Our three leads go on parallel exploratory journeys this week, though they all might lead to the same place. Or not, depending on whom you believe. Ethan is still outside the perimeter, having scaled a cliff wall to track his way through the woods to Boise. Teresa goes to face her first day on a new job, replacing the realtor who killed himself. Ben, having passed Principal Megan’s psychological tests as to having an open mind (unlike his parents, presumably), is in for full-scale indoctrination. That’s the heart of the episode, and it is presented so matter-of-factly, so expertly, that it’s very convincing. Though by the end, I’m not sure I believe a word of it, or if Ben really does either.
Ethan is attacked by creatures in the woods, that we learn from Megan are called “abbies,” short for aberrations. They’re the rabid descendants of humans. But, as Ben wonders, how do they exist in the civilized society he left behind?
Ethan gets an inkling, when he makes it within eyesight of Boise, and all he finds are long-abandoned ruins. Teresa’s job assignment, on the other hand, is to go to the hospital and offer the former realtor’s house to a new crash survivor. She gets no straight answer to her question as to why everyone who arrives in town seems to have survived a car crash. And the vaguely harassing and demeaning tone of her new boss (“It’s just the two of us, sweetie!”) discourage her from spending much time with him.
So she heads to the hospital, and attempts to make an ally of her new client, who is very disoriented and disturbed by what he saw in the hospital. She finally gets him to his new home, and gets a moment of inquiry when she demonstrates the washing machine (do we really know if ambient noise disrupts the recording devices?). What did he see? Glass chambers, each full of bodies. As if he’d just woken up from a hibernation chamber (explained by Megan, with Hope Davis’ offering her most ardent reassuring tone) rather than a bad car accident.
Yes, you see, the answer is this: it’s not 2014, it’s 4028. Two thousand years have passed, and Wayward Pines is all that remains of an experiment at saving human culture and identity in the face of a world-wide disaster. This doesn’t jibe at all with earlier scenes where we seemed to see people inside the fence communicate with those still in our contemporary world, and the fact that Doctor Jenkins is also David Pilcher, the scientist behind the whole mad plan. But those scenes might have all been misdirection, just giving a presumption that they were occurring simultaneously. I suppose.
After Megan’s rousing explanation (and why does she use actual photographic slides with an old slide projector, did the experiment begin before PowerPoint?), she urges the kids not to tell their parents, on threat of mass suicide when they can’t face their fate. Instead, the “1st Generation” will lead the way beyond their parents’ closed minds towards a novel human future. Which, maybe, but why hide the truth from all adults, and what better way to separate kids from their parents to whatever purpose the town elders may be molding them, right?
Sorry, show, your big reveal has only made me more paranoid. And Teresa more frightened. And Ethan … well, we don’t know, we just know that he gets in the helicopter that Nurse Pam (“Looks like you could use a nurse!”) and Dr. Pilcher bring to rescue him and take him back. If this week’s story is true, there’s nowhere else to go.