Extant: S02E10: "Don't shoot the messenger"

Rating: 5
OK

In A Nutshell

Replicating season one, Extant has taken a real nose dive in quality and even though it's Sci-Fi and thus takes a little bit of acceptance that it's not based on anything to do with current reality, lots of the plot developments take quite some believing at any level.

Things start off unfortunately back at that boring dragged out circus from last week that we all suffered. No wonder Molly died. Probably through boredom at the place. Anyhow, naturally she isn't dead. This show wouldn't exist without her involvement both as a character and actress, so she ain't going anywhere folks. Yes, she gasps for air once more, after having vision in the circus of having shot JD and carrying some sort of pendent. Quite why they had to turn the circus from past experiences to potential future experiences, I don't know, but as both of these "vision" elements revealed themselves later in the episode, it wasn't much of a vision really. 

So, Molly wakes up from the dead and shreds all her skin like the other hybrids have done. Still looks more like dodgy makeup than actual skin but hey ho ... JD and Toby as now having a bromance it seems as they get trapped in the elevator during all the crazy stuff kicking off with the hybrids in the GSC. The smoke alarm trick though gets them out, and they go their separate way, only to moments later be reunited, giving you the impression that there's about only two rooms in the GSC. Ethan has evaded Julie and all security, which you'd think would be very tight in a GSC, and finds Molly trapped in her hospital room. There's a password error on the keypad, but don't worry, Ethan is a human robot, so he can do some sort of Star Trek Data stuff and figure it out right? No, he just presses a button and everything is overridden. Oh ... ok ... 

In another bizarre continuity oddity, the lead scientist at the GSC is found also wondering the corridors whilst everyone else has long ago been evacuated. Absolutely makes no sense why he's there or what he adds to the plot, which seems to be only so he can be killed by ... Lucy! Yes, mad robot is back and so are all the humanichs as they are released into the GSC to kill the hybrids ... which ultimately, after much marching about, they fail to do anything as the hybrids are gone ... except for Hera of course, who is planting multiple bombs in this virus room and ready to press the trigger to detonate ... when Molly turns up outside and asks to be let in. You can get why Hera would let her in, but then it turns out that Toby is also inside the room! Huh? Why? What could he have done to convince her to let him in? Did he just override the lock? Why hadn't she just killed him? She then uses her hybrids powers to have Toby say he loves Molly, which I don't understand at all. Pointless waste of time. Molly naturally convinces her not to blow them all up, saying that peace is the way forward. Toby is also suddenly on her side 100%. What? Where did he suddenly see the light? Then JD turns up, having already noticed Molly was out and alive, they then decide to escape via the evacuation tunnels but Toby stays behind to pretend he had no part in their escape. They leave via the door and a second later the whole level explodes ... yet ... it quickly materialises that the explosion which evil hybrid left behind only killed 6 staff and not Molly and friends who would have been around that location at the time, or certainly the humanichs?? This all doesn't add up.

Even more bizarre follows as Molly and gang end up in another of JD's secret places that is shielded from all detection. Molly though gets a call from Toby who gave her his phone. Seems phonecalls can get through. He wants to meet her. JD gives her a cloak to protect her from facial recognition which given the dark dingy backstreets where she goes to meet him, I'm not sure what's going to be watching her there. Suddenly, the other humanich's creator, Mr Calderwood comes from character obscurity to be the main villain as Toby has looked up his file and suddenly found a 101 ways Calderwood has been manipulating them all and trying to get an army of humanichs to control the world. Quite how he read this and no one else picked up on what was in his file is beyond me. Anyhow, Toby is later arrested for treason after back from the dead Lucy (don't worry, they also wonder how she got fixed too) uses some camera trick to see a reflection in security footage showing Toby giving JD a gun. That's enough to see him charged, but he later evades being put in the prison cell by the one guard escorting him there by gently holding his handcuffed hands, by beating him up and then somehow just walking out of the GSC building despite it being shown that all his security access has been revoked!

Ethan starts going loopy,, after having an entertaining card game with JD in their hideout. Molly and JD take him to Julie to fix, because they all love each other now or something like that. Hera is left behind, having slept through JD making a racket with a cupboard, Molly leaving and returning, and JD having a card game with Ethan. That's a hell of a deep sleep she has. Anyhow, once they've all gone, evil hybrid leader turns up, naturally and we're led to believe she's now back with the hybrid gang. Meanwhile, Ethan goes R2-D2 on us and reads out a message from John! Yup, seems he hid a message in Ethan so that when a humanich kills a human (like Lucy did to that scientist earlier) Ethan will tell them that they have to see Calderwood and he'll save the world from humanichs. So, despite John and Calderwood having a big argument and not being on good terms, John left that safeguard message in Ethan. Odd? It's a nice twist though in this illogical show, to wonder if Calderwood is good or a bad guy.

Meanwhile, Toby, having got out of the GSC without any clearance, is driving his car when he sees a drone, phones Molly, but then gets blown up. Think the moral of the story here is not to phone Molly when in danger.

What I liked

JD and Ethan's card game was the most amusing and genuine scene in the entire episode.

Toby's dead. Ok we don''t know for sure but it was a missile that detonated! He was better than some characters, but sadly, failed to really shine overall.

Calderwood, good or bad? At least something interesting to ponder.

What I Didn't Like

That ruddy circus scene. Thankfully only a few minutes this week.

Hybrid attack on GSC was quite frankly rubbish and pointless. Why not just have them all kill each other, if they wanted revenge? Use the mind tricks on them all? Not set bombs that only kill 6 people anyway.

Humanichs didn't actually arrive and find any hybrids to kill. Sigh.

So, Ethan overrides a security keypad by press a button? Wow. That's tight security.

Toby suddenly pro aliens and also strangely in same room as Hera who hasn't killed him for some reason.

Hera sleeps through a lot of noise, making little sense.

Toby escapes the GSC with no security clearance.

GSC level explodes but no humanichs killed despite being nearby but six staff were killed despite the place being evacuated?

Similar to series one, a supposed villain is introduced at the last minute, Nicolas Calderon. How are we supposed to even care about someone we've not heard of?

Huh?

Molly tries to end the show early by throttling herself ...

 

Ethan proves that humanichs aren't all that clever as he presses one button to override the security lock

The cloak that JD gave Molly to protect her from facial recognition thankfully doesn't need to be worn over the face

Check your mirror Toby, you're toast.

Hera sleeps unbelievably deeply

And Finally

This should have been tense and frantic, but the hybrid attack on the GSC was dull and devoid of any logical sense. How things developed was full of continuity issues just like last season.