Extant #1-03 Recap: Seeing Ghosts

<p>After two surprisingly gripping episodes&comma; <em>Extant <&sol;em>seemed to take a minor step back with its third episode&comma; <em>Wish <&sol;em><em>You Were Here<&sol;em>&period; Rather than focusing on the creepy&comma; probably paranormal circumstances surrounding Molly&&num;8217&semi;s miracle pregnancy and the strange visions that continue to haunt her&comma; <em>Extant<&sol;em> went a different route with this episode and focused on the effects these strange events are having on her family life&period; And while it dragged a little more than the first two episodes&comma; it built up to some really big things&comma; and thankfully put an end to the one major issue I had with the show&period; Yes&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m talking about Molly keeping the secret of her pregnancy from her husband John&period; One of my biggest pet peeves in television is to see a character keep a substantial bit of information from their friends or family simply because it makes the plot more &&num;8216&semi;suspenseful&period;&&num;8217&semi; It hardly works in the show&&num;8217&semi;s favor&comma; and often backfires&comma; succeeding in only pushing the viewer further and further from connecting with the cast&period; Thankfully&comma; <em>Extant<&sol;em> did not make this mistake&comma; and while it&&num;8217&semi;s still odd that she kept the secret from John for this long&comma; especially considering how much he&&num;8217&semi;s been trying to help her work through whatever issues she has&comma; I was very glad to see that particular plot thread come to an end&period; While John&&num;8217&semi;s response might not have been as expressive as I may have expected&comma; as he seemed to just run with the idea that his wife was mysteriously impregnated while on a solo mission in space&comma; I did appreciate how quickly he believed her&period; There was no denial or even argument from him&comma; he just accepted what his wife was telling him and immediately tried to help her cope with it&period; I still hope John gets some more development and personality as the show goes on&comma; as he can occasionally feel kind of flat&comma; but this episode of <em>Extant<&sol;em> was definitely a step in the right direction and I am really interested to see how he will impact the plot know that he&&num;8217&semi;s more involved in it&period; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;08&sol;05084229&sol;689233a241de407ec021c6c86525cc98&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-64416 aligncenter" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;08&sol;05084229&sol;689233a241de407ec021c6c86525cc98&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Extant-party" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"338" &sol;><&sol;a> Other than revealing her secret to John&comma; however&comma; Molly had a slightly less eventful episode than she has had before&comma; until the end&comma; that is&period; The focus&comma; as I said&comma; was very much on further showing the stress in her family&comma; but quite frankly&comma; I felt like it was a little unnecessary&period; I appreciate the thought behind it&comma; but  the first two episodes did a great job at already establishing how hard it is for Molly to be back on earth after being alone in space for so long&period; <em>Wish You Were Here <&sol;em>also felt a little too similar to the previous episodes in its plot progression&comma; and it almost felt like some events were being thrown in just to pad the episode&&num;8217&semi;s length in order to further the build-up to the climactic conclusion&period; For example&comma; the issues John faced in regards to Ethan going to school didn&&num;8217&semi;t really stand out all that much since we&&num;8217&semi;ve already seen him work through similar situations in the past&period; Still&comma; I think the show is doing a good job at showing just how crazy it is to have a family raise an artificial intelligence as a son&comma; and I like seeing how not everybody is as willing to accept it as a rational&comma; understandable thing to do as our main characters are&period; Hopefully the show finds some more unique ways to demonstrate that though&comma; as I really don&&num;8217&semi;t want to see such a promising show held back by any repetitive plot lines&period; In terms of the conspiracies surrounding Molly&&num;8217&semi;s pregnancy&comma; however&comma; <em>Extant <&sol;em>proved yet again that it is not going to fall into cliche&comma; as it continued to surprise me with off-the-wall twists that have doubled my interest in the show&period; While answers are still slim&comma; <em>Wish You Were Here<&sol;em> furthered the development of the conspiracy substantially&period; Having Molly&&num;8217&semi;s boss&comma; Alan Sparks&comma; deceive her into thinking that the government had actually used one of the DNA samples she and John had used in the past when attempting to conceive was a nice twist&comma; as that was actually my first theory as to the cause of her pregnancy&period; Obviously the causes behind are far more mysterious&comma; and&comma; as I suspect&comma; paranormal&comma; and I am genuinely excited to get to the bottom of it as the show continues&period; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;08&sol;05084237&sol;Extant-S1Ep3-Wish-You-Were-Here-Review-Kryger-weird-drawing&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"alignnone size-full wp-image-64414" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;08&sol;05084237&sol;Extant-S1Ep3-Wish-You-Were-Here-Review-Kryger-weird-drawing&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Extant symbol" width&equals;"1280" height&equals;"717" &sol;><&sol;a> <em>Wish You Were Here<&sol;em> might have taken things a bit slower overall&comma; but it did end on quite the high note which almost demanded that I watch the next episode as soon as possible&period; While enjoying a fun belated birthday party for herself&comma; Molly finds that her ex-boyfriend&&num;8217&semi;s brother&comma; Tim&comma; had decided to show up and the two seemed to have had a great time catching up&period; It was a nice scene&comma; seeing the two of them reconnect after so long&comma; and it did a fantastic job at further establishing just how involved Molly was with fellow astronaut Marcus before he did in a car accident&period; However&comma; the twist came when John revealed that Tim was never actually at the party&comma; as proven by the picture he was absent in&comma; despite Molly&&num;8217&semi;s belief that he had been standing right next to her during it&period; As if that crazy hallucination wasn&&num;8217&semi;t enough to freak us out&comma; <em>Extant<&sol;em> pushed it even further as Molly finally discovered that Alan Sparks might not be the helping&comma; comforting friend she thought he was&period; While it might seem early to have Molly catch on to his plans so early in the show&comma; I thought it was a great to keep the plot moving&comma; and it resulted in a climactic finale for the episode that almost left me on the edge of my seat&period; With Molly&comma; John&comma; and Ethan seemingly on the run&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m anxious to see where the show will go next&comma; and can only hope it keeps up the kind of plot twists it&&num;8217&semi;s been so consistently throwing at us&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;