In big budget Hollywood space station dramas, there is usually a scene where our hero (be it Bruce Willis or Ben Affleck) walks in slow motion as triumphant music plays. A voiceover detailing valor and bravery can sometimes be overheard as these people walk, and Halle Berry gets to do a little bit of it in the first few moments of the finale of Extant. To be honest, I would watch Berry strut her stuff over those guys any day. Her Molly Woods has not only seen dead boyfriends and chased after her own strange alien baby, but she has had to grapple with connecting with her android son and trying to make romance with Goran Visjnic believable. Does Molly Woods’ life make a safe journey back to normalcy?
Clad in a sleek, white jumpsuit that would make everyone in Prometheus jealous, Molly is sent back into space to redirect the Seraphim away from Earth’s orbit (she’s got some other plans in her back pocket as well). We can’t have those spores coming back to Earth now, can we? It might make for an interesting crossover episode with The Strain. Perhaps creator Mickey Fisher could talk to someone at FX?
Molly’s new threads allow her to see the spores through her helmet, so she can basically tell when something is fake in front of her. She has a confrontation with “Katie Sparks” while walking through the Seraphim’s dark corridors, and Molly sees the spores spreading throughout the ship on her hands. Back at John’s lab, Ethan freaks out when John tells him that they need to scan him to check out what Odin did to him. John reassures Ethan that, as his father, he will be beside him every step of the way. Ethan is reluctant (what kid wouldn’t be), and he doesn’t call Odin on the handheld Simon phone he was given. It turns out Odin is smarter than he looks, because he planted an explosive device on Ethan, and it can’t be removed.
Not only is the shit hitting the fan at home, but hell breaks loose on the Seraphim. Molly begins hallucinating again. Sean keeps seeing manipulations of Molly in trouble, and Molly sees Marcus when it’s really Sean. The offspring has managed to get into the ISEA, and the entire building is on lockdown. When John tries to explain to Ethan how the offspring uses people’s minds, Ethan thinks he is the one person who can get by him. Some parents won’t let their kids run into the grocery store by themselves, and John is sending his kid to do battle with an alien offspring and help his mother come home. No biggie.
When Molly is about to disembark from the Seraphim (and blow the mother up), she can’t blast off. Her system, BEN, tells her, “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that” and she’s screwed. She gets in contact with Ethan, and he comes up with an idea for him to control BEN from Earth. Would they have blown up Halle Berry in the finale? Extant doesn’t have a season 2 yet, so it would be more than plausible—even if it would basically feel like a waste of television. Molly’s rescue comes at a price, though. Ethan has to heat up his body and it triggers the explosive that Odin planted. Ethan’s body is gone, but five days later, it appears that he can control all the computers in John’s lab and all the devices in the Woods’ home. “I’m everywhere!” he exclaims. How Luc Besson of you, Ethan.
So what happened to Molly’s offspring? He’s quite seriously wandering the streets, and he gets picked up by a concerned couple driving by him on a bridge. Ethan told him to run before he detonated, a fact that Molly finds comfort in. I want to know how an offspring can keep his blazing red hoodie so bright. That’s a legitimate question I have.
To be perfectly honest, I kind of wish Extant was a miniseries and not a traditional drama. I’ve harped on this before. The grand scale and Spielbergian-ness is very much appreciated, but it feels too specific for a continuing drama. It was left a lot more open-ended than I thought it would be. Odin isn’t included in this episode at all. There is obviously more than can do with the offspring now that he is not just running around with Molly, but I kind of wanted to see Molly’s story come to a close.
A lot of the show’s stronger aspects are on display in this episode, and it is a reminder as to what is really great about the show. While the production design on this show is sleek and stylish and white white white, the relationships ground (no pun intended) the otherworldly elements. Ethan’s continuing curiosity was a recurring theme throughout the entire season, and Peter Gagnon made Ethan my favorite character.
The Humanichs storyline could have been its own show. Maybe if Extant is given a second season, it will focus more on the uprising against the machines? I expected closure on some things, and I don’t think I got it. Normally when this happens on a show, you feel like you can just hold off until the second season, but I just want that door closed. It would have felt like a stronger ending.
The one reasons viewers may have tuned in at the beginning was to watch Halle Berry. Television is the place to be, and Berry is a big star. Seeing her gorgeous, expressive face every week was a bit daunting. When Berry is emotionally engaged, her emotions brim and bubble on that beautiful face. Sometimes they boil over, and we are treated to some raw payoff. Berry’s Molly did this almost every week, and it was honestly a treat to watch. In the beginning of the final episode, the ISEA director tells the staff that this is the time to pray. He then says, “If you don’t believe in anything, believe in her.” Well said, sir.
In Halle Berry we trust.