Extrapolations season 1 episode 8 recap, review & ending explained

Open Go TV / April 29, 2023 / Reviews

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Extrapolations episode 8 concludes the first season of the sci-fi drama with Nick Bilton’s trial as he tries his best to remain untouchable by law or consequences.

Recap

Nick Bilton is summoned by the International Criminal Court and is tried for Ecocide. The prosecutor is Lucy Abodo, and as Bilton pleads not guilty, the trial commences and is broadcast throughout the world.

Abodo brings on former employees of Bilton, including Rebecca Shearer, whose testimony is attacked by the defense by chalking up her statement to be a mere expression of anger and frustrations regarding her son Ezra forgetting about her.

She is later shown to have fallen off a building and it’s unclear if it’s a suicide or murder. Later, Abodo calls on Mr. Chopin, whose testimony doesn’t do much either. However, Abodo persists and works out an angle that does prove to be clearly effective.

Meanwhile, Bilton’s daughter, Decima, who he’s kept a secret from everyone and intends to keep it that way, keeps up with the broadcast, puzzled and angered at the way her father is being portrayed by other people in the trial.

Abodo brings up the Newcomen project, that promised to reduce carbon emissions via a device invented by a woman named Matafele Kabua, who Decima later finds out is her mother since the witness reveals that Matafele named the device after her daughter.

Nick’s rousing speech, however, manages to sway the jury’s verdict as he wins the trial. Lucy Adobo is sad and even presented with a peace offering by Bilton. However, she instead chooses to keep going after the billionaire businessman and with the help of Decima, manages to reopen the case.

The ending of the Extrapolations finale sees Bilton inside a prison facility in outer space, serving his time for the crimes of collusion. Down on Earth, Decima is hopeful that humans would course correct towards improving the climate once again.

Extrapolations season 1 ending explained in detail:

What is Project Newcomen?

Project Newcomen was one of Nick Bilton’s plans to use technology to his own capitalistic ends. Jonathan Chopin was in charge of the project but when they failed to get it to work, he was fired and replaced by Martha Russell.

It aimed to use a machine made by a woman named Matafele Kabua, who named it after her daughter, Decima. However, Bilton brought the advancements on it to a halt, having vested interests in controlling the carbon in the atmosphere, which is why he acquired a 49% control of the machine’s patent.

Decima being Matafele’s daughter, owns the rest of it and so Bilton adopted her and acquired in essence, the whole of it. This is also why he keeps Decima a secret from even his close friends and associates.

When his trial starts going southways for him, he gets his company to launch the Newcomen product, and setting the carbon content limit to 470 parts per million, in the process, diminishing the antagonism levied against him.

Who is Decima?

Decima is Nick Bilton’s adopted daughter who remains inside his huge castle for the most part, and away from the eyes and ears of the world because he wants her to remain a secret.

This is because she’s the biological daughter of Matafele Kabua, who invented the machine that could reduce carbon content in the atmosphere. Bilton wanted to acquire it but only had 49% control over the patent. The rest of the contol was Decima’s, who was the person her mother named the invention after.

During the trial, Decima adds things together when revelations come to light, and conspires against her father to bring him to justice.

How does Bilton get arrrested?

Bilton has been the prime antagonist in Extrapolations throughout all its anthological episodes. He’s the big bad, the evil corporate lord, the capitalist final boss profiting off the climate change and its worsening state, while also actively investing in making it just worse.

It’s his adopted daughter and Martha Russell who work against him at the end. Martha’s moral compass compelled her towards the right path when Rebecca Shearer dies during the trial and her autopsy entailed irregularities in her medicine — provided for by Alpha.

Bilton also takes her to his secret room full of his shadowy friends who are all wealthy capitalistic cronies like him and conspire in glee and unison what limit would be the best for the carbon emissions. She’s disturbed to see the fate of the climate and Earth be at the hands of these money-hungry maniacs.

She chooses to work against him and give testimonies to the court under fake avatars. She also helps Lucy Adobo and later tells her about Decima, who then records the session Bilton had with his friends about deciding the carbon concentration limit, and when he refuses to decrease it to 350 parts per million, Decima testifies against him at the court, also presenting damning new evidence.

The case is reopened and Bilton is eventually arrested and sent off to a prison facility revolving along one of Earth’s orbits. Lucy wonders if humans will change their ways and Decime optimistically opines that they will, as Extrapolations rolls the credits on the finale.

Review

Extrapolations episode 8 is one of the worst instalments in the show, with almost the entirety of it coming off as a heavy-handed, preachy, and cringeworthy affair.
The show has been heavy-handed with its themes earlier too, but never quite to this much intensity where it almost seems alien to the rest of the show.
The billionaire big bad at one point lectures the public on being just as responsible, if not more, of harming the climate as the capitalists like him who, in reality, have done far more damage to the climate that what the rest of the population combined is incapable of.