I just…wait….I can’t…wait…the ending….that finale…with the statue…whaaaaaaaaaat?
This is a tough one, folks. This was the big shabangabang, the last episode of Wayward Pines’ reported one-and-done season, the WTF-inale if you will. And I was excited, because over the course of these ten weeks, Wayward Pines and I have built a nice little bond. It was like that real eccentric friend of a friend that you don’t really understand, and it’s a little uncomfortable hanging out with them because they talk funny and smell a little, but in the end they usually have some entertaining stories and sell the dopest pot.
Unfortunately, in this scenario M. Night Shyamalan is that eccentric kid’s father, and he Village-ed the balls right off this episode. And in case you think I’m reckoning the wrong person in public right now, here’s Mr. Shyamalan to Deadline: “I’m such an end backwards kind of filmmaker, storyteller, and that’s what I loved about doing these 10 episodes. I knew where I wanted to go. I knew I wanted the fences to come down. I knew where we were heading for the finale.”
At least he saved me from pointing out that he does things ass-backward.
So, before we get into it let me lay out the specifics. The abberations arrive, roughly 50,000 of them, and ate all the extras that were hanging out by catering that we never got to know. Luckily, all the people we do recognize made it to the bunker in Lot 33, which leads to David Pilcher’s mountainside villain lair. Pilcher is busy putting his sister Pam back into the freezer, a plan his henchman carry out, until they change their minds. Then Pam returns, wearing a leftover costume from the 1998 remake of Lost in Space, and kills her brother.
Eventually, with no other choice, Ethan sacrifices himself by blowing up an elevator on top of all the abberations. Immediately afterwards, Ben gets clunked in the head and falls into a coma. It’s hilarious, actually. The adults that are still alive and had not been clunked in the head decide to start a new Wayward Pines, a Wayward Pines without surveillance or public executions.
But then Ben wakes up three years later and just kidding teenagers with machine guns have taken over the town, and nothing has changed, and uuuuugh I’ll get to that more in a little. Without further ado, let’s…you know what I don’t think I can just recap this. Instead, I present every single question I had during the series finale of Wayward Pines.
- So as soon as the power went out, every single abbie ever swarms on the town. The question is: why? Do the abberations have a sixth sense for when the fence’s power is out? Is that some sort of super-evolved abbie power we never head about? Did one of he abbie’s Tweet “fence is down, bitches” and it just spiraled from there?
- The abbie swarm of the town was pretty gruesomely exciting, but seriously WHY DID THAT ONE CAR EXPLODE? That was by far the funniest part of this episode. People were fleeing, and screaming, and townsfolk heads were being eaten, and then a random car just explodes apropos of nothing. It was like the director said “how do we really sell the chaos of this scene?” And the stunt coordinator was like “I could probably blow up that car or something.”
- When you’re preparing to defend your life from a horde of cannibal monsters, and you’re handing someone a bomb, is the best thing to say right at that moment “Franklin wasn’t finished with it yet but he was pretty certain it would detonate.” Pretty certain? Buddy why don’t you just hold on to that.
- Random thought: In all the detailed, complex planning that went into creating Wayward Pines, wouldn’t a ton of problems have been solved by building a different kind of fence? Like, at the minimum make it flat instead of chain link. The fence they built, without power, is ideal for keeping out, like, the deer population.
- So Jason, who last week called shotgun in the worst way possible, gets out of his cell and meets up with the delusional sect of first generation high-schoolers at the “ark.” I thought the whole town was the ark, but apparently there’s another ark. I don’t know. But anyway, these power-hungry teenagers come across a bunker filled with guns and ammo. Are you telling me they had all these guns and ammo the entire time and just put it in a bunker for the day high-schoolers might need it? Because, as I’ve said and this episode proved, the abberations have two subtle weaknesses: 1) shooting them with guns and 2) blowing them up. Who would’ve thought?
- Why did it take me so long to realize Pamela Pilcher is such an unfortunate name?
- When did Ben learn to fire a gun like the most doofus-faced commando in the world?
- In the long run, does Ethan blowing himself and that elevator up really help while the fence is still down and he is killing approximately 15 out of 1,000,000 abbies? I guess I give this a pass. I mean, I actually really liked the moment, and I haven’t really even touched on how much Matt Dillon killed it this season. RIP Ethan.
- …..seriously am I the only one who thought Ben getting whacked in the head during his moment of grief was hilarious? Because I stand by it. More than anything here, I stand by that.
For these next couple of questions, I need to explain the ending better for those who did not watch. We faded to black with Kate and Pamela deciding to start Wayward Pines over, this time with “no more lies. No more surveillance. No more reckonings..” Sometime between that moment and three years and four months later, a group of high-school kids with a crap-ton of guns and ammo wrestled control away from the adults, put them all into cryo-sleep, and now run the town exactly how David Pilcher ran the town. So, firstly, and by far most importantly:
- Which one of those high-school kids sculpted that gigantic bronze statue of David Pilcher? That is such a specific skill to have!
- Am I to understand that 17 or so teenagers with guns overtook a town full of adults, including Pilcher’s security complete with body armor and guns of their own? I mean, this show is telling me to accept it, so I guess I have to, but come on now. They don’t even know how to use them! They’d probably end up with a lot more blown off toes than a full-scale revolution.
- Once all the adults were put back to sleep, the town reverted back to its old ways, with hidden surveillance cameras and public executions if you try and leave. This, more than anything, makes no sense. Wasn’t the point of all that to keep people from learning the truth, and therefore freaking out? Everyone knows the truth now! Each person has seen the abbies, and no one is going to try and leave. So is Wayward Pines the town just a horrifying totalitarian dictatorship run by Jason, where people are forced to have picnics underneath hanging victims and must pretend to like it?
Oh, Wayward Pines, you were so close to doing the impossible — you were almost a fun, summer series that also came to a satisfying conclusion. Thanks for the fun times, though, the good moments. And for one last time: What the fuck, Wayward Pines? What the fuck, indeed.
