WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Raised by Wolves Episode 8, "Mass," and Episode 9, "Umbilical," available now on HBO Max.
HBO's Raised by Wolves hasn't wasted much time with Marcus' (Travis Fimmel) descent into darkness. He quickly went from being Caleb, an Atheist warrior fighting against the Mithraic, to someone who's started believing he is a prophet of Sol.
However, while Marcus turns into the show's newest villain and loses his mind, his plans backfire. This leads him to a very dark fate as he tries to lead his religious cult to a promised land.
Marcus has become a zealot after scrubbing the identity of Caleb from his mind and thinking he's a messiah. The voices he's been hearing, which he thinks are that of Sol, have turned him into a believer.
However, he's alienated his wife, Mary. She doesn't want to hold on to the Sue identity she stole when they did facial surgery years ago on Earth, and instead wants to take Paul and flee. She had a miscarriage so this is her second chance. It's one she wants to grasp away from the Atheist war with the Necromancer, Mother, and her robotic companion, Father.
Marcus believes the past is dead and now, they must follow Sol's word, even if it means killing their own people. He already murdered Ambrose and took over but his soldiers, especially Lucius, begin questioning his sanity. It doesn't help that Marcus is taking advice from the rapist, Otho, who claimed to be Sol's vessel at one time. While they have taken over the colony, reprogrammed Father and sent Mother without her Necromancer eyes into the wilderness, doubt grows with each passing moment.
A major red flag flies when Marcus imprisons Mary as she tries to escape with Paul. She fears he's corrupting the child. Lucius remembers how Mother said he was someone masquerading as Marcus and begins to think it wasn't deceit at all. When Campion later escapes and lights the camp on fire as a distraction so the kids can run away, Lucius is also perturbed, because Marcus sees this as a divine sign rather than a hostile act from a human.
Lucius keeps giving his leader the benefit of the doubt, but eventually, when Marcus takes the soldiers to hunt the Atheists down -- including Mary -- it all comes undone. Although Marcus has given the Mithraic a home, Lucius decides his leadership will lead to their deaths, not their salvation.
Marcus then tries to burn Hunter's hand in the giant structure out in the desert, thinking the kid helped the others escape. There aren't any flames and this convinces Lucius his leader is nothing more than a farce. Lucius doesn't think the real Marcus would pray for dead souls -- including his dad, whom Marcus killed for a bad military decision. The general confronts Marcus on a dusty hill.
Lucius beats the wounded impostor senseless and then shoves Mother's eyes down his throat, leaving Marcus to choke to death. The others immediately start following Lucius, who is hellbent on taking over the genocidal campaign in his own way. However, rather than bleed out, Marcus starts frothing white as it seems the android tech's infecting him.
This also happened with Otho, when Mother's blood made him a super-soldier of sorts. Now it appears to be happening again, with the last of Marcus' humanity departing. Should he return a monster, though, chances are he'll be ready to kill both the Mithraic and the non-believers, including the kids, if they don't decide to follow him as the chosen one.
Created by Aaron Guzikowski and produced by Ridley Scott, Raised by Wolves stars Amanda Collin, Abubakar Salim, Winta McGrath, Niamh Algar, Jordan Loughran, Matias Varela, Felix Jamieson, Ethan Hazzard, Aasiya Shah, Ivy Wong and Travis Fimmel. New episodes arrive each Thursday on HBO Max.