Watching “The Truth” reminded me of all my previous reviews of Wayward Pines. I remember after watching “Where Paradise is Home” I wondered if the show was just showing its hand too quickly. Nope! How wrong I was. Every episode of Wayward has been hurling revelations at us, and the intensity – and confidence – of the show has just been ratcheted up. After “Our Town, Our Law” I applauded the show for its scope, the breadth of which I hadn’t guessed. I was wrong about that too, as “The Truth” quickly showed me. Wayward Pines is operating on a much larger level than I had anticipated, and in many ways it might be the bravest show on the air. It’s certainly the most entertaining.
It seems almost like a waste of time to talk about Ethan or Theresa’s stories, since Ben’s was by far the most interesting. This show has made great use of Charlie Tahan, the great young actor playing Ben. A character that age – and with that mop of hair – could easily become Jack Linden on The Killing, which no one wants. I digress.
Theresa’s plot worked for me because it was such a great tonal juxtaposition with Ben’s. She has her first client as a realtor, an ex-construction worker named Wayne Johnson who had an accident and woke up in the hospital. Right as the average audience member might be thinking that Wayward goes back to that accident well a little too much, the show steers into the skid and outright admits: yes, everyone comes to Wayward Pines following an accident. The difference with Wayne, though, is that he remembers something between the accident and the hospital, namely some sort of facility containing cages of people. Shannyn Sossamon handles her duties as Theresa quite well, which is a relief, because Theresa is another character that could have been reduced to the “nagging wife” stereotype, especially since Kate is in town. But Sossamon, free from the physical requirements of Matt Dillon’s role, handles the dialogue, of which there is a ton in “The Truth,” very well. It probably doesn’t hurt that the episode was directed by James Foley, who has a knack for getting actors to talk; Foley is a House of Cards vet who also directed Glengarry Glenn Ross.
Obviously Ben’s plot was the best part of “The Truth.” While Theresa is still discovering more questions than answers, Ben is in the middle of a huge exposition dump, courtesy of Mrs. Fisher. It’s at this point that Wayward Pines becomes a sci-fi show (the ease with which this show cartwheels between genres continues to impress me). Mrs. Fisher, in Hope Davis’s matronly voice, informs Ben, as well as two classmates, that the year is actually 4028 and Wayward Pines is all that remains of humanity. The creatures outside the wall are evolutionary aberrations, “Abbies” for short. Wayward Pines hits you with one huge reveal after another, and Tahan (as well as the two actors playing his classmates) gets in some great moments of facial acting as the truth is made clear to Ben.
This is definitely a ballsy reveal, one that threatens to implode the show if it doesn’t work. It’s not like the end of Captain America, where Steve Rogers finds out he’s been asleep for seventy years. The Burkes have been asleep for two thousand years. This show is going all in. It’s wonderful to see. Granted, “The Truth” raises a lot of questions, but when has Wayward Pines ever disappointed? This show earned the benefit of the doubt as early as its second season. It’s bold, consistently surprising television, a show not to be missed. “The Truth” is one of the best episodes of TV I’ve seen all year.
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