Passed Out In The Woods | Extant #1-4 and 5 Recap

<p>After getting buried in all the craziness leading up to school starting again&comma; or college&comma; in my case&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;ve finally found the time to sit down and start catching up on <em>Extant<&sol;em> again&period; And with these two episodes&comma; titled <em>Shelter <&sol;em>and <em>What on Earth is Wrong&quest;<&sol;em> respectively&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;ve once again found myself seriously intrigued by the themes and ideas Extant presents&comma; but also frustrated that it seems to stubbornly refuses to give the audience any kind of tangible answers or progression&period; While these episodes showed some improvement&comma; and <em>Shelter<&sol;em> in particular provided a satisfying break of pace&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m still waiting for the show to really let loose and dive into the depth and intrigue that&&num;8217&semi;s so inherent in its premise&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Let&&num;8217&semi;s start with briefly recapping <em>Shelter<&sol;em>&comma; which saw Molly&comma; John&comma; and Ethan fleeing their home after discovering that Molly&&num;8217&semi;s boss&comma; Alan Sparks&comma; was going to bring Molly to his superior in hopes of performing probably painful tests on her in order to discover just what made her pregnant in space&period; Right off the bat&comma; the change in scenery was refreshing&comma; and I actually found myself enjoying the episode more than the previous ones just because the locale had changed&period; No longer were we spending almost 40 minutes in Molly&&num;8217&semi;s apartment or workplace&comma; but instead had the chance to see Molly return home to her father&&num;8217&semi;s cabin on a peacefully secluded island&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While I had high hopes for Molly&&num;8217&semi;s dad&comma; Quinn&comma; I was a bit disappointed to see that his relationship with Molly was so unoriginal&period; The character himself was fun&comma; and I really liked his interactions with Ethan in particular&comma; but the cliched conflict between him and Molly was so cliched that I couldn&&num;8217&semi;t really get into it at all&period; Especially considering we&&num;8217&semi;re not likely to get any progression or closure in their relationship&period; The end of the episode was a highlight though&comma; as it left John and Quinn in a prison cell for assaulting a police officer&comma; and Molly in the hands of Mr&period; Yasumoto&comma; who seems to be intent on taking the &&num;8216&semi;child&&num;8217&semi; in Molly&&num;8217&semi;s womb at whatever cost necesarry&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;09&sol;05074108&sol;9d68912d-50a2-475d-bd76-cbe646f7a6c0&lowbar;uE3F7&lowbar;JxC5aCdckgxszH-Gcbouq8k2Oo1IwPJqOKJx33a9L5zxFz18Sk8IoJBfVICXRC77A3wTM-&lowbar;1&lowbar;0&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-66286 aligncenter" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;09&sol;05074108&sol;9d68912d-50a2-475d-bd76-cbe646f7a6c0&lowbar;uE3F7&lowbar;JxC5aCdckgxszH-Gcbouq8k2Oo1IwPJqOKJx33a9L5zxFz18Sk8IoJBfVICXRC77A3wTM-&lowbar;1&lowbar;0&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Extant-interrogation" width&equals;"576" height&equals;"324" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The plot moved at a decent pace overall&comma; and the stereotypical father-daughter relationship aside&comma; I enjoyed the introduction of Quinn as a character&comma; but it was the brief scenes between Molly&&num;8217&semi;s best friend Sam and Alan Sparks that stole the spotlight in my opinion&period; Sam&&num;8217&semi;s been a fairly one-note character so far&comma; as she&&num;8217&semi;s never really evolved beyond the &&num;8216&semi;best friend&&num;8217&semi; role&comma; but her interrogation by Sparks&&num;8217&semi; proved to be one of the episode&&num;8217&semi;s best moments&comma; as both characters showed some new depth that made me view them a bit differently&period; I doubt Sparks&&num;8217&semi; conflicted personality is going to go anywhere special&comma; but it is still nice to see him straddle that fine line between trying to protect Molly and her family and outright ordering their termination&period; As for Sam&comma; I found the reveal that she used her status as a prestigious doctor to get her mentally unstable brother out of a prison sentence for murder to be genuinely surprising&comma; and knowing just how far she&&num;8217&semi;s willing to go for those she cares about definitely explains why she&&num;8217&semi;s so dedicated to helping Molly&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>However&comma; the following episode didn&&num;8217&semi;t seem to do anything different from what we&&num;8217&semi;ve been used to&period; While it did provide more interesting questions regarding what kind of scientific anomaly caused Molly&&num;8217&semi;s pregnancy&comma; there was so much conspiracy nonsense being thrown around that it muddled up the few good things the episode did&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s hardly anything substantial to even recap because it all felt far too familiar&comma; with Molly and John frantically digging for answers in all the same ways we&&num;8217&semi;ve seen them do it in every episode&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Molly&&num;8217&semi;s abduction by Yasumoto didn&&num;8217&semi;t really lead to anything either&comma; unfortunately&comma; and it ended far too quickly to feel threatening or suspenseful&period; While the fact that Yasumoto seemed to have removed the growing child from Molly&&num;8217&semi;s womb via surgery is both unsettling and fascinating&comma; it seems to only lead into more excessive conspiracy theories that just aren&&num;8217&semi;t enough to make me connect with any of the characters in a meaningful way&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;09&sol;05074101&sol;Extant&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-66287 aligncenter" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;09&sol;05074101&sol;Extant&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Extant-injured" width&equals;"726" height&equals;"482" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>And as for Ethan&&num;8217&semi;s robotic coma&comma; well it was almost an afterthought&comma; and the only character who benefited from it was Julie&comma; John&&num;8217&semi;s assistant who helped him build Ethan from scratch&period; I appreciated that they finally did something with her character&comma; as up to this point she&&num;8217&semi;s done almost nothing except act like the jealous coworker who resents Molly from taking her &&num;8216&semi;project&&num;8217&semi; from her&period; While this is still Julie&&num;8217&semi;s defining characteristic&comma; I liked seeing it more directly addressed when she confronted John over it&period; Will we see this particular plot thread continue&quest; Maybe&comma; maybe not&comma; but I still appreciated a break from the typical conspiracy formula that the show has fallen into&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Extant<&sol;em> is a show that seems to be tripping over its own ambitions and ideas&comma; which is disappointing because there really is so much potential here for a fascinating look into life&comma; family&comma; and science&period; These two episodes both had their pros and cons&comma; with <em>Shelter<&sol;em> being the most successful in overall plot progression&comma; but the show&&num;8217&semi;s obsession with stacking mystery on top of mystery is starting to get old&comma; and I really hope to see it break some new ground soon&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m still interested in seeing where it all goes&comma; and will continue to catch myself up&comma; but so far Extant still has a ways to go in order to live up to its potential&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;