Home Featured TV Shows All TV Shows Movie Reviews Book Reviews Articles Frequently Asked Questions About Us

Wayward Pines: The Friendliest Place on Earth

"Freedom or safety. Not both."

This episode served as a massive indictment of David Pilcher's management style. How could he possibly be more incompetent?

The mandatory "fellowship gathering" was just ridiculous. Throw some popcorn and clowns at an oppressed, unhappy populace and they'll be happy and forget all about the bombings? Pilcher looked Very Displeased when Ethan put a quick end to it.

And yet, it feels like Ethan is slowly moving around to Pilcher's point of view. The Resistance is indeed dangerous. Two teens were seriously injured, two Resistance members died and two more probably just got eaten, and the Gate to the outside has been demolished by a great big dump truck. (Most Obvious Symbolism of the week.) Will the Abbies get around and over the truck? Of course they will. And what will happen to the people of Wayward Pines now? They won't know what is attacking them, or how to fend them off. Very, very bad.

Plus it's obvious that leaving the populace in ignorance just makes them more desperate to leave, which leads to dump trucks going through gates. Kate went nuts twelve years ago not because she learned the truth, but because she didn't. She desperately needs to know, and Wayward Pines needs more smart people like Kate trying to help the community survive. There must be a way to tell people that won't cause suicides. And how could the suicide Armageddon with Group A have been so all-encompassing? As we all know, the volunteers are dealing with the truth. Ethan knows, and hasn't imploded. Even the kids know. Surely some people in Group A were able to handle the truth. What happened to them? Did Pilcher stuff them back in their pods?

There are only 24 volunteers carrying out surveillance. That's too few people for the population of Wayward Pines which I actually don't know the number of but anyway, too few. (It explains why the Resistance got away with so much.) But honestly, the interrogation thing didn't make a lot of sense. Pam's purpose was way obvious, and Reggie was clearly aware of the "reckonings". Why didn't Reggie keep his small transgressions to himself? Did he think the volunteers would always get a free pass?

And what exactly happened to Reggie? Was he put back into stasis, or buried alive in a pod?

David was surveiling Pam's interrogations and knew that she lied to him about Reggie. She just couldn't face the possibility of executing their own volunteers. (Hey, who cares about the innocent kidnap victims?) Pam seemed like such a psycho at the start of the series, and now she's acting a lot more sympathetic, like she's on the side of the people and no longer in her brother's corner.

Honestly, I've said this before, but the change in Pam makes no sense from a character standpoint. And I bet we're not going to get an explanation.

Bits:

— To provide some more character motivation, Ethan told Theresa about the "Easter bombings," where a suspect that Ethan was told to release eventually caused the deaths of 621 people in DC and LA.

— The local theater was playing "A Midsummer Night's Dream". That's a little tongue in cheek.

— I got a little flash of Weekend at Bernie's when Harold was stuffing his buddy's dead body into the cab of the truck.

— I wonder how many Wayward Pines inhabitants see Dr. Jenkins for their psychiatric needs? You'd think a lot of them would react the way Kate did.

— It's sad that Ben has become one of the Stepford kids so quickly.

— "Clear laws and severe punishments. Clear and severe."

I've been enjoying this series, but the writing holes are starting to get to me. Two out of four busted gates,

Billie
---
Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

1 comment:

  1. I've been enjoying this series, but the writing holes are starting to get to me.

    I've been avoiding this series because I didn't like the books much (read the first half of the first one, skimmed the second half to find out what was going on, wasn't enthused to read any further). Then it occurred to me that there are some things that are better on TV than as a book, and this might well be one of them. And it was - we inhaled eight episodes this weekend and really enjoyed them.

    But oh dear, the holes. I'm finding it increasingly hard to get past the thing that if some of them are volunteers, why aren't all of them? And why do people surreptitiously look around when they're doing something sneaky when there are CAMERAS everywhere? They can see you no matter how sneaky you look! And why if the whole place is wired did they handily leave out the woods? And don't tell me all those teenagers know the truth and not only are they totally unfreaked by it but also none of them has breathed a word to an adult. And WHY do they need Reckonings? Pilcher said it was because they don't have an army, but they seem to have plenty of security among the volunteers - why not have them move into the town? Nnnngh. I'm still going to see the rest though!

    ReplyDelete

We love comments! We moderate because of spam and trolls, but don't let that stop you! It’s never too late to comment on an old show, but please don’t spoil future episodes for newbies.