Wayward Pines is ‘Shutter Island’ and “The Walking Dead” had a baby. This show has an air of mystery and creatures that are hard to look at yet intriguing to watch. My first impression of the first episode was that it was a little confusing to follow, but at the end, I was already anticipating the next episode to uncover why “Wayward Pines” is so sketchy.
In the first couple of scenes, we see Ethan Burke (the main character), a secret service agent, stumble into a restaurant, all battered and bruised. He asks the waitress where he is, to which she responds Wayward Pines. He collapses due to his injuries and wakes up in the hospital disoriented and meets a nurse who is acting strange. Ethan asks for his things and a phone to call his wife, but she claims his belongings are at the Sheriff’s office. He remembers that he was in a car accident, and his partner (Agent Stallings) was with him. The nurse tells him that he died in the crash.
Meanwhile, back in another city of Idaho (Wayward Pines is a city in Idaho), his wife and son are concerned and are calling him frequently. She is informed about the accident and is hungry for more information.
Ethan proceeds to ask the nurse what kind of hospital he is in because of its desertedness, and the nurse responds that everyone is busy. Ethan eagerly tries to leave and walks out into the elevator, where the nurse tries to stop him, and he challenges her to remove her foot from the elevator. He finds his way into a bar, where he meets a woman who is a bartender named Beverly.
Beverly immediately gives off signs of normality, so they begin to chat and even give him a free meal. Ethan explains to her that he is in the town to look for one of his partners who has gone missing and is believed to be in Wayward Pines. Beverly gives him her address so he can have a place to stay and know someone in town, and then he leaves.
After showing up at the address, Ethan is in front of an abandoned sketchy house and walks in. He calls for Beverly, and he is met with silence. He begins to walk around the house and into a bedroom where the dead body of Agent Stallings is found tied to the bed.
Ethan goes into the Sheriff’s office and speaks to the only law enforcement in town – Sheriff Arnold Pope. He asks where his belongings are, and Sheriff Pope, who is eating an ice cream cone like he’s on a siesta, nonchalantly states he doesn’t have them and doesn’t know what he is talking about. Annoyed, Ethan then tells him what he discovers at the abandoned house, urges him to go and look, and tells him that he is looking for his missing partner, Kate, who is said to be in town.
After the meeting with the sheriff, Ethan ventures off to the bar again to find Beverly but is instead met with a guy who claims he doesn’t know a woman that works there. Frustrated with the lack of answers and aloofness with everyone in the town, Ethan gets aggressive with the guy and ends up walking out of the bar.
The next scene shows Ethan back in the hospital, but this time the doctor is next to him and not the nurse. The doctor tries to explain that he has a brain bleed, which is causing him to have hallucinations, and that he will need to go into surgery. Ethan doesn’t take this news well and tries to assure the doctor he is fine. The nurse then comes in and rolls his bed to the operating room. He tries to escape but realizes his hands are handcuffed to the bed.
Out of nowhere appears Beverly, who is wearing a hoodie, and she immediately rolls his bed away and helps him escape. Once they break out of the hospital, she takes him to the same abandoned house, and she reveals to him that his partner Agent Stallings was killed because he was trying to escape out of Wayward Pines. Beverly also informs Ethan of the date and claims they were in 1999, and he is immediately confused because he thought the date was 2014.
The next day, Ethan spots Kate (his missing partner) at a park and has a flashback of working with her on a previous case and them sharing a steamy moment. From this memory, we see that there is more that has gone on between the two that is separate from a professional relationship. He follows her and her new husband on their way back home and knocks on their door.
Kate’s husband opens the door, and Ethan promptly asks for Kate, and she pretends she doesn’t know him. She and Ethan have a conversation, and he tells her that he has been looking for her, and she tells him that they need to be careful because “they are being watched” – she indirectly points to the porch fan that has a camera hidden on it. Kate basically tells him that he needs to get used to living in Wayward Pines and could end up loving it there just loud enough for the cameras to pick up.
After Ethan meets with Kate, he finds a car parked in front of one of the homes, breaks in, and drives off, trying to get out of Wayward Pines. As he continues to drive, he realizes the entire city is blocked off by an electrical fence, and there is no way for him to escape.
At the end of this episode, I had to watch the second because of the air of mystery that the show had. I identified with Ethan’s character and wanted to know what Wayward Pines is and had a thirst for answers like him. I would definitely recommend this show to anyone who is a fan of genres such as mystery and dystopia. Let me know down below if you’ve seen it and what your thoughts are!
