There’s a vein of unintentional comedy running throughout “Betrayal.” I’m referring of course to Ethan Burke’s complete inability to keep a secret. Remember, the secret that Pilcher doesn’t want him telling anyone, because the last time people knew it resulted in a wave of suicides? Yeah, Ethan tells that secret to no less than three people, Theresa, Kate, and Harold. It’s like the first thing out of his mouth! He doesn’t even agonize over it. “Hey, Ethan, how is – ” “There is no Seattle, Kate!” And so on. It made me laugh every time, but it also serves as a good example of why Wayward Pines is having trouble recovering in the wake of “The Truth”: now that we, the audience, know the secret, we might as well let everyone in on it! “Betrayal” probably had the most straightforward “plot” this whole season, or at least the most amount of it. There no huge twists or revelations, so we got to see how Wayward Pines played as a straight-up thriller. The answer: not great, but not bad.
Ethan’s vow to protect the town is immediately tested, as he has to stop the group of insurgents led by Kate from blowing a hole in the wall (or blowing a hole in him; he finds a pipe bomb in his engine). I like this version of Ethan, and Matt Dillon plays him exceedingly well. On the one hand, we want Ethan to succeed; we know that what he’s saying is the truth, that there is nothing beyond the walls of Wayward Pines except for monsters. But on the other hand, Dillon plays Ethan with such single-minded fervor that he comes off as almost villainous, and it’s fun to root against him, especially as Harold passes Ted a bomb, or Kate whispers in her husband’s ear that they’re running out of time. Wayward Pines has been an oleo of genres all season, and now it can add “conspiracy thriller” to the list. Any other show would have screwed this up.
The B-story was devoted to Ben and his weird sci-fi version of American Pie. First Mrs. Fisher, who I’m convinced performs every single function at Wayward Pines Academy, gives a biology lecture, by which I mean she basically tells all her students that their role in Wayward Pines is to bump uglies. Then she pulls Ben and Amy to the front of the class and talks about how well human bodies fit together, and other such things you shouldn’t say to teenagers in front of teenagers. You could get kicked out of the teachers’ union for that, Mrs. F! But at this rate she probably runs the union too.
All these great jokes aside, I actually enjoy Ben’s plot. He drank more of the Kool-Aid than even his dad did, but Charlie Tahan’s performance is so open and honest that you just feel good for Ben that he’s finally found somewhere he fits in (Sarah Jeffery, playing Amy, does fine work as well). Amy and Ben are good together, even if their pairing does have unfortunate consequences.
What should have been “Betrayal”‘s most exciting sequence – Ethan’s race to stop Ted, not knowing that his son is stowed away in Ted’s truck – ends up being its most rote. Don’t get me wrong, it’s well shot and well directed (by Steve Shill, a veteran of Dexter), but as soon as the music box starts playing that creepy tune, we pretty much know where this is going. Amy survives the blast, but it’s unclear if Ben does. What if he’s dead? Has Wayward Pines earned the death of a teenage boy? I’m not quite sure. This whole season, Wayward has favored insanity over straightforward plot, a tactic, I’d argue, that improved the show greatly. So, narratively speaking, I’m not entirely sold on what I’ll call Ben’s death (I’ll assume he’s dead until we see otherwise). However, it points the show in a more personal direction, and puts Ethan back in the position of being our main character. Entering the home stretch, that might be just what Wayward Pines needs.
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