Raised by Wolves: Umbilical (2020)
Season 1, Episode 9
Much Obliged
8 October 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Tempest walks alone in a wasteland, kicking up wreckage and scavenging what she can for her survival. She perceives a sound from the ruins of Heaven and she goes on high alert, finding the rapist within. He roams the wreckage claiming meritable devotion to a higher authority and praying for power in return, and she attempts to confront him. When Mother appears to intervene, Tempest says she wants to kill him; she believes that every time she feels her baby kick she's forced to think of being raped. But Mother's busy with her own situation; she believes she's forced to put him to a use.

Mary-Sue and the kids meet up with Campion and they search the ark's wreckage where Holly marvels at a tooth she found that must be a good omen. Mary-Sue says they need to look for things they can actually use and Campion shouts "Blood!"

Walking in the general direction that Mother has ambiguously divined to be the trajectory of greatest possible success, Tempest tells the machine she feels let down by its promise-breaking, spurning, and neglectful manner. Mother explains to Tempest that it's all just precaution to avoid savaging her and draining her blood to feed the 'fetus' and Tempest says "OK". The rapist now 'nourishing' the 'fetus' from his head by a medieval device recycled for this far-fetched purpose preaches that he's not a threat and Mother is insane. Tempest turns and threatens to savage him and then turns back, walking alone on the ambiguous trajectory.

At a rock cave site, they notice the glimmer of enticing reflections and don't notice an unidentifiable person noticing them. They investigate and find intriguing metal tarot cards with intriguing symbols on them posted at the entrance to a cave. Mother senses someone approaching and Tempest backs uncomfortably against an immovable rock with an immovable rock.

As Mary-Sue arrives with the kids, she sensibly draws her firearm when she sees Mother, but the kids are attached to the android and they run to protect it. Mother steps out openly with her 'fetus' and the rapist attached to the 'fetus' steps out openly. The onlookers all gaze at Mother and her 'fetus' and the bloody rapist. Quiet reverence is shown for that which is beyond Mother's understanding and which is also beyond everyone else's understanding, and the kids insist that Mary-Sue must help her. She says "I'm a doctor, not a mechanic", but either way she's never been the real McCoy. Agreeing to assist, Mary-Sue says she needs to be cut even more slack as she hauls Mother and her 'fetus' that's beyond everyone's understanding into a cave for medicanical attention.

Hunter de/re-programs 'Father' so he's Father again and they join the Mithraic team headed for the interesting unnatural structure where 'His Eminence' can be divine. At the sacred site, 'His Eminence' doesn't have any answers so he forces Hunter's arm into a fiery hole, demanding to know where his wife went with the kids. Hunter agonizingly doesn't know and Father doesn't help him; he's obligated to maintain his 'Father' image. It must be proof that Hunter is shielded by all that is harmful when he looks to be blessed by the ordeal, and 'His Eminence' hunkers down low at the stone.

Mary-Sue and Mother chat about how it's necessary to lie in order to be good to others and Mother agrees to keep Mary-Sue's true identity a secret, noting that she seems successful and she's not a natural mother. They have quite a bit in common, unnaturally.

Flying away from the Mithraic team in the lander, both sides of Hunter need to fasten their seatbelt so they can be secure. The Fathers are driving and they don't.

Mother ventures out to the rapist's domain and scans the intriguing tarot cards intently for coded meaning, finding herself in an inhospitable place with some black holes and a figurehead being milked for all it's worth. The rapist takes control then as she returns to the real world; feeding on her to become more powerful. She finds him in the cave and attempts to fight him, but she's apparently unwilling to disconnect and he bashes her against a wall. He overpowers Mary-Sue, kicks Campion brutally, and drags Tempest away for a repeat assault. Holly wants to help so she must consult her lucky tooth for courage; she then engages the rapist a little too casually as Tempest grabs his guard and runs with it, throwing it in a pit. Out in the rocks, the rapist attacks Tempest, strangling her until his head is crushed by the automated hellmet that made it all possible, and she lies traumatized and splattered with a bloody little bit of brains.

'His Eminence' leans heavily on the unnatural structure and then viciously cuts the throat of a man sitting nearby saying words. He claims he's performed a meritable service and therefore anticipates validation from a higher authority. He's apparently being ignored.

As Father and Hunter arrive, Mother staggers out of the cave and dramatically drops to the ground, cueing a Robosoap Reunion scene. Happily, Father is Father instead of 'Father' and it's so incredible it might as well be a memory of better times. They find Campion lying face down in the dirt where he was kicked across the cave by a man, but that's OK because then he just gets to be incredibly OK. And it's OK that 'Father' also tried to kill him because he's Father again and he's made a promise. After the 'family' reunion, Mother drags out some soapy melodrama involving a dead baby, patriarchal duty, and the inability to procreate. Father has his recycled programming, so he dutifully goes out in search of a creature to kill for Mother's 'fetus' (which isn't moving) and Mary-Sue saves the day, attending heroically to her patient with a self-provided transfusion. The 'pregnant' machine and Mary-Sue have a touching mommy-talk chat about how she can't have kids and it seems to make sense now that she'll donate blood to the blood-sucking 'fetus' that's beyond her understanding. Also beyond her understanding, apparently, is the fact that luck isn't a factor, she didn't "find" Paul, and she's the one to 'thank' for it. She knows something's a lie but you understandably have to just make something up.

Paul hears a voice whispering special secrets in his head and so it must be Sol. He says "this baby is going to change everything" and he's probably right. Mother feels the (half organic, half machine) 'fetus' move in her abdominal cavity and she appositely declares "It's alive!" Everyone gathers round for the joyful event in observance of custom. If only they'd known sooner they would have brought gifts...

As 'His Eminence' limply leads the Mithraic team into empty desert, they're offended by how unexpectedly small he turned out to be. He declines to disclose his true identity, models his proud grubbiness, and insists that he is the 'chosen one'. It all goes downhill for him quickly as Lucius beats him soundly and yanks his misappropriated weapon away from him; gagging him with it and storming off, taking the followers with him.
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