The Biblical Sci-Fi of “Raised by Wolves”–Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #68

What hap­pens when a male android loves a female android VERY much, and they nurse human embryos togeth­er on a dis­tant plan­et after flee­ing from war-torn Earth? Why the female android flies and makes a bunch of peo­ple explode with her eyes, that’s what hap­pens! …In the first episode of this bonkers HBO Max series by Aaron Guzikows­ki (with notable assis­tance from Rid­ley Scott of Alien and Blade Run­ner fame).

Your hosts Bri­an Hirt, Eri­ca Spyres, and Mark Lin­sen­may­er reflect on how much we’re sup­posed to under­stand, what if any char­ac­ter we’re sup­posed to iden­ti­fy with, whether the imagery is just TOO heavy-hand­ed, and how this show com­pares with relat­ed sci-fi like West­world or post-apoc­a­lyp­tic shows like The Walk­ing Dead. Beware: Spoil­ers abound in this one, so you might want to watch the show, or just let us reveal its weird­ness to you.

Here are some arti­cles to feast on:

• “‘Raised by Wolves’ Finale Explained by Showrun­ner: WTF Was That?” by Adam Chit­wood
• “‘Raised by Wolves’ Showrun­ner Aaron Guzikows­ki on Craft­ing an Ambi­tious Sci­ence Fic­tion World” by Jack Giroux
• “‘Raised by Wolves’: Rid­ley Scott Explains That Mon­strous Finale” by Jen­nifer Vine­yard
• “‘Raised by Wolves’ Sea­son 2 The­o­ries That May (or May Not) Hap­pen” by Meghan O’Keefe
• “5 (Spoil­er-Free) Themes Under­ly­ing Sea­son 1 of the Sci-Fi Series, ‘Raised by Wolves’” by  Fru­men­tar­i­ous at Sand­boxx
• “The Aspi­ra­tional Android Par­ent­ing of ‘Raised by Wolves’ ” by Lydia Kies­ling

Learn more at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.