Spoilers for Season 1 of Wayward Pines are below.
Broadcast networks aren’t often places where you’ll find shows that are bafflingly weird and wacky, as they’re less likely to take chances on crazier-than-normal series. But Fox stumbled upon a somewhat surprising hit last summer when it unleashed Wayward Pines on audiences, and even though the show ended in a way that made it seem like it would move in a completely new direction with an almost completely new cast, it looks like plenty of cast members will be returning for Season 2, including Empire’s Terrence Howard.
Along with Howard returning as Sheriff Arnold Pope, Wayward Pines is also bringing back major players Carla Gugino as Kate Hewson/Ballinger, Hope Davis as Megan Fisher, Melissa Leo as Nurse Pam, Toby Jones as David Pilcher, Shannyn Sossamon as Theresa Burke and Charlie Tahan as son Ben Burke. As well, we’ll get to see more from Tim Griffin’s Secret Service agent Adam Hassler and Tom Stevens’ Class One leader Jason Higgins, according to Deadline. That’s basically everyone beyond Matt Dillon’s Ethan Burke and Juliette Lewis’ Beverly Brown.
Not a lot of information about Season 2 has come out beyond the new casting additions of Jason Patric and Djimon Hounsou, but we know that things will kick off not long after the bonkers Season 1 ending. Patric comes in as new Wayward Pines resident Dr. Theo Yedlin, who wakes up and finds himself in the middle of a rebellion between the town’s residents and the First Generation of students, and he has to figure out what is going on and how to keep the human race from going extinct.
That’s all fine and dandy, but we want to know how the hell all of these characters are coming back to the show when some of them are deader than dead. Sheriff Pope got shot through the head by Ethan in an early episode and was soon taken outside the town’s fence by some of the monstrous abbies, although he did return in a flashback a few episodes later, and that’s likely how he’ll show up here. The same thing will presumably happen for Dr. Pilcher, who was killed by his sister Pam during the rebellion in the finale. Considering he was the brain behind this entire affair, he’s definitely got more story to tell.
As for everyone else, we last saw Ben being woken from cryostasis by his former school chum Amy into a Wayward Pines that had largely returned to its former ways, despite everything Ethan & Co. attempted to do in Season 1. Theresa, Kate, Hope and Pam were presumably frozen, while Agent Hassler was assumed dead or serverely injured after everyone watched his video transmission from the San Francisco recon trek, which revealed that there was no one left in the coastal city.
Given how many twists and turns were peppered throughout Season 1, I can’t imagine that creator Chad Hodge and executive producer M. Night Shyamalan won’t have an even bigger number of them hitting Season 2. Find out when it premieres on Fox on Wednesday, May 25.
