The Raised By Wolves Colony Report: Sol's Servants Grow And A Serpent Returns

This week kicks off with Mother having a quick conversation with Sue (Niamh Algar), who has remained at the colony despite threatening to leave. She explains that she was made Medic and was given access to the Collective's computers. She looked into the source of the voice that Mother, Marcus, and Paul (Felix Jamieson) have all been hearing and discovered that there's an electromagnetic field over the tropical zone that blocks the voice. Mother seems neither pleased nor unsettled by this knowledge, which is unsettling in itself. She then goes to get her assignment for the day and is instructed to be a "punisher," beating a man for his crimes on orders from Quantum 6. Later that evening, the man comes around to each of the living units and apologizes to the colonists. He apologizes to Mother, Father, and their brood, and Father is relieved that there is justice without the need for capital punishment. 

Campion (Winta McGrath), Mother's favorite child, tells Mother and Father about the items he and Paul found near the giant tree. Mother and Father decide to turn the hexagonal Mithraic artifact in, while they instruct Campion to return the stolen egg back to the nest. While he attempts to do so, he falls and breaks the egg, and his sibling, "Seven," the snake-baby, slithers out of the wilderness to check on him. The serpent has gotten much larger since Mother and Father tried to kill it, but it doesn't seem particularly aggressive. Mother goes to check on Campion and sees the serpent hovering over him and screams at it to leave. Without her laser eyes or her flight powers, she's not much use against the thing, but that's not going to stop her from trying. She checks on Campion as it flees, and in what might be one of the most bizarre moments in TV history, she begins to lactate from her six milk glands on her torso as she watches her snake-child fly away. She goes back to camp and informs them of the threat, then has Sue permanently seal her teats, informing her that it's no problem since she can no longer create life. Sue is hesitant, but Mother reminds her that even without her eyes she's better at protecting everyone from the snake creature than the humans. Everyone goes off to look for the serpent, and Mother takes a massive gun with her just in case. 

Meanwhile, Marcus is growing closer to his new recruit, Decima (Kim Engelbrecht). They discuss their faith and their possible future, and Marcus gives Decima some artifacts that may be able to guide them towards the Tree of Life. Later, Tamerlane (James Harkness), the man Mother punished, tries to escape the Collective, and Marcus and Decima go to rescue him. They find him before the atheists do and bring him back to their colony. He agrees to join their mission and quickly offers to sacrifice himself in the name of a mission to steal one of the atheists' tanks. Thankfully, he is able to stop the tank without injury, and Marcus quickly dispatches the atheist soldiers inside. This is all a little too much for Decima's android daughter, Vrille (Morgan Santo), who begins shutting down. Decima instructs Vrille to go back to the Cave and sleep, but along the way she is beset upon by another atheist tank. She manages to evade them and stumbles across Campion and Paul, who are both out looking for the serpent. She asks for their help — she injured her leg escaping the tanks — but they refuse. She offers to help them, explaining that she has tracking capabilities, and they relent.

The episode ends with Mother discovering the shed skin of her serpentine offspring. It's absolutely huge, which means snake-baby is still growing. She talks to it, telling her child that it is a beast and doesn't deserve her love or her tears the way her human children do — but she seems to be trying to convince herself of that as much as anyone else. She burns the skin, setting off to kill the terrifying thing she made. 

Over on Team Sol, things seem a little less dire. Sure, there are only three humans and one android up against a whole planet of things that want to kill them, but at least they have the power of faith! They also have a new recruit, which means they've exponentially increased their numbers. Tamerlane doesn't have quite as many useful skills as Decima or Vrille, but he's willing to put his life on the line in the name of Marcus' ideas, so that has to be good for something. Marcus seems downright gleeful this entire episode, which is just as unnerving as Mother's general demeanor. If Mother and Marcus ever decided to have a "creepiest facial expression" contest, we might all die from the resulting discomfort. 

The biggest problem facing Team Sol right now is that Vrille has been injured and is now wandering around with two members of the opposing faction, but they're all kids and will hopefully not start fighting among themselves. Campion isn't likely to do anything to hurt Vrille, and Paul is a fervent believer in Sol like her mother, so odds are good that they can get along. If Vrille reunites Paul with his father, Marcus, however, it would destroy whatever good morale the atheists have built, especially for his mother Sue and his adoptive mother, Mother.