Wayward Pines recap: Exit Strategy

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the woods… the Abbies somehow make it past the fence. They’re smart! They have a social structure! They can solve problems on their own!

And they also, for some strange reason, dig pits and toss people like Xander inside them! That’s right: In this hour’s opening moments, we see Xander alive and breathing at the bottom of what looks like (but totally isn’t) a well. Is Xander about to reenact the opening flashbacks of every Batman film? Unfortunately, no. Instead, an Abbie enters the underground lair and attacks, but Xander overpowers him, crushes his head, and miraculously climbs out. (Hey, maybe this is a superhero origin story.) When he grabs a drink at a stream, he encounters — GASP! — Adam Hassler, Ethan’s old Secret Service boss and Pilcher conspirator. Adam draws a knife to Xander’s throat, but Xander reminds him he’s not one of their “mutant friends” (alright, I see what you did there, Wayward Pines), so the two get a chance to properly bond.

Well, as much bonding as you can do while outside the fence of the only safe town on the planet. Adam reports that Pilcher sent him outside to find survivors, but he hasn’t seen a single human since leaving. Instead, he’s encountered Abbie after Abbie, and he’s learned that “there’s a method to them.” They always send a scout first to look for potential enemies, for example — something the denizens of Wayward Pines aren’t thinking about at the moment.

In fact, security at the fence hasn’t been concerned about the Abbies for days now, and they happily bring Adam and Xander back inside. Shaken by nightmares and flashbacks of his encounters with Abbies, Adam can only tell Theo one thing when Theo comes to check on him in the hospital: “They’re not our enemies. They’re replacements.” And then Theo sees something even more disturbing: a smattering of scars across Adam’s abdomen. What exactly happened to this guy?

As Jason puts it in his latest less-than-friendly conversation with Theo, Adam was one of 12 “nomads” Pilcher sent outside the fence to explore and report back about the world, and the only one to ever return. Though Jason wants Theo to divulge what Adam told him, Theo refuses to talk — he still doesn’t trust the fascist Head Douche in town — and decides to drive him away by bringing up Pam, who Jason had killed despite claiming he cared for every survivor.

Jason rushes off, but he’ll have to track down Adam first. Alone in his hospital room, Adam began having visions of Abbies and rushes out — while ignoring Arlene‘s offer of a haircut, body wax, manicure, and pedicure — to Main Street, where he officially becomes Wayward Pines’ first homeless man. Theresa spots him stumbling through an alley and the two quickly catch up: She wonders whether he’s seen Ben (nope, he hasn’t), he wonders where Ethan is (sorry, he’s dead), and Theresa winds up berating Adam about his life’s work. “You son of a bitch,” she hisses. “You sent Ethan here. You knew all along, didn’t you? My family’s all gone because of you.” Oof. Theresa, technically your family’s all gone because we failed to take care of the environment, but hey, Adam’s an easy punching bag right about now.

At least Xander’s doing okay after returning to “paradise.” Inside his ice cream shop, Kerry warns him not to betray the First Generation again, and Xander appears to be all ears, until he tells her he’s happy to help with the Abbie research and get Adam to properly talk about what’s out there if it’ll lighten whatever sentence Jason has planned for him. It’s a gamble — but it might just work. After all, Adam’s now simply wandering town having visions of Abbies eating kids eating ice cream. He could use a doctor, but Theo’s a bit busy figuring out who to tell about the Abbies other than Jason. And so, he speaks to Rebecca — she tells him he needs to report it — and then wanders off to speak to CJ, who tells him that as someone who’s been there far longer than Theo has, he’s learned it’s more important to keep up hope than to fear what’s outside the fence.

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Speaking of which, earlier in a meeting, Jason sided with CJ about exploring beyond Wayward Pines’ borders — which is why a team gears up to leave town and do some digging into the soil and what lies outside the fence, so they can plant even more crops and continue to survive. As the team leaves, Theresa begs to join in so she can find Ben, and CJ allows her (and Adam, who wanders in) to tag along. When they arrive at their camp, Theresa questions Adam, wondering why he came and whether he came to help her. He says she’s right, and at night, he heads into the woods alone to search for something… a something that turns out to be Ben’s body, which he brings back to camp, waking Theresa, who kneels, looks at the body, and begins to cry. Without a word, she glares at Adam and turns away — all of which CJ observes from his tent. Sorry, Ben… guess you really are dead.

NEXT: When a girl and a boy love each other very much…

Ooooh boy. Remember all those pregnant tweens and teens in the classroom last week? Turns out Megan‘s big push for everyone — yes, even the children — to procreate is even more severe than expected. Though she reports to Jason that there’s been a great number of pregnancies (oh, and nine “females viable this month,” hooray!), she’s dismayed when she learns of Lucy (played by Jacob Tremblay’s sister, Emma, whose character you could say is trapped in a room of her own here…) getting her period.

Despite Rebecca’s best efforts to protect Lucy, who helps at the beauty shop, Lucy can’t help but go to the bathroom more often and squirm while watching a school production of Pines! A Musical Celebration — it’s the history of the town, naturally, so it’s like the Hamilton of Wayward Pines! — so Megan quickly picks up on her “blooming.” While Lucy cowers outside the show, Frank, her brother, tries to comfort her to no avail.

Megan, however, knows exactly what to do when it comes to uncomfortable tweens. She sets up a meeting with Frank over, uh, fudge, and pressures him into revealing his sister’s secret. She persuades him that her fertility is something they should celebrate.

Good thing Rebecca disagrees. The next day, when Megan corners Lucy in the beauty shop, Rebecca returns from a flirtatious visit to Xander’s shop to stop her from taking Lucy. Megan gets a few jabs in there, of course: She points out that Rebecca failed to have a child, and the survivors have to pair up and have babies as early as possible. If Rebecca doesn’t listen, Megan threatens, she’ll go see Jason and report her. Rebecca, oddly, doesn’t care — and literally wheels her out of her store.

To help Lucy, whose parents died during Invasion Day (when the Abbies crossed the fence in the season 1 finale), Rebecca brings her home for the night, where she introduces Lucy (and Lucy’s plight) to a stricken Theo. Theo, once again, wonders why this town, well, sucks. “It’s eugenics, you know this,” he says, but Rebecca just shakes her head. She’s just as disgusted as he is at the Academy’s Nazi-esque process of controlling the town’s breeding, but there’s not much they can do other than talk and help when they can.

Then again, talking and helping when they can isn’t going to protect them against the real threat in town: an Abbie (and potentially more) that has breached the fence. At night, after Frank gets jilted by his hurt sister — Lucy figures out quickly that her brother must have told Megan her secret — he wanders away from his bunk bed and from the Academy alone with a sandwich to sit on a bench on Main Street. With no one around, the carousel nearby suddenly lights up and begins spinning without a human on board. It then turns off as quickly as it turned on. And Frank, perturbed, turns around to take a closer look, when — ahhhhhhhh — an Abbie pops his head up and stares right back at Frank. RUN, FRANK, RUN!

Will Frank be okay? Are we supposed to assume one of the Abbie’s advanced skills is the ability to work carousel machinery? How did that Abbie get inside Wayward Pines? Is it a scout other Abbies have sent in to observe the survivors? So are Abbie “scouts” basically like the human “nomads”? Was this Abbie also a former Secret Service agent? Speaking of the Secret Service, how’s Adam doing? How did he find Ben’s body so quickly? Why does CJ keep staring at everyone? What does CJ know? How did Xander end up in a pit? Why do Abbies know how to dig pits? Did they read Holes? What does corn ice cream taste like? What does remorse ice cream taste like? Did Kerry rehearse that joke? Will Lucy be okay, or will she be devastated with Frank gone? Who were their parents? Why isn’t Rebecca afraid of Megan or Jason? When will Arlene be able to give Adam a haircut? When she does, will they fall in love? Would an Adam and Arlene — Adlene? — romantic relationship be as wild as the Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston one?

Leave your pick in the comments below, or tweet me your thoughts at @shirklesxp.