Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Raised By Wolves’ Season 2 on HBO Max, A Sumptuous Sci-Fi Of Belief, Existence, And Violence

Raised by Wolves, the deeply imagined, visually rich sci-fi drama that premiered on HBO MAX in 2020, returns for its second season with renewed vigor and a packet of lasting questions. The Earth-destroying war between atheists and a religious group known as the Mithraic reverberates 600 light years away on Kepler-22b, where two androids are shepherding a group of children and a rogue zealot of Mithras is stirring up trouble for the atheist group’s fledgling colony.

RAISED BY WOLVES SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An ant’s eye view of a forest canopy; static and squelch distort the image. This is the point of view of an android coming back online…

The Gist: As the first season of Raised by Wolves hurdled to its finish, android pioneers Mother (aka Lamia, played by Amanda Collin) and Father (Abubakar Salim) plunged their landing craft into one of Kepler-22b’s many gaping holes in order to kill the snake-like creature that had been gestating inside Mother. They meant to plunge into the planet’s molten core, sacrificing themselves for the good of the children who’d become their own. But it didn’t work out that way, because their lander zipped right through the core and out the other side, into a Keplerian region known as the Tropical Zone. And that’s where season two of this relentlessly thinky slice of sci-fi begins, as Mother/Lamia is discovered on the forest floor by a batch of atheist colonists. She’s brought before the colony’s leadership, a quantum computer known as the Trust, and reunited with Father and their de facto family: Campion (Winta McGrath), their son and the only survivor of the embryos they brought from Earth; and the children Mother abducted during her attack on the Mithraic spaceship, including Tempest (Jordan Loughran), Hunter (Ethan Hazzard), and Vita (Ivy Wong).

Lamia and the Trust have history, both of them being the creations of legendary inventor Campion Sturges (Cosmo Jarvis), and she and the Mithraic children are made welcome in the colony, despite some grumbling from the atheist rank and file. Also with them is Sue (Niamh Algar), the atheist infiltrator of the Mithraic who joined the little band when her partner Marcus (Travis Fimmel) underwent a violent conversion experience and was left for dead by his Mithraic followers. Now hunted by the atheist colonizers, Marcus roams the Tropical Zone as a one-man army and zealot. Marcus discovers a mysterious cave bound temple to Sol, the Mithras supreme being. Was it built by Kepler’s earlier inhabitants? Maybe. But for now it’s his new base of operations. Marcus is also joined by two colonists he liberated, quantum gravity engineer Decima (Kim Engelbrecht) and her android daughter Vrille (Morgan Santo).

Lamia swears up and down that her past as a fearsome weaponized battle droid known as the Necromancer is behind her. And Campion is in her corner, even if Paul (Felix Jameison) isn’t, and also continues to hear a voice he attributes to Sol. Relics to that unknown earlier civilization dot the surface of Kepler, like misshaped pieces to a larger puzzle. And Marcus is driven by his internalized belief system to drive out the atheist interlopers. Raised by Wolves season two will also have to contend with the evil flying lamprey that survived the Mother and Father’s kamikaze maneuver. When the creature was last seen, it slithered through the air over the treetops, already hundreds of feet long.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? When it comes to human colonization of the stars and fully realized science-fiction world-building on the small screen, Raised by Wolves has a cousin in The Expanse, which just concluded a successful six-season run at Amazon Prime.

Our Take: With its thematic and professional connections to Ridley Scott, Raised By Wolves has become another worthy entry in the legacy of the director’s work in Alien and Prometheus, films that probed the mortal consequences of extra-planetary colonization even as they housed the spark of human existence in new forms. Androids are a part of life in the 22nd-century universe of Wolves, but they aren’t created equal. And they’re the subject of ridicule and classism, even as an android in necromancer form is the most terrifying and formidable weapon anyone can imagine. (Whenever Lamia’s abilities in that department manifest, Wolves becomes one of the most deliciously gory shows on record.) As its human factions battle over their technocratic and deistic belief systems, the androids of Raised by Wolves seem to be undergoing a spiritual transformation of their own, and that interplay between intelligent design, human folly, and religious fervor is at the heart of nearly every scene on a show that’s unwavering in its intellectual hunger.

Wolves is also commendable for being impenetrable. In a media age where exposition and other limiting narrative factors are bound to the bottom line and penetration of The Discourse, Raised by Wolves is having its own conversation altogether, a self-contained world that just keeps building more crazy things into its narrative and having the gall and courage to pay them off. Remember, in the first season, it wasn’t aliens that were discovered on Kepler-22b, but devolved human beings. The technical (spiritual?) specifics of Mother/Lamia’s downloaded insemination are still in play, and completely fascinating, not to mention how an all-knowing, all-seeing quantum computer could conveniently miss the gigantic flying snake thing that also lurks in the planet’s existing mythology. In short, Raised by Wolves is operating on many, many levels, and doing so with a grace and curiosity in storytelling that’s eminently rewarding.

Sex and Skin: None so far. But keep in mind that last season, Mother/Lamia was impregnated via downloaded files while immersed in a virtual landscape, and that the child emerged from her throat as a lamprey-like creature indigenous to Kepler-22b that grows exponentially and can also fly.

Parting Shot: As Mother, Father, and the children bed down in their modular living quarters, Marcus sidles up in the darkness. Inspired by his prayers to Sol, he traces a sun in the dirt and sets it alight. The group wonders what it could mean, but Father knows. “It’s a threat, Mother…”

Sleeper Star: Niamh Algar continues her fine work as Sue, the combat medic and onetime atheist who concealed her true identity and secured passage to Kepler as a Mithraic, only to bond with the son whose real mother she murdered and supplanted. As season two begins, Sue’s strained relationship with Paul (Felix Jameison) and tenuous alliance with Mother/Lamia is one of its most intriguing threads.

Most Pilot-y Line: Lamia and Sue agree that whatever voice is influencing Paul and Marcus, it’s probably the same thing that forced its way into Lamia’s android subconscious. “Perhaps [it’s] some kind of signal, a transmission that both androids and humans can hear.” And they’re determined to discover its source.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Raised by Wolves is lavish science-fiction storytelling that delivers suspense, intrigue, visual wonder, and the thrill of discovering a brand new world.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges