Review of 'Raised by Wolves' 2.4

A really superb and pivotal Raised by Wolves 2.4, in which every kind of sentience is pitted against one another. Since most of the sentience is one kind or another of artificial intelligence, usually embodied in some kind of android, the contests and their outcomes provide one of the best explorations of the power and limitations of programmed android intelligence in any television series. Isaac Asimov would have loved this. I wonder if he would have agreed that this was a far better example of such exploration of android intelligence than we've at least seen so far in the Foundation series on Apple TV+.

[Spoilers follow ... ]

Mother is the victor in every contest. She triumphs over Marcus, whose superhuman powers come from Mother's eyes. Mother easily repossesses them, and reclaims the awesome power that lets her then triumph over the Trust. It will be instructive to see how Mother's devotion to care for her children compares with the Trust's professed devotion to serve humanity.

But Mother may have a rival. The Frankenstein-like android brought back to life by Father may well have powers comparable to Mother's. How will Father's "creation" use them? Which side will she choose, or will she comprise her own side, and how will she then fare in implementing her choice?

Meanwhile. there's a beautiful and instructive more minor android vs human story with Vrille, though it's not really minor. The mentality of even a child android is impossible to predict and therefore effectively program. This makes the child android an ideal character to explore in any narrative about androids. Raised by Wolves has a golden opportunity to do this.

I'll miss Vrille's character and I'll be back here soon with a review of the next episode.