How do you make a mystery show with no mystery? That seems to be the question Wayward Pines wants to address in its sophomore season. Wayward Pines ended up being one of my favorite shows of last year; it had a great mystery and an even better reveal. Sadly, the second-season premiere “Enemy Lines” doesn’t have quite the same impact – or promise.
First of all, Dr. Theo Yedlin is no Ethan Burke. Compare Jason Patric to Matt Dillon – you can’t. Dillon is inherently more watchable than Patric, and his Theo doesn’t assert himself right away the way Ethan did. Look, I’m going to try not to make this review just a list of comparisons of the two seasons, but some of that is inevitable. Theo ends up in Wayward Pines much the same way Ethan did, waking up with no memory of what happened. (It’s made pretty explicit that Terence Howard’s Arnold Pope is responsible for Theo’s arrival.)
Things are slightly different this time around. With David Pilcher, Ethan Burke, and most of the adults dead, Wayward Pines is now under the control of the fascistic First Generation, native children of the town. (Credit where it’s due: the First Generation is a pretty good name for an antagonist group.) The First Generation is under the leadership of Jason Higgins (Tom Stevens) and Carrie (Hannibal‘s Kacey Rohl), and they’re trying to quell a rebellion led by Ben Burke (a returning Charlie Tahan, not in “Enemy Lines” as much as he should be).
This is probably the biggest misstep for Wayward Pines. Although Patric is the ostensible lead, he doesn’t have much presence and frankly he’s outnumbered by the amount of young antagonists. Stevens, as Jason, is a bit of a nonentity. It’s easy to say that he’s no Terence Howard – which is true – but he’s not much of his own character yet either. He should be more conflicted, trying to preserve life while also adhering to Pilcher’s unforgiving dictums, but he’s just pretty bland. Furthermore, Jason is feeding Theo the old “government experiment” line. That worked in season one of this show, but it doesn’t work here because we already know the truth. It’s one thing to hide the truth from your protagonist, but when the audience is in on it, you run the risk of just watching Theo make one stupid decision after another.
Speaking of stupid decisions: Ben and his band of rebels decide to give themselves up after Jason starts publicly reckoning sympathizers. Jason has offered them amnesty, but how goddamn stupid do you have to be to believe him? The First Generation dress in identical Nazi khaki, and their overzealous hometown pride could make for an interesting commentary on nationalism in the Trump era, but as of now they’re more or less robotic and interchangeable. I’m not going to ding “Enemy Lines” too much for that, because it’s more or less another pilot.
Jason, predictably, orders Theo, Ben, and a sympathizer named Xander thrown to the Abbies outside of the wall. It’s nice to see Wayward Pines kick into gear so quickly, but I can’t help worrying that the show already told its best story last season.
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