S01.E05: The Truth

[jhlipton]

I don't doubt that quarters will look basically the same in 80 years (if we're still using cash by then), but I  was kind of distracted by the design on the back.  I'm pretty sure it was the Crater Lake quarter.  They'll be minting the fifty states quarters again in 2096?

 

I didn't get much of a look at the quarter due to static from the cable -- I only saw the face.  Was it definitely a "state quarter" -- maybe it was commemorating something that happened at Crater Lake, or there was a "Best Lakes in America" series?

[KaveDweller]

As for the tech, if they can get a quarter from 2096, why not anything else? At least weaponry, if nothing else.

 

The quarter wasn't in great shape though. If you found a computer damaged like that you could look at it, but probably not turn it on.  I guess weapons would work though, unless future weapons are electrical or something.  But I can believe that they were able to retrieve some old coins buried in Boise, but had less luck finding something bigger. Maybe humans took all the weapons and left the cities to try and fight the abbies, and the Wayward Pines people haven't found where the humans were last living.

 

I do hope we get more answers on how they know what happened to civilization (let alone predicted it).  Did they do studies after they unfroze themselves?

 

It was Melissa Leo in the flashback scene, carefully lighted but still, not looking drastically younger than she is now.

 

Ah, okay, I must not have been paying close enough attention.

[janie jones]

I didn't get much of a look at the quarter due to static from the cable -- I only saw the face.  Was it definitely a "state quarter" -- maybe it was commemorating something that happened at Crater Lake, or there was a "Best Lakes in America" series?

I just watched that scene again, and it was definitely the Crater Lake quarter.  Other than what was covered by his fingers, they showed the whole thing under the word Crater Lake (which was actually in the shot but out of focus).  Sorry I can't post a screenshot.  I don't know why they didn't just go with the basic eagle.

[jhlipton]

I just watched that scene again, and it was definitely the Crater Lake quarter.  

 

Guh.  That sounds like them getting lazy again.  They put all this thought and effort into this production and think we're not going to spot stuff like this?

 

It would have been far better to show something SpaceShipOne.-- "100 years of X-Prize" or the Fox News logo -- "100 years of Dair and balanced Reporting" or something similar (this was from a Wikipedia search of 1996).  Something like that would make it certain that the quarter was from 2096.  Jeez.

Edited June 16, 2015 by jhlipton

[potatoradio]

This may be a really easy question, but I seriously missed the explanation (if given - I was trying to absorb a lot in this ep!) of how Pilcher froze himself and came back to run WP. Did he have a trusted group of minions who unfroze him? Pam? If so...holy vulnerability spot, Batman. "Sure, I promise, I'll unfreeze you just like you taught me. What year did you want to thaw again?" I confess to being really dense with any complex timeline, but I think WP (as it is shown) has been around for 14 years, and it's 4028, so...in 4014, someone was around to start thawing people and food and supplies? Yes, I need a Cliff's Notes version already.

 

 

Snipers were stationed in the woods with rifles and other guns shooting outward when Ethan saw them..very easy to presume they were shooting any abbies who got too close. Along with the huge as hell electrified fence.

 

That makes sense, but they'd need several snipers there all the time (presumably), so don't people in WP ever wonder why the snipers are there and what they're shooting at? Wouldn't anyone who tried to run have seen them and wondered?

 

 

Again, just speculation, but it seems to me that if mankind is to be "saved" then Pilcher (or whoever) would have to select specific people who do not have whatever mutated gene that  eventually devolves into "abbies." Otherwise, they aren't really "saving" anyone, they're just delaying the inevitable for a select group of people

 

How were people tested for this genetic mutation? I didn't remember genetic testing being very easy back in say, 1989, when Beverley was walking around?

 

The point of WP is not just for protection from the Abbies, its real purpose is something else, imho.

I agree - I think Pilcher is clearly playing out some kind of God fantasy or has a far more detailed experiment in mind for the people of WP rather than just watching them hang out and reproduce. Dr. Moreau-like, maybe.

 

 

Asking the audience "Oh, c'mon, just go with it" is lazy.

 

So much word! Especially in a sci-fi, "weird" genre. I mean, I really liked getting so much information in the middle of the series, but I sure hope that wasn't ALL the answers. I don't need everything to fit together perfectly, but there's a difference between ambiguity and laziness.

 

Oh, and major kudos to all who guessed the answers - I am not worthy....

[KDeFlane]

Oh, and major kudos to all who guessed the answers - I am not worthy....

 

I think some of the specifics were deduced because the show planted some details where they knew they would be caught and analyzed.  The year was deduced because the show runners wanted us to notice the numbers on the files and the mentions of dates.  I think that tiny success is what drives the effort to analyze *everything* beyond reason.  Not everyone watches entertainment as a puzzle, but those of us who do are craving more of that kind of activity.

 

Pope talks a lot about ice cream flavors, and his chalk board lists flavors of ice cream in one episode.  It *feels* like a planted clue, but seems unlikely to have a pay-off later.  I try to gather details just to see how creative the set designers are.  Did you notice the open jar of peanut butter on the small table next to the sofa in the sheriff's office?  Someone had to decide to put it there -- or someone on set ate their lunch there and forgot to clean up.  Without a deliberate close-up shot of that area, I won't treat that detail with as much weight as the numbers on the files and the dates inside.  It's why I even tried to decode the barcode-of-triangles under Arlene's name, because the camera took the time to focus our attention on it.

 

Sorry, I'm rambling.  I haven't re-re-rewatched this episode yet, so I might return with other tiny details to ponder, just for the sake of filling our week until the next episode.

[jhlipton]

I think some of the specifics were deduced because the show planted some details where they knew they would be caught and analyzed.  The year was deduced because the show runners wanted us to notice the numbers on the files and the mentions of dates.

But then they can't get upset when some detail (or even a full image) seems to show us that the "truth" they claim to be showing can't be The Truth.

[janie jones]

Did he have a trusted group of minions who unfroze him?

This is one of my biggest problems here.  It would have to be either generations upon generations of non-abbie people maintaining the cryogenics facilities, or else dozens and dozens of people willing to be de-frozen at some point in the future to maintain the facilities and fend off the abbies.

[SlackerInc]

If the sign was buried under hundreds of feet of plants and the solid earth, Ethan wouldn't see it, the audience at home wouldn't see it, and people would not get that hundreds of years have gone by. I very much disagree that the sign was put there on purpose. You can't have the sign be (realistically) illegible because then Ethan wouldn't get the point, and the audience wouldn't either...It has to have had just enough wear and tear so we could still see "Boise".

 

This isn't a documentary, and I sincerely doubt they have scientists on as consultants for the show.

 

Yeah, I've seen "Life After People", but it didn't even occur to me before reading posts here to think they were so far off in how they made the ruins look that it must clearly indicate the story is a sham.  I don't understand why people aren't posting things more along the lines of "SMH at the weaksauce attempt to show 2000 years of decay that was more like a few hundred at most" instead of "a-ha, this proves it's all a lie!"  In a strange way, they are actually giving the showrunners too much credit.  But that will inevitably change to their being very bitter at the end when these theories don't pan out.

 

And it's not as if there's simply no way around this either. They could have set the show 500 years into the future instead of 2000 years.

 

That's really a key point.  To ask that they accurately portray 2000 years of decay is problematic, because as has been pointed out upthread, this would make things look unrecognizable or buried, and thus of no use to the narrative.  Whereas the only reason I can think of not to make it 500 years is that they thought that would be too short a time for the "abbies" to "devolve", in which case they are missing the fact that 2000 years is also way too short without something helping them along.

 

But for some reason I'm willing to forgive all this and just go along with the genre silliness, just like I do for Doctor Who.

[legaleagle53]

I haven't yet watched this show (although I plan on doing a marathon on Hulu this weekend to catch up with it) but I really don't think it's too far-fetched to say that more than 2,000 years have passed, based upon the level of decay.  Rome, Athens, and Pompeii have all been around for about that length of time, and while an ancient Roman or Greek might be shocked and dismayed to see the state of the Forum in Rome or the Acropolis in Athens today, he or she would still recognize them for what they were (besides which, there are a few buildings that are not only practically intact, but even in use today).  And Pompeii and Ostia Antica were preserved nearly intact due to natural disasters and would be easily recognizable to someone from say, A.D. 90, so who's to say that something similar couldn't have happened between 2095 and 4028 that would account for the ruins being in a better state after 2,000 years than they might otherwise have been?

[janie jones]

Yeah, but the reason Pompeii was preserved was because it was buried.  If I'm not mistaken, it had to be unearthed.

 

The state of Boise isn't my biggest problem with this show.  If I can buy that the Statue of Liberty would be still be sticking up out of the ground in Planet of the Apes, I can buy the state of Boise here.

[Jel]

Yeah, but the reason Pompeii was preserved was because it was buried.  If I'm not mistaken, it had to be unearthed.

 

The state of Boise isn't my biggest problem with this show.  If I can buy that the Statue of Liberty would be still be sticking up out of the ground in Planet of the Apes, I can buy the state of Boise here.

Def. 2000 year old sites need to be excavated. Species don't devolve. Metal corrodes and that sign would be dust in less than 2000 years. Evolution by means of natural selection takes lots of time. I cannot for a second get my head around this kind of radical change in homo sapiens in 2000 years. It's silly. So, for me, these errors are so glaring  that I thought they were intentional clues that this is not the whole truth and nothing but.

 

The Statue of Liberty:  that's a perfect comparison, and if that's how they meant the Boise and the road sign, well, okay. I assumed that people (writers, producers, the audience)  just have more knowledge now ( almost 50 years later) about science in general, honestly, I thought this stuff was common knowledge, so that something like that wouldn't be done again. But I am starting to think I have been guilty of giving the show too much credit.

[legaleagle53]

Def. 2000 year old sites need to be excavated. Species don't devolve. Metal corrodes and that sign would be dust in less than 2000 years. Evolution by means of natural selection takes lots of time. I cannot for a second get my head around this kind of radical change in homo sapiens in 2000 years. It's silly. So, for me, these errors are so glaring  that I thought they were intentional clues that this is not the whole truth and nothing but.

 

There is also the devolution of mankind into the Eloi and the Morlocks as set forth in the classic H.G. Wells novel The Time Machine.  I already hear you saying, "But that process took over 802,000 years!"  However, it is never stated in the book (or in either of the movies based on it, for that matter), exactly when or how the division and devolution of the species began (the Time Traveler himself admits that he really doesn't have the slightest idea and is only throwing out his own theory).  It could have begun happening as late as 800,000 and been completed by 802,701 (the year in the book) for all we know.

 

My point is that while I can agree that the whole truth has yet to be revealed (there are still five episodes to go, after all), I just think that this is a case where Occam's Razor is meant to apply.  That's all I'm saying.

 

Of course, I may change my mind after I've caught up on the show... .

[jhlipton]

 I can buy the state of Boise here.

 

{jk} Actually, Boise is a city and Idaho is a state and I have a Brooklyn Bridge I can sell you if you're buying. {/jk} LOL

[mostlylurking]

Really liking the show. Obviously there is still a lot more to the story, like why the adults can't know what is going on. Wouldn't that be preferable to people trying to escape and getting their throats slit in the middle of town?

Why do the phones ring and why can't anyone talk about the past?

In the area where all the old cars are kept, is that where all the food and supplies for the town are kept too? Is it all frozen? Is there enough to last indefinitely?

If a select few humans were frozen some time between 1999 and 2014 to be unfrozen about 2000 years later, who unfroze them? I'm guessing Pilcher. But then who unfroze him?

Just how big is this town that they keep adding people and are grooming the "first generation" to presumably continue the human race????

So many questions but I am loving it! Boo to no new show this week!

[Zanne]

Just how big is this town that they keep adding people and are grooming the "first generation" to presumably continue the human race????

 

 

If Kate is 14 (or is it 12? whatever) years older, indicating she's been awake in Wayward Pines at least 14 years longer than Ethan, then why are they only getting around to the first generation now? No teenagers were awakened in the first set? Were most of them babies born in Wayward Pines or were they saved for thawing an extra decade and a half to keep them fresh? Fourteen years seems like a long time to wait to get started on training your first generation, particularly if they were already teenagers when frozen. And fourteen years seems like a long time to wait to see if things are working, if they were waiting before thawing out the teens.

[KDeFlane]

Random musings on the numbers:

• The photo of "100 yards outside the perimeter" was taken 14 years ago. 
• Dwayne Johnson's new house was "built 12 years ago" according to the literature Theresa was given.
• Kate arrived 12 years ago.  (Bill arrived two years ago and fathered a child.)
• Some of the students at the Academy do look to be younger than 12-14, but plenty are 15-17 years old.
• Over 100 students have been numbered as having been thru Orientation, although the initiation room seemed to contain only 50 or so candle-holders.

My guess is that the younger students are attending normal classes until they are deemed old enough to handle The Truth.  We don't know specifically when Reed and Carrie were brought in via their car crashes. And we don't know how long ago the first set of students were given the Orientation.  Maybe the first fifty have already graduated? Maybe students #1,2,3 arrived 14 years ago, and now are all grown up and working at French's General Store. A "generation" can span at least a decade, so even the students joining today can be considered part of the First Generation that began 10-12 years ago.

[jhlipton]

Boo to no new show this week!

 

I'm seeing references to and comments about episode 6, so it must have aired somewhere.  Moreover, the date on the thread is 20150618 (but do we trust it????).  ZapToIt shows it airing next week...

 

Odd.

 

Random musings on the numbers:

• Over 100 students have been numbered as having been thru Orientation, although the initiation room seemed to contain only 50 or so candle-holders.

Just because Ben and the others have numbers over 100 doesn't necessarily mean that there are over 100 Chosen Ones. They may have hierarchies of groups, such that the first number is the highest group; the second number a group within that and the third the lowest group. I've forgotten Ben's number, but let's say it was 101. In the highest group, 0 has been complete, Ben is in Group 2, which is 1; within that group, he's in the first sub-group (0); and he's the second kid within the last sub-group. Not every group may have 10 sub-groups, or individuals, so there could be fewer than 100 even with a number like 101.

I doubt it -- other theories are more likely, but it would be remiss not to speculate.

[SlackerInc]

Metal corrodes and that sign would be dust in less than 2000 years. 

 

I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the sign is aluminum:

 

In normal rural atmospheres, and in moderately sulphurous atmospheres, aluminium’s durability is excellent.

 

 

Edited June 19, 2015 by SlackerInc

[buckbuck]

I'm starting to think that whoever is conducting the surveillance of WP are a bunch of pervs -- what with the floor level cameras at WP Academy.

 

What is the 'Pilcher Act' ?  Because that is in those Real Estate documents.  That implies that some government passed legislation to allow Pilcher to control this town and for the renters not to pay taxes while living in the houses -- who cares about paying taxes if this really is a repopulation ark ?   Which brings me back that this is all an experiment of some sort.

 

When Big Bill tells Theresa to thank her husband for killing Petey -- WTF ?  And Theresa's job is to give away houses as a real estate agent.  So much for commissions.

 

And apparently new kids at WPA are assigned at number for orientation -- Ben is 111. Carrie is 110. Reed is 109.  So what is the population of WP, because that does seem to be a lot of kids for a town this size ?

 

Ethan gets stalked and attacked by that white being and his arm is slashed by its claws until he manages to hit it with his shotgun.  Outside of WP, there are lots of trees, running streams, birds, deer -- pretty much like any normal forest.  Ethan somehow has a decent map of Idaho (where he got that, no idea) but when he finds a church on the map, it is dilapidated and long abandoned.  Which is the first sign that something is very wrong.

 

I never noticed this before, but the Emergency Exit signs in the hospital are green.  That seems odd. Never seen that before. I thought they were always red.

 

I'm not sure what Ben was looking at in the top left of that photo, because there is plainly a creature in the middle of the photo by the brightly lit clearing.  So, the creatures only appeared outside the fence 14 years previously.  And that was the confirmation of their existence -- so why was the fence built in the first place ?  How did they know to build it so high and electrify it ?  Abbies, or aberrations that are the result of a series of genetic mutations -- caused by what exactly ?  And now the Abbies are the top-level predators in the food chain on the planet, and are a devolution of Homo Sapiens.  Why would humans devolve -- unless to adapt to some major change ?  What was the harsh environment (that Mrs. Fisher spoke about) that triggered the mutation ?  Why did the drawing have long talons on it but the fingers of the Abbie by the deer just seemed to have long fingernails ?

 

Mrs. Fisher said that Abbies could kill and eat a human being in minutes -- so why was that deer dead out in the woods for days (long enough for maggots to have developed on it) ? Why didn't the Abbies strip it clean ?  And what called them off ? Can the Abbies actually communicate other than howling ?

 

Wow, that poor bastard sweeping up those leaves in front of WPA has got a long day in front of him, especially with the wind blowing the leaves around like that.

 

Mrs. Fisher gives the three noobs old corroded coins -- and Ben's is a US quarter from 2095, minted in Denver from the 'D' under "In God We Trust".   Meanwhile Ethan finds a highway sign in the middle of the woods with Boise on it, and encounters more steel and clutter -- stuff that would have more than likely corroded to dust in 2000 years. And the dates on the folders were apparently correct -- it is the year 4028.  If civilization lasted until at least 2095, since they were still minting coins, why isn't there more way cool high tech stuff from nearly 100 years beyond 2014 ?  Why was Mrs. Fisher using a slide projector ?

 

So, if Abbies are ruling the world, where is all the food coming from ?  Is there some vast underground complex where they grow all the food and build everything, in addition to vast warehouse facilities to store all knowledge/books/artwork of mankind ?

 

If David Pilcher foresaw the downfall of humanity and built this ark in WP, why the lapse in the fence on top of the cliff ?  Those Abbies should be scrambling down over that cliff and eating everyone.

 

Where did the helicopter come from ?  Because it takes a massive manufacturing infrastructure to build one of those, let alone maintain it.  Or did the helicopter also hibernate ?  And despite the fact that Mrs. Fisher says that the students will never meet David Pilcher, there he is picking up Ethan.

 

Why would Pope have had a remote control to open the fence ?  Did he not know about the Abbies ? Because that seems pretty risky.  Why did the Abbies not invade instead of just grabbing Pope's body and taking it back outside the fence ?  Obviously the Abbies are not entirely afraid of the fence if they are standing right outside the fence in case it opens ?

 

How did the Real Estate docs for Ethan already have his occupation as sheriff -- if he has only been sheriff for one or two days ?  Let alone that Theresa's was already updated with her occupation as Real Estate Agent.  Stuff like that makes me think that it's got to be VR.  Something is updated in a database and everything that points to that info is automatically updated.  Or that the housing is free as long as people remain positive and productive members of WP -- who decides that ?  Why would Ethan and Theresa have separate folders in the Real Estate documents ?

 

All this revelation still doesn't explain why a lot of them were in car accidents, because that seems like an odd way to collect people (with Peter McCall being the exception so far) -- and why they didn't heal their injuries BEFORE being put in cryostasis ?  They were still all collected against their will -- it's not like they volunteered for this.  Something still doesn't add up.  Like how are these kids the first generation of WP ?  What have they been doing for the last two thousand years ?  And who has been care-taking WP before people were defrosted ?  Is everyone in WP from before the year 2014 ?  Because that means that Pilcher knew at least 15 years before Ethan was frozen that the aberration was coming (Beverly was taken in 1999) -- and that Pilcher/Jenkins was alive in 2014 meeting with the Secret Service agents in Seattle.  If they had no evidence of the existence of the Abbies until those photos from 14 years ago, what has been happening in WP all this time ?  What really took down civilization ?

 

With all the sketchiness going on, I wouldn't be surprised that Pilcher created the Abbies.  It also doesn't explain the propensity to kill people so blithely.  I would think that they would want as many people as possible to survive and rebuild civilization -- or at least build an army to wipe out as many Abbies as possible.  Which begs the bigger question -- why wouldn't they have built WP on a large island like Vancouver Island or Madagascar or Cuba with a physical barrier to insulate them from the population growth of the Abbies ?  And it's not like the Abbies appear to be capable of flying or sailing boats, so they would be easily kept in check -- or are they incredible swimmers too ?  Why does the tactical gear worn by that soldier from the helicopter look circa 2014 and brand new ? 

 

I'm also inclined to think that there is something worse than the Abbies outside the fence, that the Abbies are simply the guard dogs for something much worse (like Pope mentioned before he died). I'm not buying the premise entirely -- either Mrs. Fisher is lying about the Abbies, or David Pilcher is, but the one thing for sure is that it certainly looks like the year 4028 outside WP (unless of course it's all VR).   And what would be the purpose of convincing people that they had been frozen for nearly 2000 years -- a test for interplanetary space travel that may take hundreds of years, and the fence and the Abbies are control mechanisms to keep them from venturing outside of the test facility ?  Kind of like M. Night Shyamalan's 'The Village' which also had 'creatures' keeping the population in one place and no planes flying overhead.  And the whole "you were chosen" doesn't make any sense either -- not if they are taking cars of people at a time.

 

There were a couple of scenes in the preview for this episode that were not actually in the episode -- the automatic weapon being fired, the people running across main street, and the kids from WPA outside of school pounding their fists into their palms.

 

I'm thinking that 'The Truth' is definitely not the whole truth (and nothing but the truth).

 

Sidebar: Does Hope Davis have only one hairstyle ?  In 'The Newsroom', 'Allegiance', and here, she has exactly the same hairstyle.  It's weird.

 

(Not yet having seen the latest episode)

 

Jeez, I think you were inside my head as I was rewatching eps 2 - 5.

 

At first I was just going along for the ride, not trying to apply any logic. But rewatching the scene where Ethan is looking through Pope's desk drawer I noticed a couple of magazines in there, one of them being Guns and Ammo. Having already heard Mrs. Fisher's explanation of the "truth", I wondered why the last remnants of society would waste resources on something like a magazine. Where was it printed? Where was the paper mill? Etc., etc. Not to mention, where did everything in WP come from if they are the last homo sapiens? Even if they had stockpiled, surely things would have worn out and needed to be replaced. And anyway, was there even a WP Academy before this? Where did the school badges come from? Were they stockpiled too? Ben's uniform looked to be in pretty good nick.

 

I got to wondering whether the complex that WP is in (judging from the other bay doors, there must be more towns or something) isn't a puddle in the middle of the new wilderness, but rather, if the wilderness is the puddle. That is, could the complex be circular with the "wilderness" in the middle, crafted to look like the ancient remains of our modern civilization? Sure, that ruined church seemed to line up with the map that Ethan had, but where did that map come from? Maybe it was printed to show landmarks from the fake wilderness.

 

Also, did we ever hear why Beverly said to Ethan in the first ep, "I always believe you."? (Assuming I heard that correctly...)

 

Also, I think the good doc cooked up those abbies in his lab at some point.

Edited June 19, 2015 by buckbuck

[J-Man]

Ok, when I first heard the teacher refer to "Abbies," all I could think about was "Abbie Normal" from "Young Frankenstein."

 

Anyway, with respect to how they're populating the town -- in such a small population, doesn't the number of former Secret Service agents (three) seem excessive? Why such an over-representation of such an unusual occupation?  I'm wondering if there's a reason for this, or if it was just a plot device to start the ball rolling. 

[jhlipton]

Ok, when I first heard the teacher refer to "Abbies," all I could think about was "Abbie Normal" from "Young Frankenstein."

 

You're not the only one!

[JanwaTheRebelCook]

From the very beginning of this show Ethan was treated very differently compared to the residents of Wayward Pines. Beverly just slipped and mentioned that she had a daughter and got her throat slit. Peter just did graffiti on the wall and got reckoned. But how many times did Ethan disregard the rules of WP and not get a single punishment? He even got promoted to sheriff after killing Pope. I think Ethan has a very significant role to this whole puzzle and from the pilot it was obvious that David Pilcher wanted him in WP -- stressing his importance during that conversation one rainy day. But what could be his importance? I don't think it's to handle the community of WP...I think he will play a big role of what's outside the walls of WP. He may even have some sort of connection with the abbies...in what way I don't know.

[SpaghettiTuesdays]

This is going to be kind of long because I've been taking notes during the show and reading all the responses so far. This show has my brain melting and if I don't write stuff down, I go crazy trying to remember stuff. Anyway...]

I think the whole "orientation" thing at the school is to have the kids grow up with the mentality that they are the "protectors". They can't tell their parents (or any other adult) what's going on because they might do something dangerous or irrational in response. I think they're putting this mentality in the kids because eventually all of the people in on it will die (unless they're immortal?!?!) and the kids will have to run the place. They are also the last humans, supposedly, so they are the protectors of their race and of the future. Plus, it would suck for "Them" to have done all this work for nothing.

I'm also interested in the genetic implications of such a small group. It doesn't seem to have that many people in the town, I'd say less than 500 but certainly no more than a thousand. Probably nowhere near that. So how do they maintain diversity? Maybe they have a cache of frozen embryos, which might be more pragmatic to store. You could have thousands and thousands of potential babies. This would also make sense for the long term because, if the abbies developed over the time from humans, you could weed out the impurities via genetic testing. I'm also thinking there are different "themed" towns (where else would they get their food and stuff from?) with various people living in them, so maybe they swap people every now and then to keep the gene pool fresh and hemophilia at bay.

 

I also have a crazy theory that Pam is Pilcher's wife or something. Maybe Pete was honeypotted by Pam and Pilcher's daughter and woke up to Pam, thinking it was the same woman years apart. For the sake of the community, they should probably train at least some of the teens in medicine. If Pam dies, they're kind of out of luck.

 

Maybe there was a separate society of people that lived in a bunker inside a mountain or underground that lived generation after generation tending to these "hibernating" people. So, in a way, these people are the true protectors of the human race, only they don't have so much innocence and instead have far more responsibility. But, then again, if there was this other group of people, wouldn't they know what happened to humanity? Unless maybe Pilcher didn't share his information with Fisher, or maybe Fisher just didn't want to tell the kids the horrible truth. (Like if there was a nuclear holocaust and the abbies were the fallout-mutants that were left over.) I don't know, just random thoughts.

 

I agree with PP that Chris probably wasn't a real person. The slideshow showed the pictures of the other kids to the viewer (us) but didn't show Chris, just the three kids' faces. Maybe Chris didn't die, though, and they just re-froze him or sent him to live somewhere else. Or maybe he's a longtime member of the community that is going to become important later. Or maybe he lives in the woods, hidden secretly! The possibilities are endless.

 

Ben's actor does well at being awkward. I sometimes have to look away, like during the kiss with what's-her-face.

 

About the quarter - I'm thinking they probably do have bigger/more important artifacts leftover, but it's not practical to show them to a bunch of kids. If they showed photos, many would think they were photoshopped or something. So it's better to give them something tangible, like the quarter Fisher handed Ben, to show that it's real. Not that money can't be faked. And what if the articles are, in fact, faked? It wouldn't be hard to age a coin. Everyone's seen a coin from 2009 that looks super old and a different coin from 1969 that looks brand new. So who's to say that the quarter, the sign, and whatever else were really planted? Conspiracies, I tell you!

 

Final thought - they've taken quite the artistic license with the science mumbo jumbo.

[theatremouse]

I forget where I read this but I think you can have as few as something like 150 people to make a sustainable diverse population? So if we think there are 500 people in town, but once you exclude the already-related-to-each-other people (such as siblings and the parents and their children), there probably are enough people left over that it's actually not too small a pool.

[janie jones]

Until they start eating each other because they ran out of food in the warehouse.

[theatremouse]

Well, I'm still on the "buffalo burgers"="abbies" boat, but we shall see. (although that would open the "but they were human"/"what cannibalism does to your brain" debate)

[Milburn Stone]

I think someone said 4028 was a date on files Ethan was looking at in the police station, but I don't remember anyone saying it.  So, still not a spoiler just someone with really good eyesight/attention to detail.

 

Yes, now that you mention it, it was someone noticing that 4102, backwards, was 2014, and extrapolating from this that 8204 might be a backyards year also, namely 4028.

 

But whether it was someone with just super-good powers of observation and deduction, or someone spoiling it ("hmmm, methinks those powers of deduction are just a little too good"), I was pissed off that when Hope Davis said it was 4028, my mind wasn't as blown as it ought to have been, because I'd already read it here. Damn.

Edited June 23, 2015 by Milburn Stone

[SpaghettiTuesdays]

I forget where I read this but I think you can have as few as something like 150 people to make a sustainable diverse population? So if we think there are 500 people in town, but once you exclude the already-related-to-each-other people (such as siblings and the parents and their children), there probably are enough people left over that it's actually not too small a pool.

I looked it up because that number seems way too low to me, but this source said around 160.

 

This show needs to air. I'm running out of speculation!!!

[lucindabelle]

I have a signing feeling that this really is supposed to be the explanation. And if so, I hate it.

Because if you kidnap a bunch of adults and threaten them and they think their families and jobs and pets all exist out there of COURSE they'll want to get back to them.

If you just explain some will be sad but a lot will just eventually get on with it, you'd feel sad but not outraged and angry, the repressive rules make no sense and simply beg for rebellion, why make talking about the past a sin?

Agreed about the different times making sense (though frankly a book walker spilled that and it irritates me now).

Why should the sheriff gaslight Ethan when he first wakes up? Why not just tell people? If they can't adjust then you execute them but the system of lies makes zero sense.

Also. If the Abbie's were just on the northwest, I kind of think the world would be on board with bombing the shit out if it to save humankind. Sad for Idaho but good for Europe, you know?

I'm not satisfied with this explanation but I fear it's the best were going to get.

[legaleagle53]

I have a signing feeling that this really is supposed to be the explanation. And if so, I hate it.

Because if you kidnap a bunch of adults and threaten them and they think their families and jobs and pets all exist out there of COURSE they'll want to get back to them.

If you just explain some will be sad but a lot will just eventually get on with it, you'd feel sad but not outraged and angry, the repressive rules make no sense and simply beg for rebellion, why make talking about the past a sin?

Because the residents' focus is supposed to be on the present and the future. Talking about the past leads to them wanting to get back to it, which would have disastrous consequences.

As for how these people would handle the truth, I'll just put it this way: How do you think an ancient Greek or Roman would feel if he or she were suddenly plucked from 15 AD and dropped into the Rome, Athens, or Corinth of 2015 AD and told that the ruins he or she is looking at are all that remain of the world that he or she had lived in, grown up in, and thought would always be there? Multiply that by the knowledge that everyone he or she had ever known and loved, every friend and family member, the political and social structures he or she was used to, and even his or her native language had been dead for some two thousand years, and I guarantee you that he or she would feel just a little more than "sad" -- homicidal and/or suicidal would be much closer to the mark, once he or she got past the initial shock and denial.

[jhlipton]

The average Greek or Roman had never seen an apocalypse movie ("Mad Minerva" or "The Parchment of Eli") or read science fiction or the like. They would not be familiar with cryogenics.

But tell them that The Gods had taken them to a special land, but Ares had ringed it with vicious creatures. The Gods demanded that they accept their situation without question. Would they still be homicidal or suicidal?

[lucindabelle]

Because the residents' focus is supposed to be on the present and the future. Talking about the past leads to them wanting to get back to it, which would have disastrous consequences.

As for how these people would handle the truth, I'll just put it this way: How do you think an ancient Greek or Roman would feel if he or she were suddenly plucked from 15 AD and dropped into the Rome, Athens, or Corinth of 2015 AD and told that the ruins he or she is looking at are all that remain of the world that he or she had lived in, grown up in, and thought would always be there? Multiply that by the knowledge that everyone he or she had ever known and loved, every friend and family member, the political and social structures he or she was used to, and even his or her native language had been dead for some two thousand years, and I guarantee you that he or she would feel just a little more than "sad" -- homicidal and/or suicidal would be much closer to the mark, once he or she got past the initial shock and denial.

But why make i it a rime.why gaslight people, have them leave messages to family who don't exist. Plus whic, in the 21st century the ideas f a dystopian future is not an unfamiliar one. It doesn't look like pitcher et al have technology that would seem too hard to take. Frankly I'd be much more on board with being told I'm on an ark than feeling like I'm in step ford town and I'm sure im not alone in this,

[slothgirl]

As for how these people would handle the truth, I'll just put it this way: How do you think an ancient Greek or Roman would feel if he or she were suddenly plucked from 15 AD and dropped into the Rome, Athens, or Corinth of 2015 AD and told that the ruins he or she is looking at are all that remain of the world that he or she had lived in, grown up in, and thought would always be there?

The residents of Wayward Pines weren't dropped into a culture that is 2000 years different or more advanced. If anything, they were dropped into a culture that is a decade or more behind what they were accustomed to in many ways.

 

If told the truth, they would have to adjust to the fact that the world is gone, but they wouldn't be adjusting to the types of things that would be incomprehensible to someone from the ancient world trying to understand modern day-to-day life in 2015.

 

So, the correlation to WPs would be that your hypothetical Greek or Roman from 15AD would be inserted into a civilization that looked just like one from 0-15AD, NOT into 2015 with all it's radical changes in technology, industry, and cultural norms. Then s/he would have the same adjustments concerning the other issues that the WP'ers will have.

 

The one difference is, as another poster mentioned, our culture has more exposure to science fiction as well as actual awareness of cryogenics so selling them on the possibility of this being true is a smidge easier.

 

Now if human civilization had continued for 2000 years unabated and you took someone from 2015 and plopped them down into 4015 without trying to make it mimic 2015, THAT would be the same scenario as putting a 15AD ancient into modern Rome or Greece.

Edited July 5, 2015 by slothgirl

[lucindabelle]

I think it would be easier to accept "you're in an ark" than, never talk about the past, forget everyone you once loved, or you die, frankly.