Are you having a really crappy day at work?
I’ll hazard a guess and say though that it’s nowhere near as the bad as the ones suffered by Dr Theo Yedlin (Jason Patric), Ben Burke (Charlie Tahan) and Kerry Campbell (Kacey Rohl), and to a lesser extent Jason Higgins (Tom Stevens) and head gardener/farmer/master of food supplies CJ Mitchum (Djimon Hounsou) not of whom are really having the much-called for “pleasant day in Wayward Pines”.
It could have a lot to do with the fact that while humanity may have survived in some much-reduced Ark-like form, surrounded by mountains and a humongous electric fence, its pretty much self-destructive business as usual as power politics, arrogance and the need for power absolute power trumps anything else.
Admittedly, it’s tricky road they walk – so far too much openness about humanity’s slide down the evolutionary ladder has led to emotional and psychic overload and an orgy of self-annihilatory destruction; and too little has left people feeling like they’re being held prisoner is some big bizarre lab rat experiment.
But so far all the absolute ruler schtick employed by the likes of leader Jason Higgins, who frankly looks like he’s just out of nappies, and his scratched to bits lady love and his 2IC Kerry, isn’t exactly proving to be the yellow brick road to existential paradise either.
So where to now?
Well if you are rash-to-judgement Jason, whose need for Kerry’s cool, calm counsel was never more dramatically emphasised in “Bitter Harvest” – a reference to bringing in the food grown beyond the wall (apparently the soil within isn’t suitable) which will nourish the human body even as its soul dies on the vine – you send your loyal First Generation goons, some of whom seem to still have a heart, out beyond the wall to retrieve Dr Yedlin before the Abbies, the evolutionary aggressive endpoint of humanity’s environmental follies, who is the only person who can stitch an injured Kerry back to good health.
Kinda of a rookie epic fail there huh Jason?
Sad part is he doesn’t seem to be learning from his mistakes at all and seems inclined to further entrench his autocratic rule on the basis that the original dictator Dr Filcher (Toby Jones), who appears by way of a recorded video feed in the episode, tolerated very little in the way of dissent himself.
And whole he’s right that a little dissent can cause a lot of damage, that is only if its poorly handled and so far no one has shown any inclination or finesse to handle it just so.
Even when Dr Yedlin, who finally grasps how utterly unique he is given the medical students at the hospital have yet to even remotely skill up to an appropriate level, flexes his oppositional muscle, he is barely tolerated, only kept along because (a) he has medical skills, (b) no one else really does at this point (and (c) there is a pragmatic need for him, especially as he’s the only one who can and does save Kerry’s life after Abbies rip her to shreds.
He isn’t happy about the way he’s been treated – being attacked by Abbies while trapped beyond the wall ain’t exactly a career perk [SIDE NOTE: the Abbies are increasingly showing signs of being far more clever and organised than anyone thought; their willingness to kill themselves to provide a biological ramp for others to climb over the wall showed ingenuity, persistence and cunning] – and none too happy about the way humanity as a whole is being treated.
Nor it should be added, does he even believe Jason’s tale of a 2000 year old nap and humanity’s, for the most part, demise; he is amazed that his driven architect wife Rebecca (Nimrat Kaur) is now a beautician and that everyone seems content to just be and not really amount to anything.
Jason may think absolute rule is the ticket, what with a successful harvest of food from beyond the walls, barely averting Wayward Pines-wide malnutrition, and the Abbies pulling back from the frantic but coordinated attacks that marked the start of “Bitter Harvest” but the reality is he is sitting on a powder keg of discontent, with the victim once again all of humanity if he fails to manage it properly.
But the king of all bad days must go to Ben who is out among the Abbies, playing hide and seek in the cornfields and watching in amazement and desperation as Jason’s troops, some of seem to be weakening their autocratic resolve, leave him standing along out beyond the wall, taking their food and means to save him with them.
It’s not exactly a very survivable situation – he knows it, Jason knows it and Ben’s mother Theresa (Shannyn Sossamon) knows it and pretty much anyone who could help Theresa like Rebecca and Jason’s goons know it too.
But no one can lift a hand to help such as Jason’s heavyhanded touch, and so Ben is left outside safety, with “Bitter Harvest” suggesting he may have his doom.
Or was the Xander (Josh Helman) meeting his? Hard to say but certainly it’s not looking good for Ben right now.
Wayward Pines is proving that it is far more than a one-premise pony with its second season.
With the reset taken care of, and new forces at work throughout the town, it’s doing an engaging exemplary job of exploring humanity’s endless ability to rip itself to shreds in the face of every indication that it should be doing exactly the opposite.
For a species with an endless ability to survive any and all calamities if we so desire, Wayward Pines makes it abundantly and grippingly clear that we are very much our own worst enemies and that the Abbies may be the least of our worries when the dagger of our destruction in held to our necks by our own endlessly misguided hands.
- Do things look like they might be on the improve? Are Abbies vegetarian? In next week’s episode “Once Upon a Time in Wayward Pines”, it looks like our penchant for cutting off our collectives to spite our faces is only going to get worse, as is the resolve of those determined to avoid that fate …