Wayward Pines
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
M. Night Shyamalan’s TV excursion is a superior Twilight Zone tale executed almost perfectly in season 1: a Secret Service agent wakes in a creepy Idaho town he can’t leave, where the rules are enforced by public executions and the truth is buried under several distinct layers of what the-hell. Matt Dillon’s Ethan Burke peels the onion, and the midseason reveal, one of the great TV twists, transforms the show from little town horror into something far stranger and sadder.
Season 1 is a complete, satisfying limited series. Season 2, ordered because success, undoes the finale’s finality and continues the story into murkier, dumber territory. It’s the textbook case of a twist show that answered its own question and then kept talking. But that first season is a genuinely great ten episode haunted town mystery with a sci-fi spine, and Melissa Leo’s terrifying Nurse Pam and Terrence Howard’s whispering Sheriff Pope give it real texture.
Verdict: Watch season 1 as a limited series. Treat season 2 as optional fan fiction.
