‘Wayward Pines’ Preview: The Abbies Cause Trouble [Video]


When Mark Friedman came on as a producer for Season 2 of Wayward Pines, he thought there was plenty of potential in the show’s concept, even if the storylines from Blake Crouch’s original novels had already been exhausted in Season 1. Now that audiences know the town is the last human settlement in a planet apparently overrun by aberrations (Abbies), showrunners had to get creative. They found new potential in what was yet to awaken.

“The best asset that I had was a mountain full of people still sleeping in pods, and that ending was a little open-ended. The story could continue.”

If a new post on the official Wayward Pines Instagram page is any indication, the population of the little town may soon explode with new residents. The caption “Soon enough, everyone will be woken up in Wayward Pines,” accompanied a picture of Rebecca Yedlin in her cryogenic suspension tank. Last week, it was revealed that Rebecca is not just the town’s hairstylist; she is its architect, brought into the future against her will upon discovering the town founders’ plans to build the city not right away, but 2,000 years into the future.

After that significant revelation about Rebecca’s involvement in the town’s construction, this season of Wayward Pines seemed to become more promising, according to critics who have so far found Season 2 less entertaining than the mystery-driven Season 1. A.V. Club singled out the performance of Nimrat Kaur as Rebecca, whose facial expression alone was enough to reveal her character’s terror at discovering what her bosses were really up to.

“[T]hose flashbacks went a long way toward recapturing some of that delectable sense of mischievous fun the first season delivered so effortlessly. After four episodes of dour warmongering and dystopian violence, we’re finally getting some juicy new puzzles wrapped up in character development.”

A tweet from the show on Sunday teased that the ins and outs of Rebecca and Theo’s marriage will continue to be explored.

But this season also continues to be all about the Abbies. In a preview clip, the town’s forces must confront the reality that the monsters outside the gate have apparently burned the humans’ crops, and done so deliberately. That combined with the appearance of the first female Abbie the Wayward Pines citizens have captured deepens the mystery about whether they are indeed a de-evolved form of humanity, or, as character Adam Hassler said after a long time on the outside, “[humanity’s] replacements.”

Friedman discussed the complicated nature of the Abbies with Entertainment Weekly before the season began.

“We’ve seen the Abbies as these monsters who eat everything and gnaw on animals and scream and jump, but there’s clearly more that’s going on. If they’re some degraded version of humanity, what traits of humanity might they still have that we can explore as we learn more about them? If they were human once, what about them might still be human?”


There is still at least one more mystery viewers of Wayward Pines can expect to be solved: the role of CJ, the town’s historian and caretaker of the crops. In another pre-season interview with Entertainment Weekly, executive producer M. Nigh Shyamalan teased that eventual reveal.

“Djimon’s [Hounsou, who plays CJ Mitchum] character is really pivotal, and you’ll get that sense and as you watch him.”

Shyamalan confirmed at that time that the season was to be about the Abbies — so their storylines will continue throughout this season.

Wayward Pines airs Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. on Fox.

[Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]

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