Wayward Pines recap: Betrayal

Secret secrets are no fun, secret secrets hurt someone, especially when the secret secret you’re trying to un-secret just makes you sound insane insane.

Despite being commanded to not tell anyone about the secret of Wayward Pines, Ethan immediately tells Theresa everything he learned about their newfound place in 4028 (where marriage equality is a reality!). Naturally, Theresa thinks Ethan’s been brainwashed, even though she’s had no problem swallowing all of the other completely weird shit that has happened since she arrived. Still, brainwashing is unfortunately the trend that follows Ethan around this week as he tries to share what he’s learned, but Mr. Burke is coming up emptier than Megan Fisher’s phone contacts.

Poor Ethan. He’s barely back from the mountainside facility when he discovers that a car bomb has been planted in his truck. A car bomb! Instantly, he somehow knows that it’s been set there by one of the subversives Pilcher has tasked him with stopping before they blow a hole through the fence. After consulting the file cabinet in Pope’s old ice cream parlor, Ethan sets his first suspicion on Franklin Dobbs, a former explosives engineer.

During interrogation, Franklin is shifty but doesn’t crack. He does, however, lead Ethan directly to suspect no. 2, Harold Ballinger, who straight-up runs away from Ethan. Harold, baby, where did you think you were going? Wayward Pines IS LITERALLY A FENCE. Once Harold is in quasi-custody, Ethan demands the name of the leader of the resistance. Harold says he acted alone, but Ethan has seen the shoddy craftsmanship of Harold’s craptastic toys and knows that he is simply not capable of supervising a circle of institutional subversion. It’s obviously Kate.

By the time she arrives at Ethan’s house to answer his demands, he’s disabled all the surveillance (or so he says) and presses her for answers. “This group is the only thing that’s kept me sane here,” she says over flashbacks to a secret meeting of, like, five people. “Why would I stop trying to escape this prison?” And so Ethan once again tries to use the truth to set her free, but he says it so unconvincingly that it’s no wonder Kate literally laughs in his face.

Ethan lets her go as well, and Kate heads to her secret toy workshop to meet with Harold. With Ethan breathing down their necks, they decide to implement their two-pronged plan imminently. No sooner do they commit to execution than they receive a peculiarly timed phone call from Nurse Pam, demanding their presence at the hospital. (Is their back room not as private as they suspected? Or is Pam simply a coincidence fetishist?)

It’s time for their annual fertility consult, a.k.a. their yearly check-up to prove that they’re still worth anything to Wayward Pines and its valuable resources. For the 12th year, Harold’s sperm count and Kate’s eggs are both perfectly viable, and yet there’s no baby for these boomers. On their way out, Pam warns, “The perfect Wayward Pines couple… don’t let me down.” (Could there be a reckoning for childless couples?)

The trip to the hospital was worth it for Kate to see Theresa after their super awkward coffee date last week. They bond over a shared skepticism about Ethan’s kooky theory about 2,000 years and dinosaurs and whether Mad Men was really Peggy’s story, and though neither woman believes their mutually interested man, Kate bids Theresa an ominous goodbye, causing the latter to raise an eyebrow in intrigue. (Here, Kate also reveals a little tidbit—she apparently got a call from Adam Hassler warning her that she would be a part of this government experiment—but that’s too much to concern ourselves with this week.)

Theresa, who up until now has spent all of her time tapping metal things in plot 33 and being completely iced out of parent-teacher conferences, confronts Ethan about his fragile psyche. She’s worried everything is in Ethan’s head and relays Kate’s goodbye, and it signals to Ethan that the resistance’s plan is going down tonight. Bye again, Theresa.

Ethan swings by the school and retrieves Ben, then heads to the outskirts of town where, lo and behold, he finds Kate and her group about to blow the fence. The stand-off is tense as Ethan holds Kate at gunpoint (would he actually pull the trigger?!) and commands Franklin to disarm the bomb. He does, and Ethan locks everyone up back at the sheriff’s office. It’s only there that he notices Harold’s absence and, almost immediately, deduces that there’s another bomb out there.

It’s with Ted, the handsome deliveryman, who’s at that very moment driving through town with the bomb (disguised in a music box, which weren’t in demand in 2015 and are certainly not in 4028). Ethan pursues the truck, but what Ethan doesn’t know is that Ben and Amy have hitched a ride on the back.

LET’S TALK ABOUT BEN AND AMY.

With the youngest Burke fully initiated in the First Generation, the first homework assignment for the future citizens of Wayward Pines is to begin procreation, like, right now. Miss Fisher—arguably the creepiest Pinesian since blonde Norman Bates over at the Wayward Pines Motel—has decided it’s her mission to pair up the kids with their future mates and help them special each other’s K.

Ben and Amy are clear matches, so this basic Miss Frizzle encourages Amy when the girl says she wants to take Ben to a secluded spot outside of town. The plan is in motion when Ben accepts, agreeing to meet Amy and hitch a ride on a delivery truck route that will take them into the forest.

That’s exactly how Ben and Amy have come to stow away on Ted’s truck at precisely the moment when Ethan comes after them, and it’s Amy in her infinite wisdom who picks up the music box in the cargo hold and allows the bomb to blow up with them both inside it.

Ethan is right behind the truck when it explodes and finds Amy bloody but stable, and Ben, unconscious.

Will Ben survive? (Yes, probably.) Will the resistance stop? (No, probably.) Will Harold Ballinger ever make a music box again? (No, hopefully.) WHO KNOWS!?