‘Wayward Pines’: addictive viewing

WAYWARD PINES

WAYWARD PINES

Published May 28, 2015

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When it comes to plot twists, M Night Shyamalan keeps us guessing, writes Hank Stuever

Nothing pleases a grouchy TV watcher more than to catch a new show in the act of being utterly derivative, if not downright plagiaristic. “That looks just like Twin Peaks!” such a viewer has perhaps scoffed aloud during the ads for Wayward Pines.

If that opening sounds like you’re about to read a negative review of Wayward Pines, think again.

When it comes to being jerked around by a complicated mystery series, you know I’m in no mood, but Wayward Pines does everything right. The series is surprisingly forthright in its structure and momentum, going easy on the red herrings.

It’s true enough that Wayward Pines, with film-maker M Night Shyamalan as executive producer, intends at first to seem like a faint homage to David Lynch’s 1990 series. Novelist Blake Crouch, who wrote the books on which Wayward Pines is based, has said that Twin Peaks served as his inspiration.

That’s merely the beginning, however, of the pop-culture ingredient list for the casserole that is Wayward Pines.

Within the first episode you would have caught hints of Lost, Under the Dome, The 100, any iteration of The Stepford Wives, random Twilight Zone episodes, the lyrics to Hotel California, Ascension and a helping of Shyamalan’s trademark teasing, as seen in The Sixth Sense and other films that delivered some unexpected twist near the end, which audiences and critics came to resent, at times with good reason.

In Wayward Pines, Matt Dillon is in his element as Secret Service agent Ethan Burke, who is injured in a car accident while hunting for two agents who disappeared weeks earlier in Idaho. One of the agents is his former lover, Kate (Carla Gugino).

Ethan awakes in a hospital in a mountain village called Wayward Pines, under the care of creepy Nurse Pam (Melissa Leo), who refuses to let him make any phone calls. Disobeying her, Ethan leaves the hospital in search of help, which he gets from Beverly (Juliette Lewis), a nervous bartender who cryptically scribbles a warning on the back of his check: “There are no crickets in Wayward Pines”.

Sure enough, Ethan finds a stereo speaker in a pavement pot plant that’s emitting ersatz chirps. It dawns on him that the entire town is fake.

When Ethan discovers the corpse of one of the agents, the local sheriff, Arnold Pope (Terrence Howard), is dismissive. When he finds Kate, she cautions him to play along with the rules of this strange Pleasantville. When Ethan steals a car to escape, he finds that the road out of Wayward Pines leads right back into town. Meanwhile, Ethan’s wife (Shannyn Sossamon) and son (Charlie Trahan) set out to find him; soon they’ll be stuck in Wayward Pines.

“You think you want to know the truth,” Sheriff Pope tells Ethan, “but you don’t. It’s worse than anything you could even imagine.”

And thus smart viewers begin guessing what that truth will turn out to be, and if it’s worth their time to stick around for the big reveal: it’s a government experiment, right? They’re being watched and observed by scientists, aren’t they? It’s a crazy cult, isn’t it? The electrified wall around Wayward Pines is meant more to keep something out, rather than keep the citizens in, right? (Aliens? Zombies?) They’ve time-hopped, haven’t they? It’s really the past, isn’t it? Or the future? The psychiatrist (Toby Jones) is in fact the mastermind of it all, isn’t he?

Settle down. You’re all correct, to some extent, but would you believe that the point of Wayward Pines is not to keep you guessing?

Indeed, by episode five, viewers will get what could very well be the entire story explained to them which would make Wayward Pines the antidote to Twin Peaks rather than a rip-off of it.

And then a chilling thought arrives: something about this show is too tidy. It would be so M Night Shyamalan to lure us to this point in precisely this manner, saving the big twist for the end. In which case, Wayward Pines is doing a fine job of what it set out to do – making you desperate to know how it ends, even if, as the sheriff said, it’s worse than anything you could even imagine. – The Washington Post

l Wayward Pines, Thursdays, on Fox (Dstv channel 125) at 9.25pm.

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