S01.E02: Don't Discuss Your Life Before

[SlackerInc]

 

I also went back to episode one and confirmed that none of those framed signs for "The Rules" is visible in the locations where they are located in episode two.  I'm OK with that (for now).

Interesting! The funny thing there is that this could be evidence of sloppy/careless production design, or it could be just the opposite if they actually wrote into the scripts that he was initially given an orientation period during which the town was supposed to seem as normal as possible. Or it could be just what they call over at TV Tropes "pilot weirdness", if the pilot was made a long time before the rest of it. I will definitely cut showrunners more slack in a discrepancy between the pilot in later episodes than between, say, the second episode and the third.

[jhlipton]

I turned the overhead shot upside-down and it does seem to fit better -- not great, but better

 

Now it's easier to see where the "escape arrows" lie. I'd definitely look at the one on the NW corner before even thinking about a plan.

[SlackerInc]

What looks particularly good to you about that one?

[jhlipton]

The yellow is where I see a maytch-up, the orange the corresponding Xs and the blue where the two don't seem to match up at all:

[slothgirl]

When I look at it, I keep wanting to assume that the crosshatchy sruff on the map is the actual town on the arial. Like the previous poster, I don't have any idea what the (now blue) line down the center would be if its going through the center of town. There is no center road that prominant, and there would be no reason for someone to have drawn one of the roads that curvy rather than straight with angled intersections.

[KDeFlane]

I wish I knew how to grab a screen shot from my TiVo and post it here. I know there was another aerial view which showed the single road going in/out of town.  Maybe it's just the contrast & brightness on my screen making this image harder to see the details.

[DEM]

OK, looking at the fullsize images, I think I've got it.  I think slothgirl is correct that the curvy borders are meant to delineate the entire town up to the surrounding tree line. The loop-thing at 3 o'clock on the hand drawn map is at about 5 o'clock in the photo; it's the circular road. Thus, to get them to line up better, one would have to rotate the photo 45 degrees CCW.  The potato hanging down from Main Street in the hand drawn map is the large clearing just outside town (bottom left of photo). If the park is part of the clearing, the marking/line seems too big.

Edited May 31, 2015 by DEM

[pezgirl7]

I agree that the photo needs to be rotated. Because the park on the map is where a bunch of homes are now, I think maybe the map is old and there weren't homes there when it was drawn. We already know there are weird time discrepancies happening.

Edited June 1, 2015 by pezgirl7

[KDeFlane]

Alright, I just created an account on imgur so I could share my version of this map.  (I took images from other websites, without attribution.  Lock me up in WP and make me mow lawns.)

https://imgur.com/gallery/IiQFEPc/new

https://i.imgur.com/IiQFEPc.jpg

 

I'm thinking all of the X marks show where Bill tried and failed to scale the mountain faces.  The only exit would be the thicker arrow line, which runs along a line of trees in the photo before veering off.  The train tracks are not visible (to my old eyes). Yeah, I don't think Bill drew it to scale.

Edited June 1, 2015 by KDeFlane

[Jel]

That's awesome, KDeFlane, thank you for doing that.

 

By the way, anyone know anything about the "downtown Wayward Pines" section--those high rises--is that the hospital?  Seems mighty odd for a town of 500 peeps.

Edited June 1, 2015 by Jel

[KDeFlane]

The tallest building cluster on the left of the photo (which I did mark) is the hospital, based on the floor plans posted in the hallways.  They have they 3-wing shape and several floors.  The other tallest single structure on the right of the photo (which I did not mark) is probably the high school, which we have not yet seen but appears to be at least two stories tall in the previews. It sure is massive, taking up a whole city block, so maybe it is a full K-12 system.

[jhlipton]

Alright, I just created an account on imgur so I could share my version of this map.

 

Great job!  

 

I'm wondering what the structure just before the loop-de-loop (the furthest building to the left that you have marked) is?  Could that be The Abandoned House, where Ethan found Bill?  It would make sense for TAH to be outside or on the outskirts of town.

[KDeFlane]

Random thing I picked up on my (third? fourth?) viewing of this episode:  When Nurse Pam is confronting Ethan in the hospital morgue, she is carrying a library book titled "Keeping Bees".  Truly a Renaissance woman, she is.

Edited June 4, 2015 by KDeFlane

[jhlipton]

Random thing I picked up on my (third? fourth?) viewing of this episode:  When Nurse Pam is confronting Ethan in the hospital morgue, she is carrying a library book titled "Keeping Bees".  Truly a Renaissance woman, she is.

 

There you have it -- WP is a study area to solve Colony Collapse!  The danger outside the Wall is the Master Hive and it was particularly organized bees that took the Sheriff.

[Yeldarbe]

At this point I'm leaning toward time travel/parallel universes or timelines/matrix type thing.

[pasdetrois]

 

Another thing I don't understand...  Why the hell hasn't the sheriff locked Ethan up?  It's like they want him out running around snooping.

I know. I'm willing to suspend disbelief and go along with bizarre magic unreality for the sake of the story, but my sensible brain keeps asking "why is he being shoved into a motel room, then allowed to roam at will all hours of the day and night?"  If the writers handled this more carefully - less erratically - it would make for a much more enjoyable story.

[walnutqueen]

I know. I'm willing to suspend disbelief and go along with bizarre magic unreality for the sake of the story, but my sensible brain keeps asking "why is he being shoved into a motel room, then allowed to roam at will all hours of the day and night?"  If the writers handled this more carefully - less erratically - it would make for a much more enjoyable story.

 

I'm with you, Boo.  No matter how cray-cray, it HAS to make some sort of sense for me to be "satisfied".  Loose ends and unanswered questions are the bane of my existence!   :-)

Edited June 7, 2015 by walnutqueen

[lucindabelle]

The sheriffs receptionist also looked pained.

I'm relieved to know this is based on a book and will have an explanation or I'd quit.nrhe 4400 was such a let down and so was that British show about people jumping into other people's bodies...

[candall]

I don't think Agent Burke understands the concept of "creating a diversion."  He told Beverly he'd distract everyone so she could have a chance to escape and see her daughter again.

 

Then he goes slinking off, crouching in low shadows, while she continues pitty-pattering down the sidewalk.

 

Was also amusing how he double secured the door behind him with the little chain lock.

 

Are these things part of the mystery?

[Free]

 

Are these things part of the mystery?

 

Sadly no with the way things ended up.

[Nitpicker]

Anyone figured out the 10-16-28 reference yet, that the guy in the bar referred to after knocking out Matt Dillon?  A search of it brings up references to Matthew 10-16-28 in the bible, but I cant figure out if it's relevant or not.

Here's how I interpreted it. I thought they were referring to him as subject 28 and stating the radio code "10-16". Police radio codes are usually "10-something". Like "10-4" means message received, "10-23" means arrived on scene etc. I googled 10-16 and it has a couple radio meanings. One is domestic disturbance and the other is "pick up prisoner". Since the bartender had knocked Ethan out and we later see him in the hospital in handcuffs the bartender could have been calling for someone to come pick up Ethan. In other words what the bartender meant was "we need a 10-16..... subject 28 isn't doing well". Of course it's impossible to tell from the actual statement which was simply "10 16 28 isn't doing well." But I still hear it as "10-16 (pause) 28 isn't doing well". What do you guys think?

[Nitpicker]

All the houses and all the props look fake. 

 

It's actually a real town, it's filmed in Agassiz, British Columbia, Canada. It's a beautiful tiny town about an hour away from where I live. I've been there several times, not much there. It's basically just that main street they show you and some houses in the middle of no where. That huge mountain in the background is fake though, and the aerial view isn't really of the town. That's far bigger than Agassiz and it's surrounded by miles of flat farmland in reality. The hospital isn't really in town either. It's filmed a couple hours away in Riverview psychiatric hospital. It closed down twenty years ago and is used strictly for filming now, so many movies are filmed there. It's huge for a hospital,1,000 acres that housed over 5000 patients. As for the fake looking houses they are real and they look normal to me but maybe that's because I grew up here and that's what BC homes look like. I've travelled to the states and house styles are quite different down there.

 

There were more than a few WTF moments, besides them killing Beverly:

• How did those kids on bikes know Ethan's name when he was being read the riot act by the sheriff at the side of the road ?
• Beverly mentions that she has never seen a plane fly overhead in all the time she has been there.
• The nurse having to stitch her own nose -- is she the only person working in the hospital ?
• Everyone calls Ethan "Mr. Burke", despite the fact he hasn't met most of them before
• The local newspaper hasn't been published in a couple of weeks.
• Why is everyone using counterfeit money ?
• Why are all the tombstones unmarked ? Or are they fake too ?
• Who implanted the microchip into Ethan ?

 

I'm just going to throw out some guesses to join the discussion.

 

The kids and other town residents knew Ethan's name because as we already know there's something weird/fake about the town. Maybe it's an experiment that people are in on or maybe it's like the Truman show, either way everyone was probably notified that there was a "new guy" and they were told him name. It's easy to spot the one new man in town.

 

No planes overhead supports the theories that they are on a "holodeck" or in a Matrix type place and the creators forgot to add the little details or they are on another planet in a zoo style setting. Or the world ended and somehow a few select people were zapped to this little town that is the last place on earth. I'm going with the last place on earth theory.

 

The nurse stitching her own nose: I didn't see any other staff (besides the doctor) or patients. No receptionists or janitor or people roaming the halls. It's a small town and maybe there's something paranormal that's keeping everyone healthy. Or maybe they're all dead so they don't need medical treatment, except to sew their faces back together that is.

 

The local newspaper hasn't been printed for weeks because there is no news. Nothing happens, nothing changes, people aren't allowed to do anything therefore there is no news to print.

 

Counterfeit money: fake money for a fake town. If it is a government experiment they wouldn't want to waste real money to put into circulation in this place so they use the counterfeit money they've confiscated from criminals.

 

Fake tombstones: it's getting obvious this town is fake so I doubt there are any bodies buried in the cemetery but if someone went thru so much trouble to create this elaborate fake town why would they skimp out on the simple details?

 

Who implanted Ethan: that evil nurse seems to be in charge and is capable of doing medical procedures. I'm guessing it was her. Ethan woke up in the hospital a couple times, she could have done it while he was still unconscious. Or maybe it was put in before he woke up in the woods after the accident. I think that was staged, he was placed in the woods and allowed to wake up there and "discover" the town. I think someone put him there with the chip already in place.

 

And if even the widow is still dealing with the (supposedly recent) loss of her Body Snatched husband, how did the house fall into such ruin so fast? Are we meant to believe that in this little idylic town of Stepford Pines that a long abandoned house never gets tidied up, so that its just waiting for the need to dispose of a corpse... by tying it to an available bed for no apparent reason?

 

 It wasn't the agent's house that was falling into ruin it was just an abandoned house. Maybe it's sole purpose is to be the dumping ground for people who broke the rules and don't deserve a proper burial in the fake cemetery. It's left as a warning to others and maybe they intentionally let new people stumble upon it to see what happens when rules are broken.  They probably left the house to rot just like the corpses it houses. It could be the home of the very first rule breaker left as a reminder.

 

Another thing that makes no sense... why would the male bar guy even bother to deny that Beverly works there? She obviously does. OTHER townspeople are shown interacting with her there. Other people interact with her on the street. Pretending she doesn't exist is just a weird mind%*#$.

 

On the one hand they're trying to convince our (unfortunately unlikable) hero that it's just a normal town and then they go out of their way to show that it isn't. They desperately want him to agree he needs medical help and give him every reason not to trust the medical professional he's had the most contact with.

 

Denying she worked there seems like a plot to convince him he's going crazy and hallucinating. How else are they going to convince him he needs brain surgery if he thinks nothing is wrong?

 

I find myself so distracted by how much Matt Dillon looks like Frankenstein's monster. He's missing only the neck bolts.

 

He looks like he belongs on the Walking Dead... as one of the zombies. His appearance has me wondering if they are all really dead but he's the only one that looks that way.

[jhlipton]

Oh, Wayward Pines, I wish I could leave you.
 

The nurse stitching her own nose: I didn't see any other staff (besides the doctor) or patients. No receptionists or janitor or people roaming the halls. It's a small town and maybe there's something paranormal that's keeping everyone healthy.

 

There are obviously doctors (and nurses) in the mountain facility, so that explanation fails.  She had to convince Ethan that there was no one else, for the disorientation portion of his "training".