Do Creators Have Power Over Their Creations, or is it The Opposite? RAISED BY WOLVES Digs Deeply Into That Issue in Season 2

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede A trip to the tropics is usually welcomed in the middle of winter. But as Season 2 of HBO Max’s RAISED BY WOLVES reveals, a warmer climate doesn’t necessarily mean a warmer reception. Returning with two new episodes on Thursday, Feb. 3, on Crave and CTV Sci-Fi Channel, Season 2 of RAISED BY WOLVES – a science-fiction drama created by Aaron Guzikowski – picks up right where Season 1 left off. And that wasn’t necessarily a great place for the main android characters, known as Mother (played by Amanda Collin) and Father (played by Abubakar Salim). After Mother shockingly gave birth to a flying snake-like baby – not at all what she was expecting – she decided that the baby had to be destroyed. She feared that when it was done nursing, it was going to want blood, which would be a threat to the android couple’s human children, not to mention all of what’s left of humanity on a planet known as Kepler 22 b. So Mother and Father attempted a murder-suicide with the snake-like baby, but it didn’t work. The last viewers saw of the rapidly growing creature, it had survived the crash-landing that was intended to kill it, and was escaping through the trees on the tropical side of the planet. Mother and Father had jumped out of the vessel pre-crash, and while their fate was not immediately known, they are androids, so they can always be repaired and powered back up. “Season 2, to me, is a lot about power,” said Guzikowski in a virtual roundtable interview, but he was talking about the power of one group over another, or one entity over another, rather than electrical power. “It relates to creators’ power over their creations, and also perhaps more interestingly, the creations’ power over the creators,” Guzikowski continued. “Mother has created this serpent, this monster, who she finds herself connected to in some ways, more so than she’s connected to her human children. And at the same time, we have Father, who feels a bit left out over Mother having created this being without him. So in Season 2, he, too, is attempting to create something of his own, as he reconstructs an ancient android, played by Selina (Jones) and called Grandmother. So we’re dealing a lot more with the power dynamics in Season 2.” Kepler 22 b is supposed to represent a new beginning after Earth was devastated by war, but the vast gulfs that exist between androids and humans, and atheists and religious believers, seem insurmountable. So is RAISED BY WOLVES – which also stars Travis Fimmel, Niamh Algar, Kim Engelbrecht, and many more – a hopeful show? Or is it simply more evidence that compromise on anything is increasingly impossible, and everyone is doomed? “Personally, I find it to be a hopeful show at the end of the day, because I think, despite all of the conflicts, it is about trying to rebuild a civilization,” Guzikowski said. “And that’s very difficult. But it’s about a blank slate, on a beautiful virgin planet – or at least what appears to be – and you have people trying to build a new society, to actually move forward and create something.” Guzikowski added that sometimes it’s easier to start from scratch than it is to reverse course or reconfigure. “Here on Earth, we take everything for granted, and everything feels like it’s kind of already been etched in stone, already there, it has all been built,” he said. “And now we have to kind of unbuild it and rebuild it back, you know? That can be difficult, and dispiriting in a lot of ways.  But I love the purity of the idea that you’re at a new place, and human beings are trying to build something. They’re trying to continue on. I think that’s hopeful.” Just watch out for flying snakes. billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv