Spoiler warning for anyone who isn’t completely caught up on Wayward Pines through the fifth episode, “The Truth.”
Please allow me to mop up the mess from my exploded head… Okay, we’re good now. What in the mysterious blue hell just happened on Wayward Pines? For the past four episodes, we’ve watched and sympathized with Matt Dillon’s Special Agent Ethan Burke, who clearly had no idea what the hell was up with this oddball town where escaping is against “the rules.” And now he kind of knows what’s going on with Wayward Pines, which of course means that the story has gotten even more complicated and difficult to understand. Heck yeah!
I still can’t quite grasp how Ethan was the only person who ever actually made it all the way through the Wayward Pines exterior, since the town has to have some extremely athletic and survivalist-type people residing there. But he’s the perfect one to do it, obviously, since he’s got the most questions about everything anyway. Of course, he’s out in all sorts of mysterious danger while his son Ben is inside of a safe classroom getting all the information handed to him.
This is the year 4028. There are the herds of evolved-from-humans “Aberrations,” the most sufficient carnivores on the planet. But who even knows how much meat is left on the planet anyway? (Outside of Wayward Pines butcher shops, that is.) Cities are largely extinct. Everyone alive was put in hibernation chambers, and many of the children will become The First Generation, which makes them responsible for keeping the human race alive and well, as Wayward Pines is a bigger version of Noah’s Ark. NOTHING WILL BE THE SAME!
Seriously, I can’t really think of any TV shows that ever dropped a gigantic info dump like that in such a short time. And not only was Toby Jones’ scientist in on it, but also Melissa Leo’s nurse. I was thrown for a loop, as I just thought Nurse Pam was a total bitch for no reason.
There are still loads of questions to be had, of course. I still don’t understand why Sheriff Pope was such a weirdo, or why talking about the past is SUCH a problem. I mean, it would get people talking, sure, but it seems like if they just told everyone what was happening, a good bulk of the population would figure out that calmly dedicating their efforts to repopulating and destroying aberrations is the best way to do things, and it wouldn’t call for that weirdo cult behavior.
Also, doesn’t anybody watch TV or Netflix in this town? I think the moment I realized that Netflix hadn’t announced a new TV series in a while would be the one where I figured out the apocalypse happened. Also, how is it that Ethan’s boss and Dr. David were in cahoots in a big city setting? And are these citizens so healthy that no one ever legitimately goes to a hospital? And where are Ethan & Co. going at the end of the episode? And why do helicopters look the same in 4028? I’m going to need a notebook for all of my ponderings.
The entirety of Wayward Pines’ ten-episode Season 1 was based on Blake Crouch's Pines, so it was supposed that most episodes would have major twists, but I still didn’t expect for the story to open up so wholly in the middle of the season. More so than the earlier episodes where characters met surprising deaths, this is the installment that truly feels like executive producer M. Night Shyamalan was a part of it all. It almost felt like the end of The Village during those last 20 minutes, didn’t it? If only Bruce Willis or Bryce Dallas Howard would have been there to be just as shocked as the rest of us as the twists unfurled.
Having seen this episode before Wayward Pines started last month (for review purposes), it has been an extremely arduous post-“The Truth” wait to see what’ll happen next in this bonkers and darkly comedic thriller. Everyone will have to wait two weeks for the follow-up, “Choices,” which will hit Fox on Thursday, June 25. Now pardon me while I hop in my post-apocalyptic helicopter and head off into the clouds.
