Extant recap: Morphoses

Roofies and aliens and memory swiping, oh my! Tonight’s episode of Extant continues to please with its shift from sub-par storylines to action-packed drama. Molly ups the sex appeal, JD continues to be the favorite new character, and Julie still sucks. Ethan’s story line was surprisingly present, proving my theory wrong that he’ll be taking a backseat this season. Let’s dive into the dirty deets.

Girl, you cray. As if I couldn’t stand Julie any more than I already do, my annoyance with her climbed to a whole new level. Still acting like she’s Ethan’s mother, Julie tries to win his affection through replicating his space-themed room and making him chocolate chip pancakes. News flash! Ethan basically thinks you kidnapped him from his family, and Bisquick isn’t going to make him forgive you. Ethan whines and tells Julie all he wants is his mother, and she lies to him saying he’ll see her soon. The “rabbit” hole keeps digger deeper, Jules. Can we also please note how annoying that nickname is? No wonder Ethan hates her so much.

Julie is under a ton of pressure at work with the new Humanichs initiative to make the super-robots weapons instead of companions. Julie’s boss Anna, or “Black Widow,” puts the smackdown on Julie, saying she needs to have a prototype by the end of the day. Charlie freaks out because Julie basically tells him he needs to build a space ship in the next few hours. The gang ends up pulling a prototype together, and her name is Lucy. She’s super fierce and has a bangin’ bod and chic hairstyle. If there’s one saving grace to Julie, it’s that she can design a mean Humanich. Too bad this Humanich has the super strength of an X-Men, because she crushed Charlie’s hand when they introduced themselves to each other. I’m a bit perplexed, though. The camera shot to a sulking Ethan in the background during the hand-crushing incident, so my theory is that he somehow told the “mind” of Lucy to crush Charlie’s hand through their Humanich Wi-Fi network. I don’t think Ethan would ever intentionally hurt Charlie, but Hell hath no fury like a child in need of attention. Sidenote: I wonder what Ethan would name is Wi-Fi network? Ten bucks says it’s “Rabbit Hole.”

Ethan overhears Charlie telling Julie he’s quitting because of the incident, so he decides to overheat himself so he’ll “die.” Charlie, of course, doesn’t want this to happen and agrees to stay. Instead of nurturing Ethan and educating him on the terrible decision to commit Humanich-suicide, Julie decides to reprogram Ethan’s mind to make him “forget the pain.” I’m assuming Julie wiped his memories of Molly and replaced them with ones of her and Ethan playing house. I’m anxiously waiting for the inevitable scene where Molly and her new mojo bitch-slap Julie.

Liar, liar, pants on fire. Toby, as predicted, is on the bad-guy team. Secretly working for an alien-investigating government agency, Toby has been keeping tabs on Molly and other women impregnated by the alien-orbs. Toby is also dating his chief of staff, and she knows his weak spot is Molly. In this episode we also learned that Toby has poor decision-making skills. After tracking down the mysterious alien (or human-possessed?) young man we saw at the end of last week’s episode, Toby sends in a SWAT crew to capture and kill him. Of course, the team didn’t make it five minutes without the alien manipulating their minds to kill each other. Aliens=1 Toby=-10

NEXT: Just another alien pregnancy​

Leather pants and roofies. Molly has definitely upped her wardrobe this season. The leather pants she wore in this episode were on point, and her hair continues to be Halle-Berry-fabulous. While looking stylish as ever, JD and Molly find out there is another possible alien-impregnated victim after they visit the first victim’s doctor. They agree to investigate further once they learn the abnormal symptoms are consistent. The woman is at her home with her husband, who clearly isn’t an alien. This means that the woman definitely cheated on him, because based on her symptoms she is no doubt growing an alien baby inside of her. Molly knows that the woman won’t say she cheated on her husband in front of him, so she creates a diversion and confronts her. The woman gets upset, and JD pulls them out of there.

The duo head to Molly’s house, and JD threatens to take her back to the psych ward. Molly knows she doesn’t have the time she needs to convince JD of the alien controversy, so she brings him a beer … with a splash of roofie. JD passes out, and Molly goes to find the pregnant woman they interviewed. Molly meets up with her, and the woman admits to her infidelities and abnormal pregnancy. Still, the woman refuses to terminate her pregnancy and leaves.

Trying to chase her down, Molly suddenly becomes what seems to be possessed. She walks in a trance to a biker club (while still in her hot pants—how fitting!) and finds a random dude and hooks up with him. She later wakes up in the middle of the woods and is greeted by a creepy (alien?) child, then is later woken up by JD in her bed (handcuffed, I might add), not knowing how she got there. Even worse, Molly and JD find out that the pregnant woman has died the same way as the previous victim.

What’s happening? The episode ends with Toby and his surveillance team focusing in on Molly at a bar while she’s talking to the same alien-man that killed the SWAT team. Watch out, Molly—you’re alien bait.

Team JDolly. I realize this couple name is terrible, but I don’t have much to work with. The writers are doing a great job (so far) of not rushing this relationship. Their banter is decent, and the story line isn’t too predictable. Right now I’m not sure if JD will fall for Molly anytime soon, and that makes me want to see them together even more.

Questions:

• Do the “aliens” shed skin? If so, the mysterious stranger could be Molly’s son.
• Is Ethan becoming bad? It looked to me like he triggered Lucy’s hand strength to break Charlie’s hand, and Julie’s memory-swipe isn’t going to help his humanity improve.
• Why is Molly becoming “possessed”? She already had one alien-child; are the aliens trying to make her their permanent baby maker?
• Why is Molly stretching herself? Could this be a symptom of alien mind control?

Fun facts:

• Hilarie Burton, a.k.a. Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s fiancé and baby momma, plays Anna.
• Burton starred on One Tree Hill with Tyler Hilton (Charlie), who played love-to-hate character Chris Keller.