fantastic And I just hope that the things That didn't quite work for me in episode three Don't continue for the remainder of the season Because if they can maintain the quality From the first couple of episodes I could easily see this becoming Just an incredible sci-fi series So those minor grievances aside I was a pretty big fan of these first few episodes And I can't wait to see where it goes next So I'll wrap up by saying 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 Anyway, let me know in the comments How you felt about these episodes What worked for you, what didn't work And what are you excited to see In the rest of the season Let me know in the comments And we'll keep the conversation going With that, thanks for watching And see you on the next one take