Humanity is so ungrateful isn’t it?
I mean, here it is – SPOILERS! – saved by one, admittedly singularly-obsessed man, Dr. Jenkins (Toby Jones) from certain cataclysmic annihilation, sealed off in an “idyllic” town well into the future (try somewhere around 4020) , safe from the mutant “Abbies” (short for aberrations), an evolved form of humanity with flesh-craving appetites who roam the hostile world outside … and it wants to do is keep exercising self-determination and free will and all those pesky things that will get it killed.
How’s that for a complete and utter lack of gratitude?
Dr Jenkins of course thinks it’s necessary since left to its own devices, humanity has a way of pressing the self-destruct button with alarming frequency; others like U.S. Secret Service Agent Ethan Burke (Matt Dillon) beg to differ arguing that simply preserving humanity is worthless if everything that defined them as a species has to be quashed to ensure their survival.
Thus begins the great philosophical and existential debate that is Wayward Pines, based on the trilogy by Blake Crouch and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, which spent a gripping first season revealing that humanity’s back is way up against the wall but that’s the solutions to that great dilemma are not as clear cut as either Dr Jenkins or Ethan Burke would like to think.
Season 2 picks up with almost the same premise and a new protagonist Dr Theo Yedlin played by Jason Patric who finds himself, much like Burke, wondering where the hell he is and how he came to be here.
What he comes against is a very authoritarian world where power is wielded by the First Generation, the children born into Wayward Pines twisted ark-like world, and led by Jason (Tom Stevens), who are very much enamoured of Dr Jenkins jackboots-and-secrecy approach to safeguarding the future of the human race.
Naturally there are freedom-loving people who can’t countenance this and so begins a civil war of sorts with the Abbies roaming outside as what’s left of humanity looks likely to tear itself apart from the inside.
Complicating things is “the Duster” aka C. J. Mitchum played by Djimon Hounsou who knows all there is to know about Wayward Pines and is on a mysterious mission of his own.
The big question of course who will inherit the Earth? It is after all, now the Abbies world with humanity just a threatened outpost and something everyone is going to have to confront is do we even belong here anymore?
We’ll find out when Wayward Pines kicks off season 2 on 25 May on Fox and in Australia on 26 May.