S01.E09: A Reckoning

[Red-headed Aspie]

Maybe I missed something. Has this show ever addressed whether the genetic defect that caused the Abbies was universal or only effected a large portion of the population? Are the people in Wayward Pines defect free? Because if they possess the defect themselves, all of this seems pointless. Their genetic ancestral line is just going to devolve into the same monsters over time. That makes "saving humanity" seem pretty futile. But like I said, maybe this was mentioned and I just missed it.

[SlackerInc]

No, I don't think it's been addressed, unfortunately.  (Keep in mind that, as I noted a few weeks ago, critic Dan Fienberg said that he read the books, considered them "pretty much total trash", and thought the show seemed a significant step up in quality.)

 

Remember there was no record, even DNA, that Ethan was in the car crash at the beginning of the season.  

 

More things that I don't imagine will be explained next week.  

 

Yup, you reminded me of something to add to my list of things that were obviously included just to up the creepy/mysterious factor in the early going, with no end game other than "Look, something shiny over here!  Never mind all that stuff now".  But that still works in my paradigm of the early episodes being the ones more to be regretted than the later ones.

 

ETA: Wait though: it was Hassler who made that claim about DNA, so I think we can consider him an unreliable narrator when it comes to things he told Theresa.  That one maybe should be taken off my list, come to think of it.

Edited July 19, 2015 by SlackerInc

[ottoDbusdriver]

The only question I have is about how they got the footage back in Wayward Pines.  Someone would have had to return with it, but the video made it look like there were no survivors.  I guess it's possible there were more people than just Hassler on the expedition though.

 

Found footage ... á la 'Blair Witch Project' or 'Cloverfield'.  </sarcasm>

 

Unless they have planes.  And there are planes that can fly from New York to Hawaii without stopping, so it should be possible to have enough fuel to get from Boise to San Francisco and back.  I know where they stored the planes would be an issue, but they obviously have plenty of storage space where things/people were frozen. So saying there were a couple planes in there isn't much of a reach.

 

One interesting thing that Beverly said was that she hadn't seen a plane fly overhead since she got there -- and she had been in WP approx. a year before Ethan showed up.  So I doubt they had planes.  Plus there's the issue of runway length for airplanes -- unless they brought a bunch of V-22 Osprey or Hawker Harrier VTOL aircraft with them.  

 

My biggest surprise was that Pilcher's people didn't have drones in the air 24x7 guarding the perimeter -- that's current 2014 level tech, they are low cost (so you could have lots of them), relatively low maintenance, remote-controlled (so no risk to personnel), only requires short runways, and they are easier to maneuver than planes (what with the flight restrictions caused by the mountains encircling WP on 3 sides), and with infra-red cameras they have you could spot all the abbies outside the fence, wait for them to gather in a large group and start dropping Hellfire missiles on them.  They literally wouldn't see it coming.   And you could put some really long distance recon drones in the air as well, preferably with solar panels on the wings for extended range.   If anything Pilcher's team should have sunk a lot of money into solar-powered drone development that would allow it to fly well above the clouds permanently to at least act as a comm relay for the recon groups.

 

And if drones aren't an option, then I'm surprised that Pilcher's security team didn't have a tethered balloon or dirigible permanently positioned 5000-10000 ft. high over the town for long-range communications and surveillance.  You put a remote controlled sniper rifle up there and they could pick off abbies left and right and there would be no immediate threat outside the fence.  Plus, you could use dirigibles for heavy lifting during the construction phase.

 

Pilcher's crew really really dropped the ball on the huge advantage that aerial superiority could have given them over any threat, like the abbies.

Edited July 19, 2015 by ottoDbusdriver

[Red-headed Aspie]

Keep in mind that, as I noted a few weeks ago, critic Dan Fienberg said that he read the books, considered them "pretty much total trash", and thought the show seemed a significant step up in quality.

 

There's a frightening thought.

[Clanstarling]

No, I don't think it's been addressed, unfortunately.  (Keep in mind that, as I noted a few weeks ago, critic Dan Fienberg said that he read the books, considered them "pretty much total trash", and thought the show seemed a significant step up in quality.)

That is a sad, sad statement.

[GracieK]

Maybe I missed something. Has this show ever addressed whether the genetic defect that caused the Abbies was universal or only effected a large portion of the population? Are the people in Wayward Pines defect free? Because if they possess the defect themselves, all of this seems pointless. Their genetic ancestral line is just going to devolve into the same monsters over time. That makes "saving humanity" seem pretty futile. But like I said, maybe this was mentioned and I just missed it.

Pilcher had mentioned that it was a combination of the gene and the damage that had been done to the environment. I'm guessing air quality, toxins, food supply etc that brings the dormant gene active. I think that was part of advancing 2000 years into the future allowing the environment to reset itself.

[KaveDweller]

One interesting thing that Beverly said was that she hadn't seen a plane fly overhead since she got there -- and she had been in WP approx. a year before Ethan showed up.  So I doubt they had planes.  Plus there's the issue of runway length for airplanes -- unless they brought a bunch of V-22 Osprey or Hawker Harrier VTOL aircraft with them.  

 

Beverly had only been there a year and the footage from Hassler was from 4020, so it could just be that the planes were gone by then, or they stopped using them.  Or just that they took off a distance from town.  There's a lot that's been unclear about what technology they have/don't have, or where the bunker is located in relation to town.

[Gregg247]

I just assume that the Abbies took over the world very gradually. 

 

The movie "Idiocracy" handled the same idea much better --  well-educated people have few children, low education people have many children, and 500 years later, voila!--President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, everyone drinks Brawndo (it's what plants crave!), and water is just "that stuff in toilets".  It's not hard to imagine Abbies springing up from that scenario.

 

If you view "Wayward Pines" as "Idiocracy 2 - Now 100% Less Funny", then it all makes sense.

[LittleIggy]

Maybe I missed something. Has this show ever addressed whether the genetic defect that caused the Abbies was universal or only effected a large portion of the population? Are the people in Wayward Pines defect free? Because if they possess the defect themselves, all of this seems pointless. Their genetic ancestral line is just going to devolve into the same monsters over time. That makes "saving humanity" seem pretty futile. But like I said, maybe this was mentioned and I just missed it.

I mentioned the same thing in another thread. In any case genetic evolution doesn't occur that quickly to start with. Why couldn't the Abbies (cute name) have been dealt with as they occurred. Did the ob/gun just whisper to his/her nurse, "What an ugly baby!" How did they overrun everything? Makes no sense.

[SlackerInc]

Otto, I love the ideas about use of aerial technology, and I'm going to fanwank that they did actually do most or all of the stuff you suggested. :)

[ottoDbusdriver]

The movie "Idiocracy" handled the same idea much better --  well-educated people have few children, low education people have many children, and 500 years later, voila!--President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, everyone drinks Brawndo (it's what plants crave!), and water is just "that stuff in toilets".  It's not hard to imagine Abbies springing up from that scenario.

If you view "Wayward Pines" as "Idiocracy 2 - Now 100% Less Funny", then it all makes sense.

 

I wish that instead of reckonings in WP they just had Monday Night Rehabilitation.

 

Idiocracy was such an underrated film, but I loved it.

[juliet73]

 

Edited July 19, 2015 by juliet73

[juliet73]

 

Ben has woken up and appears to be enjoying a bowl of mayonnaise

 

This totally cracked me up!!  He was CHEWING it too...for an uncommonly long time!

 

I'm so over this show!  I'm sticking it out until the end, but I really watch so I can come here and read everyone's comments!!  They are so much more entertaining than the show!  I wish the writers would have taken some of the ideas you all have posted...the show would have been sooooo much better!!!

 

[starri]

Didn't it seem like after so much denial, the video converted Kate awfully quickly?  I mean, given how firm her belief in Wayward Pines being some kind of government experiment was, she zoomed through the Kubler-Ross stages.  I would have thought they'd at least have paid lip service to the idea that the video might have been faked.

 

Also, why was that bunker under Lot 33 and not inside the backstage area?  Yes, I get that it was convenient to the plot, but give me something to work with, show.

 

I'm increasingly reminded of the first season of The Killing, although at least we know going into the finale that we're probably not going to get any satisfactory answers.

Edited July 19, 2015 by starri

[jhlipton]

 

The only question I have is about how they got the footage back in Wayward Pines.  Someone would have had to return with it, but the video made it look like there were no survivors.  I guess it's possible there were more people than just Hassler on the expedition though.

 

Hassler gave it to a passing Abbie and told him to take it to WP.  Abbies are mean, vicious creatures, but they never turned down a politely worded request.

 

Maybe I missed something. Has this show ever addressed whether the genetic defect that caused the Abbies was universal or only effected a large portion of the population? Are the people in Wayward Pines defect free? Because if they possess the defect themselves, all of this seems pointless. Their genetic ancestral line is just going to devolve into the same monsters over time. That makes "saving humanity" seem pretty futile. But like I said, maybe this was mentioned and I just missed it.

 

I think the reason that the citizens of WP were abducted and why some family members were taken and others not, was because the citizens were "pure".  So the gne wouldn't reproduce.

 

Pilcher had mentioned that it was a combination of the gene and the damage that had been done to the environment. I'm guessing air quality, toxins, food supply etc that brings the dormant gene active. I think that was part of advancing 2000 years into the future allowing the environment to reset itself.

Which is why Pilcher is recreating all the stuff that led to the degradation of the environment (internal combustion engines high on the list) in the first place1

 

Headsmack!

[janie jones]

I think the reason that the citizens of WP were abducted and why some family members were taken and others not, was because the citizens were "pure".  So the gne wouldn't reproduce.

But then how do they know that?  Were Pilcher's people stealing people's hair for analysis?  Were they taking leftover throat culture swabs from hospitals?

[jhlipton]

But then how do they know that?  

 

We don't.  I was filling in what the writers neglected to tell us.

[janie jones]

Oh I know.  But even if one tries to fill in the holes, there are still more holes.

[Shermie]

So what was with the fake crickets in the first ep? That seemed significant. Does it mean there are no animals of any kind? And yet, Pilcher chooses to fake crickets so the residents will think WP is normal? They don't notice the lack of spiders or flies or mosquitoes? Or birds? Or pets? And yet they eat meat, so there are animals (buffalo) somewhere. And if animals are still around, why fake crickets? Gah!

[Clanstarling]

Hassler gave it to a passing Abbie and told him to take it to WP.  Abbies are mean, vicious creatures, but they never turned down a politely worded request.

Good one, thank you for the laugh,  jhlipton.

 

 

So what was with the fake crickets in the first ep? That seemed significant. Does it mean there are no animals of any kind? And yet, Pilcher chooses to fake crickets so the residents will think WP is normal? They don't notice the lack of spiders or flies or mosquitoes? Or birds? Or pets? And yet they eat meat, so there are animals (buffalo) somewhere. And if animals are still around, why fake crickets? Gah!

I always thought the fake crickets were listening devices - but they never said one way or another - so who knows.

[Accidental Martyr]

So what was with the fake crickets in the first ep? That seemed significant. Does it mean there are no animals of any kind? And yet, Pilcher chooses to fake crickets so the residents will think WP is normal? They don't notice the lack of spiders or flies or mosquitoes? Or birds? Or pets? And yet they eat meat, so there are animals (buffalo) somewhere. And if animals are still around, why fake crickets? Gah!

We've seen the Abbies eat a deer, seen people walking dogs and heard birds chirping but I think that's about all the animals I can remember.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Accidental Martyr

[slothgirl]

The abbies ate all the crickets generations ago while they were honing their hunting and killing abilities

 

Oh wait.. crickets are harder to catch than just about any large mammal.

 

Never mind.

;)

[Centaur]

Serious question. Did anyone else think that Matt Dillon may have been high when they shot this episode? His eyes appeared glazed over a few times and one of them appeared to be wandering. A few of his lines made no contextual sense and it's like they just didn't bother editing them out. He genuinely seemed to be dropping into his There's Something About Mary character a few times - I kept expecting him to refer to Pilcher as 'that goofy bastard'. Also he stole a bottle of something form the clinic in the bunker when Pam was sewing up his Abby bite and seems to have forgotten about it. I hope that guy Teresa gave the house to is ok. Also I hope some kindly neighbour is cutting the grass at Kate's place. People are picking on Pilcher unreasonable. God drowned virtually all life on Earth because people disobeyed him, and David is only letting the Abbie's eat like one tiny town.

[KDeFlane]

Also he stole a bottle of something form the clinic in the bunker when Pam was sewing up his Abby bite and seems to have forgotten about it.

My take on that scene is that he didn't keep the bottle.  We see him pick up stuff from a side table and look at it, then a quick cut to another angle shows him holding his gun.  I think the editor shaved a few seconds out which would have shown him dropping the bottle and reaching for his gun.  Maybe he dropped the bottle and it made too much noise, so they did a quick cut.  It really was just a random bottle of pills in a generic clinic setting, as far as I could see. It would really surprise me at this point for it to have had any meaning.

[JenE4]

Serious question. Did anyone else think that Matt Dillon may have been high when they shot this episode? His eyes appeared glazed over a few times and one of them appeared to be wandering.

I don't know about that--didn't notice his eyes--but he's been pretty terrible this whole series. I think he's just a bad actor. I mean he was okay back in the '80s--maybe just out of practice? Actually, his wife and child are just as bad, so maybe the casting director is the one on drugs?

[ottoDbusdriver]

Serious question. Did anyone else think that Matt Dillon may have been high when they shot this episode? His eyes appeared glazed over a few times and one of them appeared to be wandering.

 

Maybe Ethan is developing the 'Defiant Pupil' -- whoops, wrong show. Nevermind.

[marcee]

Exactly, find a decent sized island (to have a physical barrier against the abbies, because I doubt they learned how to swim) making it easy to defend with a moderate climate where you can grow food and raise animals. Any island in the Caribbean would do nicely -- Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico  -- and would allow a decent size population to grow from where to build a force to start eradicating the abbies on the mainland.  Or islands like Madagascar, Ireland/UK, Sicily, Cyprus, Crete.

 

Some gov't would have had to think of a possible plan along those lines as options in the intervening 80 years between when Pilcher closed up the mountain and that mint in Denver stopped making coins.  It's not like a couple of million abbies just suddenly appeared overnight and started killing everyone.  Unless something else took down civilization and the abbies evolved in isolated pockets and eventually reproduced in vast numbers.

 

 

Listen, I feel really bad about this. Like, really really bad. But I'm about to defend this show on this one singular point. A point that doesn't make any sense either, but still makes slightly more sense than yours.

 

From what I understand, it wasn't the abbies that killed everyone - it was the environment. We (in 2015+) didn't care a lick about global warming or any of the damage we were doing to our planet and David Pilcher was trying to save us. It seems, humans (as we know them) died out due to environmental change, not by abby apocalypse. The mutated abbies, though, were able to survive and endure during this change, like cockroaches (but apparently not crickets). So that.

 

But the rest? Yea. I got nothing.

[dlr]

Theresa head back to Plot 33, and notices a security camera on the fence, but goes in anyway.  As the security person tracking Theresa on-screen spills her coffee and attempts to clean it up, she doesn't notice Theresa destroy the camera with a piece of pipe. Theresa enters the dilapidated shed on Lot 33 and finds a hole with a ladder going down.

My impression of this was that the security girl did see Theresa entering Lot 33, but that she purposely spilled her coffee in case she needed to cover up missing it.

 

How was Ethan going to and from mission control so quickly and easily?  I thought you had to take a helicopter.

This was one of my problems earlier. I don't think that you need a helicopter (or Bev would not have commented that she has seen no planes) but it is a good distance. The image they showed from the mountain top to the town was something like this:

 

 

So in my mind it would have to take [even with a vehicle] 15-30 minutes at least - probably more (and yet our hero can save Kate coming from the mountain top in probably less than 1-2 minutes).

 

But none of this matters ... with all the major plot holes, non-sensible human (and Abbie!) behavoir, absurd premise as to how to save the human race, unexplained, silly or impossible technological engineering -- please just make it stop. I'll watch the last one with the hope that the Abbies take over the Earth.

[SlackerInc]

They probably have a fast elevator/tram system in there, I'd wager.

[iMonrey]

 

I really don't think people would devolve back into animals. I'm thinking first human evolutionary change will be fingers will bend sideways for ease of swiping phones and tablets.

 

Abbies aren't the result of normal evolution though. They are the result of de-volution as a result of polluting and destroying the environment.

 

 

Maybe I missed something. Has this show ever addressed whether the genetic defect that caused the Abbies was universal or only effected a large portion of the population? Are the people in Wayward Pines defect free? Because if they possess the defect themselves, all of this seems pointless. Their genetic ancestral line is just going to devolve into the same monsters over time. That makes "saving humanity" seem pretty futile. But like I said, maybe this was mentioned and I just missed it.

 

They did cover it. It was something Megan explained to the new initiates in school. We so badly polluted this planet all the toxins and poisons in the air, water, food, etc., eventually led to the devolution of mankind. So there's no "gene" that humans carry that made them devolve. Presumably after humans devolved beyond the capacity to reason or maintain infrastructure, the atmosphere cleared up. So Pilcher's people are safe from the same fate.

 

I'm loathe to defend this show but there are so many things that don't make sense, so where they rarely have addressed certain issues I'll give credit where credit is due. I think it's important to note that evolution (or, in this case, devolution) isn't a process that happens overnight - normal people didn't suddenly start giving birth to "abbies." Rather, over a period of 2000 years people became weaker, sicker, stranger, etc. until ultimately they were like what the abbies are now.

 

I still maintain that in their current state of blind savagery their reproducing seems unlikely.

[Passenger58]

So episode 9 explains:

- the dead FBI agent dead in the shed

- how everyone didn't commit suicide in the town

So when Plitcher couldn't control anyone in town he turned the power off and got everyone killed. Hence why the FBI agent was ripped to pieces in the small house in the woods, he probably ran to hide and was found and eaten alive.

There are so many unanswered questions and plot holes in this TV show that I can't be bothered with, considering there is only one more episode left and I can't see how much they can cram into it.

[Shermie]

Lots of savage animals reproduce, so I suppose abbies could as well.

I just hope the finale is, indeed, the finale. Sometimes you gotta just wrap it up. Not everything has to have a cliffhanger so you can justify milking it for another season.

[jhlipton]

I still maintain that in their current state of blind savagery their reproducing seems unlikely.

 

Lots of animals are savage toward their prey but not toward their partners.  The Abbie Mating Tea Ceremony is a wondrous and beautiful sight.  It is said "See the AMTC and die" -- but only because the Abbies will tear you to pieces once it's done!

[Tabasco Cat]

Also, why was that bunker under Lot 33 and not inside the backstage area?  Yes, I get that it was convenient to the plot, but give me something to work with, show.

 

 

Oh I know.  But even if one tries to fill in the holes, there are still more holes.

 

There are more holes than plot in WP. I'm willing to suspend disbelief for a lot of the what things in the show... the mountain HQ, the video bunker under Plot 33, the food from nowhere, the abbies (dumbest name ever for a particular brand of monstrous creature), the cryogenic freezers, the rebels, the weak-ass explosion, the hospital staff, the creepy real estate guy, etc.

 

What I have a much harder time with is the why of so many things. Ethan waking up in the woods, Pam's bizarre behavior early, Beverley's "I've always believed you", the dead agent in the dilapidated house, the need for secrecy, the building up of the 1st Generation, the crickets, the helicopter, the surveillance, the buffalo burgers, the abductions by way of automobile "accidents", The separation of the colonists from the people living in the mountain, etc.

 

It's a lot easier to accept the whats if there are good reasons given for the whys, and there's almost none of that. There have been attempts by the writers to explain some things, but they fall pretty flat. It just doesn't all hang together very well. And Pilcher's just not evil enough. He's calm and cool, never gets visibly angry, he's the most milquetoast villain I've ever seen. Meh.

 

By now everyone is probably resigned to the fact that there's no way the final 48 minutes are going to answer enough questions to have it all make sense. We're in for an action packed finale that leaves just about all our questions hanging forever. Which is why I hope the abbies finish off every last one of them. I'm not invested in any of the characters enough to care about their fates. The more ridiculous and over the top the finale is, the better. This show delights in disappointments, though, so I'm not even expecting that.

[janie jones]

I don't think that you need a helicopter (or Bev would not have commented that she has seen no planes)

That only means the helicopter never flew over Wayward Pines.  So if the helicopter was only flying to and from the town it wouldn't go overhead.  I'd like to know where they keep it that it doesn't have abbies crawling all over it, waiting for them.

[Accidental Martyr]

That only means the helicopter never flew over Wayward Pines. So if the helicopter was only flying to and from the town it wouldn't go overhead. I'd like to know where they keep it that it doesn't have abbies crawling all over it, waiting for them.

There was a shot of a girl watching the helicopter fly over when it was carrying Burke to the control center/HQ/ whatever it is. (I think.)

ETA: Just checked. It's at the beginning of Episode 6.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Accidental Martyr

[jhlipton]

I don't think that you need a helicopter (or Bev would not have commented that she has seen no planes)

There was a shot of a girl watching the helicopter fly over when it was carrying Burke to the control center/HQ/ whatever it is. (I think.)

ETA: Just checked. It's at the beginning of Episode 6.

 

So either:

    Bev never saw the helicopter at any time

    Bev doesn't think a helicopter is close enough to a plane to warrant comment OR

    Bev is lying for no good reason (other than PLOT!!!!!)

 

Just Plain DUMB!

[Centaur]

My take on that scene is that he didn't keep the bottle. We see him pick up stuff from a side table and look at it, then a quick cut to another angle shows him holding his gun. I think the editor shaved a few seconds out which would have shown him dropping the bottle and reaching for his gun. Maybe he dropped the bottle .

You can see him clearly put the bottle in his back pocket.

[Passenger58]

Did anyone else notice that scene... Where they where watching the videos on the computer and one had a video of the FBI agent with a drench coat on. He said the Abbie's where tracking them, then you hear someone speak and the video dies.

Do the Abbie's speak?

Are they really monsters ?

Is there humans who are controlling them?

Have humans mutated them ?

Just don't get that part, he says the same Abbie's have been tracking us, then someone calls his name? Who was that and why was he scared and killed the feed?

[jhlipton]

Just don't get that part, he says the same Abbie's have been tracking us, then someone calls his name? Who was that and why was he scared and killed the feed?

 

In another show, I might be tempted to check,but I can't be bothered, so this may be wrong...  Was Hassler filming himself?  If not, the voice is that of the cameraman, and the video dies when the Abbies have him for lunch.

[Free]

By now everyone is probably resigned to the fact that there's no way the final 48 minutes are going to answer enough questions to have it all make sense. We're in for an action packed finale that leaves just about all our questions hanging forever. Which is why I hope the abbies finish off every last one of them. I'm not invested in any of the characters enough to care about their fates. The more ridiculous and over the top the finale is, the better. This show delights in disappointments, though, so I'm not even expecting that.

 

Exactly, based on the promo/cliffhanger, it's just going to be a big action set between the abbies and the people.  From the promo, you already see dead bodies (mostly the extras).

[SlackerInc]

There are more holes than plot in WP. I'm willing to suspend disbelief for a lot of the what things in the show... the mountain HQ, the video bunker under Plot 33, the food from nowhere, the abbies (dumbest name ever for a particular brand of monstrous creature), the cryogenic freezers, the rebels, the weak-ass explosion, the hospital staff, the creepy real estate guy, etc.

 

What I have a much harder time with is the why of so many things. Ethan waking up in the woods, Pam's bizarre behavior early, Beverley's "I've always believed you", the dead agent in the dilapidated house, the need for secrecy, the building up of the 1st Generation, the crickets, the helicopter, the surveillance, the buffalo burgers, the abductions by way of automobile "accidents", The separation of the colonists from the people living in the mountain, etc.

 

It's a lot easier to accept the whats if there are good reasons given for the whys, and there's almost none of that. There have been attempts by the writers to explain some things, but they fall pretty flat. It just doesn't all hang together very well. And Pilcher's just not evil enough. He's calm and cool, never gets visibly angry, he's the most milquetoast villain I've ever seen. Meh.

 

I agree with a lot of this.  The "what" in sci-fi terms, I am willing to handwave pretty far.  What you are calling "whys", what I would call strange lapses in characterization or mystery for its own sake, can be frustrating.  But I'm not sure why you include the following: "the need for secrecy, the building up of the 1st Generation...the surveillance, the buffalo burgers, the abductions by way of automobile 'accidents' ".  Those all seem fairly clear (or unimportant) to me, but obviously YMMV.

 

On Pilcher being a milquetoast villain: I like this.  It illustrates what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil".  We've had enough mustache-twirlers for a thousand lifetimes.

 

That only means the helicopter never flew over Wayward Pines.  So if the helicopter was only flying to and from the town it wouldn't go overhead.  I'd like to know where they keep it that it doesn't have abbies crawling all over it, waiting for them.

 

It appeared to have a launch pad that was way up on the side of a cliff, and presumably the abbies aren't able to climb there (or there may be an electric fence near it as well).

[jhlipton]

But I'm not sure why you include the following: "the need for secrecy, the building up of the 1st Generation...the surveillance, the buffalo burgers, the abductions by way of automobile 'accidents' ".  Those all seem fairly clear (or unimportant) to me, but obviously YMMV.

 

On Pilcher being a milquetoast villain: I like this.  It illustrates what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil".  We've had enough mustache-twirlers for a thousand lifetimes.

I don't much care about the buffalo burgers -- they're getting the buffalo the same place they get the rest of the food.  But where is that?  How is it protected from Abbies (does it have a miles-long fence)?

 

The need for secrecy and the surveillance has been answered by Pilcher being a control freak.

 

The building up of the 1st Generation is an interesting concept, but the way they've done it -- with some kids of age [X] in and others of the same age out, with no clue given for the reasons.

 

The abductions by way of automobile 'accidents' -- This is the weirdest one.  Why did Pilcher need everyone to think they'd had an accident before arriving.  Didn't anyone ask anyone else "What's the last thing you remember before arriving?" and question why everyone's answer was the same?

 

As to Pilcher as villain, there's a mighty big gap between Pilcher and the mustache-twirler.  He needn't be a Mad Scientist, but a Mildly-Frustrated one would be nice!

[potatoradio]

 

They did cover it. It was something Megan explained to the new initiates in school. We so badly polluted this planet all the toxins and poisons in the air, water, food, etc., eventually led to the devolution of mankind. So there's no "gene" that humans carry that made them devolve. Presumably after humans devolved beyond the capacity to reason or maintain infrastructure, the atmosphere cleared up. So Pilcher's people are safe from the same fate.

 

Thank you for explaining that - I can buy this part now, even if I think the show writers did a craptastic job envisioning what the world might look like if left to the abbies as the dominant species and after an environmental change that wiped out humanity. It's been a long time since I studied environmental changes after great extinctions, but if I remember right, the environment didn't revert back to a previous one, but changed significantly.

 

If next week is indeed nothing more than an abbie smorgasbord, I hope that Pilcher or Pam or creepy teacher can spit out a few more truths as the abbies chomp away at them. Still wonder why the people in WP were chosen. Pilcher is a control freak scientist - no way would just random people be frozen. Why Ethan?

 

And, as someone mentioned previously, the abbies aren't exactly fine-tuned hunters if they wait around a fence for years and years for the possibility of food, even if human beings are the equivalent to dining at, say, a stunning Gordon Ramsey restaurant. What if they eat someone and suddenly start screaming "It's rawwwwwrrrrr, you donkey!"

 

Expectations are completely done away with, though, so I'm just treading water and finishing this out.

 

 

 

[margol29]

Ben has woken up and appears to be enjoying a bowl of mayonnaise,

OMG! I read this when I was at my desk at work in the library....I nearly fell off my chair I was laughing so hard.

[iMonrey]

 

The more ridiculous and over the top the finale is, the better. This show delights in disappointments, though, so I'm not even expecting that.

 

At this point, I actually wouldn't mind if it ended with Ethan waking up in a hospital and the whole thing turned out to be a fever dream after he was in the car accident. Normally I would detest such a cheap cop-out, but in this case it would go a long way towards explaining all the plot holes and inconsistencies. 

 

What might actually work would be if did wake up, everything seemed normal, Theresa is there at his bedside, etc., and then in the last frame we see Pilcher and Pam watching them on a monitor. Turn the whole thing upside down with a re-set from scratch.

[Notwisconsin]

 I think he's just a bad actor. I mean he was okay back in the '80s--maybe just out of practice?

Crash was in 2006 (actually 2004), and Dillon was nominated for best supporting actor by pretty much everyone from the Oscars on down.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Notwisconsin

[fishcakes]

I think Matt Dillon is underrated as an actor. He's in that weird space between character actor and movie star and so he's never considered either one, despite having a lot of talent and being all sexy and shit. That said, he's really phoning this character in. He probably only saw the first couple of scripts, if that much, before agreeing to play Ethan, and then worked through the stages of WTF and IDGAF by the time he got to episode 6.

 

As for this episode, I too thought Hassler said there were several communities, not just WP, but I don't care enough to go back and rewatch that part. Also, I was confused about Harold mouthing "I love you" to Kate (I initially wrote "Sarah" because that's how much these people mean to me) right before he was executed. Just a couple of days earlier they were talking about escaping so he could get back to his fiancee. I'm sure that being in a fake marriage for however many years and having a common goal would make Harold and Kate care about each other, but the "I love you" just struck me as though whoever wrote this episode forgot that he's actually in love with someone else.

 

That one kid's Hitler hair was a little heavy-handed.

Edited July 21, 2015 by fishcakes

[Clanstarling]

So either:

    Bev never saw the helicopter at any time

    Bev doesn't think a helicopter is close enough to a plane to warrant comment OR

    Bev is lying for no good reason (other than PLOT!!!!!)

 

Just Plain DUMB!

Maybe she was just very literal, since a helicopter is not a plane. She'd be much more likely to hear a helicopter than a plane, they are noiser and fly lower - but would only mention that if someone asked her a direct question.

 

Or she was thawed and frozen too many times - leaving her with the brain freeze stupids.

Edited July 21, 2015 by clanstarling

[Accidental Martyr]

 

The abductions by way of automobile 'accidents' -- This is the weirdest one.  Why did Pilcher need everyone to think they'd had an accident before arriving.  Didn't anyone ask anyone else "What's the last thing you remember before arriving?" and question why everyone's answer was the same?

 

Everyone wasn't in a car accident. The realtor guy that died woke up in WP after spending the night with Pam in a hotel. I think pretty much everyone else that has talked about how they got there was in some sort of "accident."