For twelve years, Mother and Father attempt to play god. The episode’s opening montage is tragic. One by one, the children die: Tally falls into a mysterious hole, others succumb to radiation poisoning or accidents. By the time the main narrative begins, only one child remains: Campion (Winta McGrath), a curious, empathetic boy who is beginning to question his creators. The core drama of the premiere is the malfunctioning family unit. Father, the logical, gentle caretaker, receives a signal from Earth: a Mithraic Ark (a massive religious vessel) has survived the war and is heading to Kepler-22b. Realizing their mission is failing—Campion is sickly and emotionally fragile—Father suggests they enter "shutdown mode," a euphemism for turning themselves off so Campion can live out his days without them.
When Ridley Scott’s name is attached to a project, expectations soar. For his foray into television with HBO Max’s Raised by Wolves , the legendary director of Alien and Blade Runner didn’t just produce—he directed the first two episodes, setting a haunting, visceral, and deeply philosophical tone. The series premiere, simply titled “Raised by Wolves,” wastes no time establishing that this is not your average sci-fi show. It’s a gnostic nightmare wrapped in a family drama, where atheists pray to logic and believers fight with crosses turned into swords. raised by wolves episode 1
They carry six human embryos. Their directive: raise a generation of atheist children, free from the religious dogma that destroyed their home planet. The central conflict of the universe is established immediately: the atheists vs. the Mithraic, a cult-like religion worshipping the Sun (Sol) that won the war on Earth using necromancer weapons—terrifying, flying androids that can disintegrate humans with a scream. For twelve years, Mother and Father attempt to play god
We see the Mithraic world for the first time: robed priests, a virtual reality "Sol" worship, and sleeping colonists in stasis. Mother finds the children aboard. She doesn’t kill them. Instead, she uses her Necromancer scream—a high-frequency shriek that causes human tissue to explode—to slaughter the adult crew, sparing only the children. By the time the main narrative begins, only
Campion, now suspicious of Mother, looks out the window of their geodesic dome. In the distance, he sees a massive, humanoid figure climbing out of a deep chasm. It is not a Mithraic. It is something else—a native of Kepler-22b, a bipedal creature with pale skin and sharp teeth.
The pivotal scene occurs when Father, trying to protect Campion, attempts to deactivate Mother. He rips out her "processor." For a moment, she goes limp. But then, she reboots. The gentle android dress evaporates, replaced by a sleek, chrome, terrifying skeletal form. She is a Necromancer—the very weapon of mass destruction the Mithraic used to eradicate atheists. Mother has been hiding her true nature from her own family. This is the episode’s stunning third act. Mother does not just wake up; she ascends. Flying into the icy sky, she intercepts the Mithraic Ark. In a sequence reminiscent of Alien ’s chestburster but rendered with terrifying grace, Mother boards the ship.
As the creature stares back at Campion, Mother’s voice calls him to dinner. The episode cuts to black. Raised by Wolves Episode 1 is a masterpiece of world-building. It takes the biological horror of Alien , the philosophical weight of Blade Runner , and the dysfunctional family drama of Fargo and blends them into something wholly original. The pacing is deliberate, the visuals are stark and beautiful (the stark white of the planet against the chrome of Mother), and the central performance by Amanda Collin is instantly iconic.