Wayward Pines 2.06 “City Upon a Hill”

Things have gone from bad to worse in Wayward Pines. Since they began at “clinically insane,” that’s making for a pretty dour season. With a dour hero in the grimly efficient Dr. Yedlin. But the First Generation better be grateful for that efficiency, because when many suffer attacks at the hands of the Aberrations strategically torching the crops beyond the fence, he takes command of the hospital staffed with neophyte residents (at Kerry’s urging; she’s kind of his handler) and runs a triage that saves as many lives as possible. He also inadvertently trains his staff in battlefield medicine.

As well as running the emergency room, he makes time to check in on the Mountain Lab, where four Abbies are being contained and studied by Megan. He hasn’t dismissed her outright, which is interesting, but he’s enjoying mansplaining all over her theories and plans, rubbing in his superior scientific training. She’s chafing under his control, but together they discover something new from an MRI (yep, state of the art 2016 machine still working in 4032, do not ask) of the female Abbie: the part of her brain that controls higher functions is twice the size of the human version. Maybe explains the telepathy?

Still need proof they’re not animals, Jason? He apparently does, because he doesn’t admit they learned fire from being fought with flame-throwers by his troops, and he can’t seem to understand Mitchum (did Megan call him Mario at one point?) explaining that they showed strategy and ruthlessness in torching the crops and killing their people.

And what’s it like from the Abbie perspective? Seemed David Pilcher staged military grade strafing runs on them from helicopters when his people woke up in the Mountain, in order to clear the valley for Rebecca’s artificial city. So basically the humans live idyllic suburban lives on contested ground, not understanding the violence always threatening to break out all around them. Another familiar motif to add to 1950s conformity, McCarthyistic witch hunts, and procreative dystopias? Sure, why not? Wayward Pines is many things to very few people.

Outside in that wilderness, Mitchum and his convoy are attacked by returning Abbies, including Teresa, whose lung is punctured. Adam saves her, and they run, for the fence, but not everyone makes it. While Yedlin is able to save her life, she passes out (dreaming of one of Ben’s last birthdays with Ethan in a beautiful park), and expires after Adam flashes back to all he did to ruin her life. Past Megan can’t understand why he regrets his choices. Like current Megan, her empathy only extends to herself. And even then (as in the bizarre scene last week when she was monologuing to the capture Abbie), she misunderstands her own motivations.

Our other nuclear soap opera is Dr. Yedlin, Rebecca, and Xander. I’m not sure if these three can settle into a stable polygamous unit, but both men love her and have real reasons to consider themselves her husbands. It’s been more violence than homoerotic tension between the two men so far, though, as neither is big on the emotionally expressive scale. Xander’s humor is a little lighter than Yedlin’s pointed sarcasm, but I still believe there’s hope for these crazy kids. Unless Rebecca gets pregnant at last, then all bets are off!