“More in Heaven and Earth” is episode seven of season one of Extant.
Molly is on the Seraphim when a bunch of things go wrong. This is actually a sim and, when she comes out of the simulator to applause for having succeeded, she isn’t best happy with the scenario. Then Sparks enters and tells them there was a distress call from the Aruna station. They lost contact and it’s believed there were no survivors. Everyone, go home.
23 months later and Molly is showing the Aruna distress call video, from Sparks’ daughter, Katie, that she got, and Ethan decoded, in the previous episode, “Nightmares”, to Sam. What Sparks said happened wasn’t what did happen. Katie has the same symbol on her stomach. Molly tells Sam that Sparks knew what happened but sent Molly up anyway. Sam wonders if Sparks knew Katie was pregnant. According to Molly, Katie didn’t know Katie was pregnant. They knew something was up there and sent Molly on a fishing expedition. And she came back pregnant.
Molly is sure the baby is still alive; they wouldn’t go to all this trouble and then abort the baby. She will find it; Sparks will show her. Sam says they can’t even prove Molly saw the Aruna video. No, but Derek Pearce can. He was the mission specialist; he would have received the distress call. Molly also wants Sam to go through the Aruna crew’s medical history and see if there’s anything odd. And Molly wants Sparks to know she’s looking.
Kern is telling Sparks that Kryger is not a problem, but he doesn’t have the Aruna file yet. He has a promising lead, though. Kryger himself. Kern is questioning Kryger when his mother arrives. His mother is concerned about him. That he might be using again. It seems Kern’s father had some problems.
Ethan is going back to school and two girls are talking in Japanese about him; one wants a robot, but a girl robot too. Ethan speaks to them in Japanese. One apologises; she didn’t realise he spoke Japanese. Neither did John. Where did Ethan learn how to do that? He doesn’t know.
Sparks arrives at Sam’s office; he wanted to thank her for the information she provided about Molly meeting Kryger. It was useful. He needs to know she can be trusted to act in the best interests of the organisation. Which are her best interests, too, considering what’s at stake. And why was she looking up the Aruna medical records? Because Molly asked her to. Did Sam give them to Molly? Well, Sparks said he wanted Molly to trust Sam again. No, she doesn’t know why Molly wanted them. Sparks wants Molly to ask him first next time.
Julie is arranging a date with Odin by the sounds of it, which Charlie pokes fun at her over, when John arrives and asks them how Ethan suddenly learnt how to speak Japanese. Charlie says Ethan’s neural net is programmed in basic Japanese. Yes, but that wouldn’t explain this. Julie suggests it’s not linguistic; it’s mathematical. Code breaking. Maybe she was wrong about; maybe school is good for Ethan. John is concerned; at this rate, Ethan will be smarter than all his teachers. So was Charlie, and he thinks he turned out okay. Ethan was deigned to learn at the same rate as his peers, to be like other kids. And other kids don’t do what he just did. Charlie thinks it would be cool if they did. John thinks it would be terrifying. It wouldn’t be human.
Pearce having refused to speak to Molly, she looks up the price of his penthouse apartment, rightfully thinking it’s a bit pricy. Except it isn’t, as he paid a dollar for it. Bought from Claypool Industries, who bought it for $5.2 million six days later. Claypool are, or were, a mining and ore company. She sends Pearce an email, asking who they are. Then John contacts her about Ethan’s newfound skill in Japanese. And Yamamoto wants to see them about it. Molly sends another email, with the symbol, asking Pearce what it is. He replies; meet him at his apartment.
Molly is heading out when Sam arrives. The Aruna medical records showed their brain scans at first glance to be completely normal. At second glance, they were identical. The tether showed something they started looking for after it cropped up in mining missions. The Aruna wasn’t a mining mission, though. But Claypool who paid off Pearce was a mining company. They were presumably looking for something valuable. And perhaps found something even more so. However, Pearce, when Molly turns up to see him, has apparently killed himself. He’s dead, certainly.
John is concerned about the risk Molly is getting into. He’s also concerned about Ethan’s development. And there are other forces at play.