Wayward Points: An origin story/The glitch is back

You didn't think Wayward Pines ran itself, did you?


So it's the year 4028. What the freak? That's where we left off in the last episode, anyway... But this week's episode started with what appeared to be a flashback, showing a (presumably) much younger Dr. David Pilcher (formerly known as Dr. Jenkins) walking the apocalypse-ridden streets of a pre-"Work Hard, Be Happy" Wayward Pines. How mysterious. Hit the music. Cue the intro. Hashtag Wayward Pines.

***

We learned A LOT in this week's episode of "Wayward Pines." I'm a couple days late, due to a weird glitch on my DVR, but a big shoutout to Julie Owings, who let me mooch off of her Hulu Plus account to check out the most recent goings-on in TV's most interesting city. Let's get the quick rundown of information as we try to make sense of the biggest bombshells dropped last Thursday night. Before we get to this week's Wayward Points, let's dissect the good stuff that went down between two of the show's main characters: Ethan Burke and David Pilcher.

Ethan spent the episode with Dr. Pilcher in a huge building known as The Complex. It's where more than 200 "volunteers" run Wayward Pines behind the scenes. Pilcher gets a little busy with his day-to-day tasks, so Nurse Pam takes Ethan and patches up the wounds he sustained from his recent run-in with a herd of Abbies. While she's bandaging him up, he learns that Pam and David are siblings. He also discovers that Pilcher's people (Pillagers, maybe?) have an Abbie locked up in the basement. It doesn't like Ethan very much, by the looks of it, but they are able to subdue the beast with some sort of chemical gas.

Throughout the episode, we are treated to a series of flashbacks from Dr. Pilcher's life, which will be quite instrumental moving forward. Let's bring up our first set of Wayward Points as I recap what we discovered:

• Pilcher, a scientist and corporate mogul by trade, had bombed a presentation. In the late 1990s, Pilcher's company discovered a small genetic mutation that, in the worst case scenario, he believed could destroy mankind. You see, as humankind mistreated the environment, it, too, would suffer. By Pilcher's estimation, mankind would be wiped off the face of the planet - and it would happen soon. Other scientists, however, didn't much care for Pilcher's rantings and ravings, and he began to become quite discouraged. He was comforted by his sister, Pam, a recovering drug addict, but he stressed to her that there would not be enough time to save everyone. He would need to act fast if he wanted to put his plan into action.
• In other flashbacks, we see Pilcher run into two future Wayward Pines residents, Mrs. Fisher, the hypnotherapist, whom he meets at a book signing, and Sheriff Pope, who was previously employed as a security guard at Pilcher's office building. Pilcher's book, "The Coming Crisis," would probably have been classified as a commercial flop, as he recalled that the other scientists wouldn't listen to him, but he was approached by Mrs. Fisher, who offered to help hypnotize people as a way of getting them to participate in Pilcher's project. Pilcher declined, saying that he would only take volunteers, but Fisher takes a hold of Pilcher's hand (hypnotizing him, most likely) and begs him to accept her help. Pope, on the other hand, was recruited by Pilcher to join the experiment. [Pope declares his love for Rocky Road ice cream, by the way. It was glorious. RIP Ice Cream Man.] Pilcher knew nearly everything about Pope's life, including his struggles with illegal drugs, but offered to let the man with dreams of law enforcement take part in what he called a second chance - "a chance to restart, but also to participate in something quite extraordinary." That's when Pope started abducting people. That's right! We see, through flashbacks, that Pilcher and Pope began stealing people against their will and cryogenically freezing them so that they could re-populate the planet at a later date.

What ice cream did Pope say he liked during Pilcher's flashback? Here's a hint: It's NOT rum raisin. #WaywardPines pic.twitter.com/eUow4H7UO7

— Wayward Pines (@WaywardPinesFOX) June 27, 2015

Present-day Pilcher tells Ethan that he had funneled his company's money into cryonic research. He is called down to observe the recently unfrozen body of a new arrival - Sarah Barlow, a teacher from Missouri. Ethan asks how many others there are and the camera pans to show that there are TONS of cryo chambers in The Complex. Ethan examines some of the chambers. It's a young girl. Pilcher admits to his "burden" of abducting people to inhabit the city. He believes it was done altruistically - because someone in that young girl's bloodline would eventually need to be saved from the impending crisis.

Pilcher takes Ethan to his private office in The Complex, which looks completely different than the copy-and-paste cement walls we've grown accustomed to. Here, he explains several important things:

• Pilcher and his volunteers left the world in 2014 and woke up 2,000 years later - long enough, he says, for the world to reset, and long enough for all the other humans to die out and stop destroying the planet. It only took two years to rebuild the city. They established a perimeter around the town to keep the Abbies out. When Ethan asks if the Abbies ever got inside the city, Pilcher says he discovered that the Abbies were dangerous, but very predictable. He compares the town and its government to Colonial America - spies on every street corner, traitors hung in the streets. Ethan compares it to the leadership style of Joseph Stalin.
• Ethan urges Pilcher to stop the surveillance and the executions. Pilcher says that won't work - and he knows it to be true. He's tried it before. He explains: The current cast is "Group B." There was a Group A - the first group. He told them everything. The effect wasn't immediate, he said. It spread like cancer. They tried to run away - they didn't get very far. Those that did believe caved into despair. The shock of the new reality drove them to insanity. People, he says, accept change gradually. He had been too distant with Group A. He was blind to their circumstances. "These are the Dark Ages," Pilcher says, "but enlightenment is coming."
• Pilcher needs Ethan to keep Wayward Pines safe. Young minds are fearless, Pilcher explains. At that point, Ethan realizes that Ben knows the truth. Now Pilcher is searching for a way to protect the First Generation. Pilcher tells Ethan of a faction that has been removing their tracking chips. [Viewers realize that he speaks of Harold and Kate - but we'll get into that later] He knows that The Faction plans to take down The Fence. But Ethan is prepared to do whatever it takes to stop anyone else from dying at the hands of "this wreckless group," the Abbies or Pilcher, himself.

***

So there we have it. That was the main storyline this week. But there was much, much more happening elsewhere. Let's break it down.

Wayward Points:

• There is a "clean" room in the back of the toy shop where Kate and Harold work. No surveillance, no microphones. Several times in this episode, they meet with a delivery guy named Ted and, completely out of their typical weirdo personas, they discuss a package left in town by the late, great Peter McCall. Ted doesn't know where it is, but it urgent to find it. We later discover that the package was left in Theresa's new real estate office. Ted sneakily recovers the package and delivers it to Harold toward the end of the program. Inside the package is a bomb - the bomb that Pilcher says The Faction will use to take down the perimeter. Harold fashions the bomb into a music box and it's ready to go for Episode 7.
• Kate has interesting conversations with Harold and Theresa. She is bent on blowing a hole in The Fence, but refuses to do it without Harold's help. She wants to find out what's out there, including whether or not Harold's pre-WP fiancee is still alive. Kate also breaks character a bit for Theresa, asking for forgiveness of the ill-fated decisions that got her stuck in this freaky town and probing Theresa's willingness to help out with their covert operation. While no official alliance was forged, it's likely Kate will try even harder to recruit Theresa in future episodes. [Also, it is of not that Kate drinks from a mug just like you'd think she would - like a total weirdo.]
  
• Meanwhile, Theresa discovers a mysterious part of town called Plot 33 - a 1.66 acre lot of undeveloped land, which Theresa describes as a prime residential area. Her pervert of a boss, Big Bill, gets upset at Theresa for talking about it and a former employee named Henrietta believes that curiosity about Plot 33 led to the untimely death of our friend Peter McCall. Apparently Peter thought Plot 33 was a way out. And, apparently, he thought wrong. When Big Bill leaves for work and Theresa is all alone, she digs out the Plot 33 plans and books it out of there like it's 5:01 on a Friday afternoon.

***

What we learned:

- The warehouse facility that Ethan discovered a few episodes back stores all of Wayward Pines' food, according to a comment made by Nurse Pam at the beginning of the episode.

- As Dr. Pilcher walks Ethan through The Complex, Ethan overhears a female telephone operator asking if a man would like to leave a message for his wife. At the beginning of the series, Ethan repeatedly spoke to a woman named "Marci," who said she was a new receptionist at the Seattle secret service office. He'd never heard of Marci before. Now we know why.
- While many of Wayward Pines' residents are "volunteers," the "accidents" that brought people like Ethan, Theresa and Ben Burke to Wayward Pines were strategically thought-out abductions, organized by Pilcher and his company.

Side note:
- Apparently Sarah Barlow, the Missouri teacher, is the subject of FOX's online companion series, "Gone." Maybe I'll have to check that out sometime.

The Rules:
- Kate uncharacteristically breaks The Rules in the toy store's clean room by talking to Harold about his fiancee.

Questions:
- What is Plot 33?
- Still don't know if Pilcher and Pope were time traveling ...or whatever... when we saw them back in the first couple episodes of the show.
- If Ethan is asked to choose between Kate/Harold, Theresa and Pilcher/the safety of Wayward Pines residents, which will he choose?

***

Welp...

RIP Group A

Episode 6

Until next week,

Work hard and be happy.