This is a review. Thus, it is likely to contain spoilers. If you haven’t, as yet, found yourself at liberty to view this episode then consider yourself apprised of the potential jeopardy and proceed at your peril.
While I am aware that the show is based on a series of books by Blake Crouch, I have not read them and do not intend to until this show has ended. I will be reviewing the show solely on its own merits, not as an adaptation.
The important thing to remember when you are riffing on other shows and films is that you only want to pay homage to the good parts.
The first few hours of Wayward Pines seemed particularly adept at lifting the best tones, themes, and design elements from classic television series and films. This week’s hour, however, falls into many of the worst habits of its predecessors. Sometimes, you just cannot escape your DNA.
With the larger mystery of the town out of the way (though plenty of smaller queries still linger), the focus this week returns, both literally and figuratively, to the center of Wayward Pines. Last week, I posited that the remainder of the season would be spent bringing former lovers Ethan and Kate into opposition; the freshly crowned lawman against the entrenched rebel. I’m happy to report that it only took roughly 20 onscreen minutes to get the two frenemies head to head. While I appreciate the efficiency with which the show can chew through plot (seriously, if Ethan were on The Walking Dead, the trip from the mountain back to town would have taken him three episodes and he would have had to stop and cry in the woods at least twice), there is some painfully sloppy plotting going on to try and make the speed seem plausible.
Aside from the finale itself, the number one complaint that I repeatedly heard about Lost was that, despite being stuck together in a small area with a highly constrained number of people with which to converse, the damned survivors somehow constantly refused to give each other crucial information that would have dramatically altered their chances of survival and/or rescue. You would have been forgiven for thinking that they all suffered from some sort of social communication disorder, or perhaps that they all were having small strokes on a semi-regular basis.
For the better half of this week, the residents of Wayward Pines have a bad case of Lost Syndrome. The bulk of the drama comes from Ethan’s repeated inability to back up what he is telling someone else. He seems genuinely befuddled that nobody simply takes him at his word, yet he is completely unwilling to offer up even the smallest bit of proof. It’s as if Ethan thinks that his promise of secrecy to Dr. Filcher still holds so long as he only tells people the truth without actually showing them anything.
The problem is that the audience can easily think of many, many ways for him to prove what he is saying.
So, despite assuring the Doctor that he would tell no one about what he had seen, Ethan runs straight home and tells the first person he sees, his wife. Theresa, of course, thinks he’s nuts. There are any number of ways that Ethan could have proved what he was saying, including just driving out to the wall, hitting the garage door opener, and showing her the underground storage area. Granted, it wouldn’t have the impact of seeing a city laid waste, but it would have at least gotten her thinking. How about showing her the files in his office? You see my point, and I suspect other possibilities are already popping into your mind.
After that failed, Ethan moved on to the next person in his intimacy spiral, son Ben. Now, despite Dr. Jenkins/Filcher doing everything short of outright saying that all the children are in on it, Ethan insists on communicating with his all-but-adult son with nothing but grunts and stern commands. Here’s an idea, since the only people within earshot are teenagers (and unless they were shouting, Amy was probably too far away anyway), how about just saying, “Ben, I know it’s 4096 and I know about the monsters outside. Bad people are trying to blow up the wall and kill us all. Now kiss your little girlfriend goodbye and get in the damn car, so I can go stop them.”
Needless to say, that did not happen.