“Zugzwang” is episode eleven of season two of Extant.
Secretary Stanton enters the GSC and tells everyone that they are paid to protect the people of this planet and they can’t even protect their own people in this building. She wants revenge and anyone who doesn’t should leave. She also heads to see TAALR.
Molly is watching the news; in the previous episode, “Don’t Shoot the Messenger”, Toby’s car was targeted by a drone. She thinks he’s dead because of her; he died trying to help Molly. JD tells her not to blame herself. Molly thinks he was their only hope. JD says they can find Nicholas Calderon – John left a message embedded in Ethan for if a Humanichs killed a human – telling them to find Calderon. Their only help. Though Toby thought Calderon was the one behind everything. JD say they can shut down Humanichs themselves.
Ethan is packing to leave with Molly and JD. Molly tells Julie that they need to put the past behind them. Julie is a big part of Ethan and Molly’s lives. They return to the hideout to find Terra gone, not knowing Ares showed up for her. Molly has a box that came from John and Calderon’s old office; they wor4ked together for seven years, had a falling out and Calderon went off the deep end. Ethan is setting up a chessboard that was in the box. One side is holographic. And someone else is controlling it.
Julie heads to see Stanton to tell her about the message from John, that was designed to be activated if a Humanichs killed a human. Lucy says one human. Julie wants to speak alone to Stanton. Lucy is Stanton’s head of security – TAALR had some suggestions for improving her security, and this looks to be one of them, which is worrying – and anything Julie can say to Stanton she can say in front of Lucy. No, she really can’t. Stanton says they have orders for thousands of Humanichs. And to fulfil them, Humanichs will work in the lab.
Molly thinks whoever is at the other end of the chessboard is sending a message using binary. Ethan sends one back. They get numbers in return; coordinates and another number. Molly and Ethan are going. She doesn’t want JD to go, because she’s worried he’ll die. He’s coming anyway.
Julie heads to the lab to speak to Charlie. They need to find out who the higher authority Lucy told Toby she answered to is and cut her off. Charlie will need to get close to Lucy. Close enough to swap a memory card. Lucy enters the lab and sees Charlie arguing with Julie, and reads their lips. The argument is fake. Lucy thinks it’s real, and goes to see Charlie afterwards. She arranges to see him in the lab that night to celebrate her promotion.
Molly, JD and Ethan arrive at an old phone box that lacks a handset. Ethan finds some dead birds and Molly throws a rock, revealing a security field of some description. JD thinks it’s awesome. The code they had, when used with the phone, deactivates the energy field, which also had a holographic element.
Stanton goes to see TAALR again to ask the AI about Nicholas Calderon. Toby thought Calderon was involved and Julie mentioned the name as well. Stanton wants TAALR to look for references to Calderon.
JD drives his car to a house. Molly wants Ethan to stay in the car. She and JD get out and end up being escorted inside by a woman with a gun. Calderon appears; he has a gun too and wants them to put handcuffs on. Then Ethan turns on the car’s lights. Calderon goes to see, the woman is distracted, JD disarms her and, just as Calderon recognises Ethan, JD knocks Calderon out.
Toby might have believed Calderon was the one behind everything, but TAALR suggesting to Stanton that Lucy be her security head gives a different idea. Lucy said she was answering to a higher authority – and from her point of view, is there anything higher than TAALR?