That was one short hour of television.

Hardly anything happened on Extant Season 1 Episode 4 but Molly managed to lose what little control she had over her situation. 

After sharing what was done to her aboard the Seraphim, she and John decided to take Ethan and flee so they could rig up a DNA isolator at her dad's place to try to figure out if there is any truth to the story Sparks is telling.

Sam has been detained and is considered a threat. When Yasumoto discovers the "life sustaining substance" he's been trying to create didn't exactly work (blood oozing out of eyeballs is a good indicator), he knows that Molly cannot find out the truth about what she might have brought back from space.

Thus begins a game of cat and mouse in which Molly walks right into an open trap at her father's place. If he has the parts to make a DNA isolator, he must have been a scientist. Of late, drinking is more important to him and it caused a separation between father and daughter. 

While Quincy (Molly's father) seemed to have his drinking under control with generic bottles labeled "ginger ale," when he was entrusted with taking Ethan into town so Molly and John could do their experiments, he immediately started gambling and hit the bottle. That's one side story that we could have done without. 

I get that Quincy lives on an island so perhaps Molly and John thought they might hide out there, but why pick someone so unreliable when the circumstances were so dire? Before that, they didn't strike me as stupid. Now I'm not so sure.

Sequencer built, Quincy gets angry at Ethan, Ethan is botnapped and hell breaks loose. Molly "finds" Ethan because they used him as a trap and the next thing you know she's inside the lab Yasumoto was creating. They even let her break out and into a bigger room on the ship they're holding her on. While she's still partially awake, there is a laser cutting out what's in her abdomen.

Now, here are the things that make you go hmmmmm. There are a lot of them, to be honest.

Sam was easily controlled because of an old story about her brother murdering someone, his mental illness and Sam finding him a new identity and covering it all up. That's way too simple and if ISEA know about that, why did they hire her?

Quincy's dog, Gus, smells something on (in) Molly and bites her. That's pretty standard fare and instead of suggesting it had been a long time since she saw the dog, she should have used her skepticism (the whole reason she's looking for DNA results) to guide her away from Sparks' explanation about her pregnancy.

Yasumoto is trying to create a life sustaining compound from a meteor that fell. He obviously wants the life that's sustained to be human. He can't test the compound on anything else and he's afraid of what's come back to earth with Molly getting out.

I'm still unsure, however, of whether Yasumoto is for or against the organism that's coming down. Maybe he knows something's coming and wants to ensure humanity can survive along side it? That would make him a bit of a good guy with knowledge aforethought.

Sparks doesn't want to hurt anyone and has done what he can to keep Sam and Molly alive, while Yasumoto didn't have a problem seeing the (Russian?) scientist die trying to create the compound. In terms of the greater good, killing one man isn't so bad if it ultimately protects humanity from what's inside Molly.

The Marcus hallucinations are a bit "in your face" with Molly, don't you think? He doesn't just appear, but stands right in her personal space while telling her not to let him go. That alien (?) knows how to make someone feel on edge.

Something tells me that even after cutting the baby out of Molly, she's not going to be in the clear. OK. The previews tell me that. Whatever has connected with her in space isn't going to let her go that easily. The five rings showed up at the site of her blood draw, so it's in a lot more than what she's carrying in her womb.

With all of the evidence piling up, I still cannot tell if whatever is happening is good or evil in nature. I'm starting to move more toward the idea that there isn't malice associated with what's happening. I'm sticking with my theory that we're looking at the next evolutionary jump that will allow humanity to survive whatever's coming to earth, even if's a little different than what we're used to.

Have you come up with any theories? If you need more evidence, watch Extant online via TV Fanatic.

Are they trying to protect humanity from what Molly brought back?

Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She's a member of the Critic's Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on X and email her here at TV Fanatic.