After the dynamite reveal of the serpent’s true form and the unveiling of a design that mixed Kaiju with scripture to create something incredible, Mother undertakes new methods to deal with her spawn. By borrowing the veil from the newly reconstituted android Grandmother, she’s able to dampen her emotions and take a more coldly efficient view on protecting her kids. The scene in which she takes to the sky to exterminate the beast she created comes early in the episode, and it is stellar. A perfect cap to Lamia and Number Seven’s shared narrative, while also being visually flawless. If it weren’t a massive spoiler, it’d make a perfect trailer moment for the series.
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While this moment is nearly perfect, it isn’t the only strong part of the episode. It is, however, the one loose end that the season finale manages to tie up. Fans may remember the laissez-faire attitude with which it moved past Sue turning into a tree a couple of episodes back, this episode rectifies that in a staggering sequence. Viewers are shown the transformation in greater detail for the first time, as opposed to the tasteful cutaway of Sue’s tragic fate, and it is viscerally disgusting. It doesn’t quite fit the space horror theme, it feels somehow occult or mystical, but it’s one of the most powerfully unpleasant nightmares the show has brought to screen yet.
Beyond those two excellent scenes, “Happiness” doesn’t have much good left to offer. Campion is still mourning Vrille’s death while reeling from the revelation that the serpent is Mother’s child. There’s a potentially excellent scene in which Mother questions Campion’s ability to love a machine, while somehow unaware that he’s grown from birth to do so. The scene is weakened, however, by the aforementioned veil, which forces Amanda Collin’s typically flawless performance as Mother to be reigned in and muted. The veil, though it allows for the excellent confrontation with the serpent, it also weakens one of the series’ most dynamic characters for its entire finale. And, to make matters worse, it’s done in service of the vastly inferior new model.
The season finale’s biggest problem is unquestionably Grandmother. The hyper-advanced android that became Father’s pet project is up and active, finally showing her role in the series. After Mother borrows her veil, it allows Grandmother to start actively exercising her personality and similar, though not identical, goal. Mother makes the wildly ill-advised decision to keep the veil on and let Grandmother join Father and handle the children. This too can only be blamed on the veil, because otherwise, it’s a wildly out-of-character decision. Turns out, Grandmother’s definition of “protecting humanity” is allowing the children to undergo devolution and become the horrifying fish beasts who stole Tempest’s baby. The process has already begun by the season’s end.
Grandmother’s understanding of the concept seems to be that even if they become a new species, they’re still humans. Without people on the surface, Grandmother posits that the entity that people know as Sol will quiet down if there aren’t any Homo sapiens on the surface. Her plan literally includes handing out free video games to the Collective, in the hopes that they’ll cloister in their homes and obey. The show itself has devolved more than any of its characters, descending from “can mankind and machines learn to love each other” to “video games are the opiate of the masses”. It’s pretty sad. Mother falls prey to Grandmother’s trap and winds up in a cryogenic sleep pod to scream fruitlessly for however long will pass between seasons. Unfortunately, this dull aspect seems primed to be the focus of a perspective season three.
Marcus’s season finale is interesting but completely unfinished. Lucius finally catches the seemingly immortal false prophet and strings him up in the classic biblical fashion. Instructed to kill Marcus intricately and symbolically, Lucius is much more shocked than the audience is when he escapes yet again. Viewers will be shocked, however, by how he escapes. Though the interesting note of Marcus and Mother being forced to work together didn’t last long, Marcus is ending this season in a fascinating place. It barely gets to appear in this episode, but it could be fun next season.
The largest weak point of the overall superior second season of Raised by Wolves is a curious torrent of bothsidesism. The series is terrified to depict the Mithraic as too evil, lest they offend particularly religious portions of the audience, so both sides must be the bad guy. Sure, fans have seen the Mithraic do nothing but rape, torture, and murder in the name of their god, but as soon as the Atheist Collective gets the focus, they’re an oppressed resistance movement.
Grandmother is the apex of that problem, using video games and arguments about evolution to put down religion. The series brings up questions of religion and technocracy, but it’s too scared to put a foot down either way. The season finale introduces the idea of the Atheists starting to worship Mother. Grandmother gives the bog-standard “atheist in a foxhole” argument and is depicted as the villain, while atheists turn to worship an amoral murder robot. It’s a massive disappointment.
The season two finale might not be a dealbreaker for the show, hopefully, season three will find the good in these plot threads or excise a few entirely. It’s just a shame for an excellent season of TV to end on such a weak finale.
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