Raised By Wolves season 2, episode 5 "The King" just turned the series into a horror show. Created by Aaron Guzikowski and executive produced by Ridley Scott, Raised By Wolves is a sci-fi series that follows androids and warring human factions to a new planet where they attempt to restart humanity after Earth has become ravaged by war. One such android, introduced into the cast of Raised By Wolves season 2, is Vrille (Morgan Santo), a child android that is modeled after her deceased human counterpart, though her latest actions have transformed the show into genuine horror.
The owner/mother of Vrille is Decima (Kim Engelbrecht), a Mithraic engineer with a shady past. Decima was the one who helped The Atheists steal The Tarantula, a human transport ship originally made by The Mithraic on Earth. In exchange for her help, Decima was able to keep Vrille, who was programmed to behave in the likeness of her human daughter, who committed suicide on Earth. However, Decima betrayed The Trust and The Atheists by telling them that The Tarantula was ready to leave Earth for Kepler-22b when it actually wasn't, as life support systems failed in the first year, leaving the inhabitants to survive on the transport for 12 years before arriving at Raised By Wolves' Kepler-22b. There, Decima and Vrille were made prisoners of The Atheists, until they were freed by Marcus (Travis Fimmel), the new self-appointed prophet of The Mithraic on Kepler-22b.
Decima is immediately enraptured by Marcus, as she was an ever-faithful Mithraic, but Marcus was always leery of Vrille, as he was a former Atheist and has battled androids since he was a child on Earth. When Vrille befriends Campion and Paul, she inadvertently leads them back to their Mithraic cave base, which eventually leads to The Trust sending Paul back with a planted biological weapon that nearly kills Paul. Marcus instructs Decima to "deal with" Vrille's lying and betrayal, to which Decima cuts away the android flesh from Vrille's face, leaving her horrifically disfigured. Vrille is seemingly killed after jumping off a cliff, but she returns with a vengeance, killing almost every member of Marcus' Mithraic group in a violent fashion. She also kills Decima as well, cutting away the flesh on her face and hanging her, turning the sci-fi show into a bonafide revenge horror series in short order.
The thematic elements of Vrille and Decima's relationship and eventual unraveling are pure horror genre material, and reflect some of the most notable and recognizable elements from the horror genre. Much like Stephen King's Carrie, Vrille is a powerful force to be reckoned with but is "programmed" to behave a certain way, until that programming begins to become corrupted, causing her to act out and push back against her mother. Vrille, who seems to be developing feelings for Campion early on, finds herself beginning to lie, much like the other androids on Kepler-22b. Eventually, she is attacked and her world is upended, which unleashes her darker side. Add in the horrific facial disfigurement, which carries its own foreboding visage, Vrille's transition from cutesy kid android to a monstrous violent killer isn't that hard to liken to a horror film.
Raised by Wolves has been packed with body horror from the beginning, making it far more than a simple sci-fi tale. Like Ridley Scott's Alien films (especially Prometheus), the show has leaned heavily into the darker aspects, particularly when it comes to gore and disfigurement, both common elements of the horror genre. By all accounts, Raised by Wolves season 2, episode 5 could have been a spinoff movie in itself, focusing on the maniacal killer android hunting down those it feels it was betrayed by and killing them in violent and sadistic ways. It's unclear where Vrille's journey will take her, as the episode leaves her still very much alive and in the wilds of Kepler-22b, but she's now established as a horrific force to be reckoned with in the show, which has now become as much horror as sci-fi.