“Extinct” is episode two of season one of Extant.
Molly wakes to hear what sounds like a heartbeat. She goes downstairs; it’s just trainers spinning in the machine. John has got her coffee. She tells him the hardest part about being in space is the coffee is awful. He calls her out on that. Molly starts on breakfast whilst John gets Ethan up. Ethan is going to a party and they are going to eat out later; they have a lot to celebrate. John has programmed her calendar for the day.
At the ISeA, Sam looks to be examining Molly’s medical data when Director Sparks approaches her. He wants to know when Molly’s results will be ready. Tonight. Tomorrow at the latest. Sam has actually agreed to keep them from Sparks for the moment as, in the previous episode, “Re-Entry”, it turned out Molly was pregnant. Which happened whilst she was in space. Alone.
John arrives at Yasumoto Tower, where they are setting up, Yasumoto having agreed to personally fund them. Julie would like to know what John said to Yasumoto to turn this around. Femi Dodd would like to know the same thing. It wasn’t anything he did, but is related to Molly.
Molly is playing a game with Ethan. She says that the museum was her favourite place when she was young. Ethan assumes that now it’s space. No; it’s being home with him and John.
John is talking to Femi, explaining how Humanichs are born here. She doesn’t seem that impressed with her daughter being used as a comparison. Femi isn’t bothered about robots destroying humanity; they’re perfectly capable of doing that themself. If they make machines so human that they can establish a genuine connection, what will happen to the connection with each other. Femi doesn’t believe machines can give back. But that’s not why she’s here; she came to say she isn’t going to take Yasumoto doing an end run around the board lying down. John says the war is over; he won. He’s not great with Femi.
Molly hears a sound again and goes looking. It’s not the machine this time. Then she gets a pain in her stomach and sees Marcus again. He tells her it’s okay. Oddly, not remotely reassuring. Ethan comes down and finds Molly lying on the floor unconscious. Something looks to be pressing from inside her stomach. She comes round and Ethan asks if she’s okay.
They arrive at the museum where the party is being held. Ethan isn’t bothered when an elephant, which turns out to be holographic, charges at the children. Molly is chatting when Sam arrives. Sam asks what happened. Molly doesn’t know; she passed out after hearing a pounding in her head, a pain in her stomach and some kind of vision. Molly says she doesn’t know if she can trust Sparks. She explains how she saw Harmon, not dead, and that he told her not to trust ISEA. He must have been so scared he faked his own death.
Sam explains that Harmon had abnormalities in his brain scans. She doesn’t know where he got them from. But Molly has the same abnormalities. Molly wants an ultrasound running to make sure she’s pregnant. Sam will need to find somewhere it can be done off the books. Then one of the others tells them Ethan is gone.
Ethan is looking at a diorama about the evolution of people. A robot comes to speak to him, and talks about the Neanderthals and how they became extinct. Survival of the fittest; species become extinct because another species is stronger. In this case, Homo sapiens. Like Ethan. Ethan says he isn’t that. Molly arrives at this point and they agree she won’t ell John about Ethan running off if he doesn’t tell him about Molly falling down. They are being watched by Harmon. It seems Harmon had a similar experience to Molly. Seeing a dead person.
There is definitely something going on, and it seems to involve more than just Yasumoto and the ISEA. Extinct may not just be the episode title.