Wayward Points S02E09: Remembrance of things past

"I'll always be me. It's already been written. The Book of Life."

***

What we already know:

• Kerry can't have kids because of the Abby (A-B-B-Y) attack that happened earlier in the season. Jason wanted to repopulate the town like Adam and Eve, but that's gonna be a little difficult if he intends on doing it with Kerry.
• Margaret the Abby busted free from containment at the Complex and she remembers, Jason... she remembers!! She got shot by Xander and may potentially be dying, but she's back with her people, the Settlement Abbies now.
• Speaking of dying, Wayward Pines only has a month's worth of food left and is running out of medicine. There's something wrong with the soil so they can't grow crops inside the Fence.
• Rebecca has discovered that the Abbies are digging underground tunnels to get inside the Fence. They're preparing to wipe out what's left of civilization. Oh, and Rebecca's pregnant with Xander's child.
• Theo can't stand Jason, just like the rest of us.

Wayward Points:

• REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST

• The episode kicks off by showing a flashback where Pilcher is visiting a private school called Walcott Prep in Chicago, Illinois. He's there to check on an adoption he has lined up. One of the students is pregnant and Pilcher will be taking the child. We quickly deduce that this is a young Jason Higgins. The girl's name is Abigail (strange name, all things considered...) and Pilcher is an excited future father, although it be by an alternative means.
• When Pilcher discovers that something has gone wrong with Abigail (a miscarriage, perhaps?), he leaves Chicago and heads to Boise, where he makes a generous donation to the hospital there in order to expedite the adoption process for another baby boy.
• The hospital will get the adoption taken care of in order to meet Pilcher's time frame, but the case worker insists that Pilcher meet the mother first. Pilcher heads into one of the rooms and meets the young lady - and it's... KERRY??? HOLY CRAP!!
• As Pilcher is getting to know Pre-Wayward Kerry, he discovers that she is "street smart" - maybe not strong, but she knows how to survive. She tells him that she wishes she had new memories - a new life - to replace the ones she already had. Well, it just so happens that Pilcher is in the business of giving people new lives... of giving people an escape from their past...
• DON'T THEY KNOW IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD?

• Back in the present (future), Jason thinks the citizens should all go back into cryo-sleep until the Abbies die out. However, CJ examines the pods and discovers that some of the chambers don't have sufficient energy to put people back to sleep. Only 571 chambers are fully functioning. That's gonna be a bit of a problem.
• Jason orders Theo to run a physical on as many people as possible, in order to determine which citizens are best suited for survival. Theo suggests a lottery method of choosing who gets a pod and who doesn't, but Jason disagrees. Theo sarcastically suggests that anyone who could be seen as "defective" should not be chosen. This would include Kerry, who cannot reproduce. When Theo suggests to Kerry that she will not be chosen for Jason's selections, he urges Kerry to take Jason out. She refuses.
• Families peacefully begin lining up at the Complex in order to secure a spot in the Complex. Just imagine what's going to happen when they find out that some of the pods don't work. Ha.
• MAMAMIA, MAMAMIA!

• While looking through files in Pilcher's office, Jason discovers that Kerry Campbell is his mother. (Such a great twist, in my opinion.) We are approaching McFly Status here, people. Nay. We have SURPASSED McFly status!
• Jason confronts Kerry about her confidential file, asking why she never told him that she had a baby before Wayward Pines. Kerry says that the baby went to Texas 2,000 years ago. Jason becomes infuriated, demanding how she know that the baby did, indeed, go to Texas. She says that Pilcher told her - which means that now Jason realizes that Pilcher lied.
• A fight ensues and a gunshot is fired -- BUT WHO GOT SHOT?!?
• In a flashback, we see a younger Jason Higgins sitting on a bench near the carousel. He is reviewing files of eligible women to select as a partner, like a post-apocalyptic version of Tinder. (#WaywardPinesTinder). He chooses Kerry Campbell to be awakened from cryo-sleep. We see Jason greeting Kerry as she wakes up in Pilcher's office. She seems confused about there being an accident in Chicago (see "What We Learned").
  
• In the closing moments of the episode, Kerry and Jason are shown lying on their backs on top of Pilcher's model of Wayward Pines. Jason says, "Walcott Prep... they taught you well..." and blood is shown running (literally and symbolically) through the miniature streets of town. But whose blood it is, exactly, we cannot be sure at this point. Kerry had blood on her shoulder and Jason appears to have sustained a bullet wound to the right hip.
• DOCTOR ABBY
• The Settlement Abbies continue nursing Margaret back to health after her severe gunshot wound to the hand in Episode 8. At the end of the episode, Margaret has enough strength to sit up and growl commands to her subjects. She rolls over to the side of the cliff and we see an entire army of Abbies howling and raring to go. It's showtime, ladies and gents...

Who we met:

• Abigail: A pregnant student at Walcott Prep in Chicago, Illinois. She liked playing badminton "to keep up appearances." David Pilcher was set to adopt her baby until something came up and the adoption had to be called off. The baby's name would have been Jason. 

What we learned:

• Before arriving in Wayward Pines, Kerry was physically abused by several close relatives. She was born on August 27, 2013, and raised in a small town outside of Boise and got pregnant by a man she'd known since she was seven. She had dreams of traveling the world.
• Upon investigation of Kerry's file in Pilcher's office (I paused it), her biography says that she attended Walcott Prep in Chicago. That she was a math wiz, a debate champ and a wonderful athlete. But that's not true. That's not true at all! Kerry's face and name have been matched up with Abigail's personal information.

Wayward Lines:

• Pilcher: "At the end of the year, I'm planning a long trip."
• Pilcher: "I want to leave a legacy ... of service and future leadership, a legacy of love - unconditional love for humanity."
  
• Abigail reads from "Animal Farm": "The creatures outside looked from pig to man and from man to pig and from pig to man again, but it was already impossible to see which was which."
• Abigail, on "Animal Farm": "This doesn't describe my world." Pilcher replies: "Not yet."
• CJ explains cryo-preservation: "We turn you off so we can turn you back on again."
• CJ, after examining the cryo-pods: "We have a problem."
• Jason Higgins, leadership personified: "Dr. Yedlin, I need you to stop what you're doing and I need you to do something else."
• Jason: "I need to make selections."
• Theo to Jason, about Kerry: "You know Pilcher wouldn't take her."
• Kerry: "What good has truth done anyone here?"
• Theo: "Sad irony of Wayward Pines: you starve to death or you get eaten alive."
• Kerry and Theo, on Jason's priorities: "He loves me." "He loves Pilcher more."
• Pre-Wayward Kerry: "I guess I was just focused on the 'being pregnant and giving birth' thing."
• Pre-Wayward Pilcher, on Idaho's geography: "I only know one small town around here."
• Pre-Wayward Kerry: "This may be Idaho, but we're not that twisted."
• Pre-Wayward Kerry: "The past... You carry it with you wherever you go, no matter what you do. You can't run from it. You can't control it. I'll always be me. It's already been written. The Book of Life."
• Kerry and Jason: "Hi. Are you all right?" "No. I'm not all right."
• Jason to Kerry, upon her awakening: "I wanted to be the first face you saw when you woke up."
• Jason to Kerry: "Walcott Prep... They taught you well."

The Rules:

• Pilcher tells Abigail, "Sometimes Rules are good - essential, even."
• Phones ring around town. We can faintly hear as they begin to be answered.
• Jason mentions to Rebecca that bearing children is the most important way citizens can contribute to Wayward Pines. When he begins quoting Rules to her, she cuts him off, saying, "Enough with the Rules, Jason."
• Pre-Wayward Kerry mentions that she was focused on pregnancy. This becomes a high priority in Wayward Pines, as well.
• Pre-Wayward Pilcher tells Pre-Wayward Kerry not to dwell on the past. "Let's not even discuss it," he adds.

Wayward Whines:

• WHYYYYYYY was this episode so awesome??

Wayward Signs:

• "Cryopreservation: What YOU need to know"
• "The Science of Cryo-preservation"
• "Time flies!"
• "Privileged & Confidential - Pilcher Access Only / Resident: Clarke, David"
• "Privileged & Confidential - Pilcher Access Only / Resident: Campbell, Kerry"
• "Sensitive and Confidential Information"

Easter eggs:

• Theo is shown walking into town on Main Street, similarly to how Ethan (RIP) and Ben (RIP?) Burke were shown at points in Season 1.
• Literary works:
• For those who are into this kind of stuff, Abigail was being forced to read "Animal Farm" by George Orwell.
• Pre-Wayward Kerry and Pilcher discuss Proust's "In Search of Lost Time/Remembrance of Things Past." (It is of note that "remembrance of things past" is forbidden by the Rules in Wayward Pines.)
• In Episode 6, we learned that there were only 1,177 citizens remaining in Wayward Pines. That means only 48.5% of the population would get a working cryo-pod.
• The first family that shows up early to enter the Complex is the same family that Xander secretly gave apples a few episodes ago.
• The scene on Main Street where the hanged body is being cut down would have taken place in the time frame immediately following the Season 1 finale. Jason even has the same ice cream cone he was shown eating in the closing scene of that episode.

What we don't know:

• What's wrong with the soil in Wayward Pines?
• Is Ben Burke still alive?
• And WHO THE HECK GOT SHOT????

Obituaries:

WHO GOT SHOT??

***

I've liked this season. It's been a bit different than Season 1, but it you're not totally digging this season after Episode 9, you might not have a pulse. This was, by far, I'd say, the best episode of the season and probably ranks right up there in the top four or five in the series, at this point. The twist in revealing Jason's mother was mind-blowing and the ramifications will be disastrous, one way or the other. Another thing that's worth mentioning is this script! This script has been incredible. It may just be that I've trained myself to listen more closely than usual in order to hunt down WP Easter eggs and meaningless trivia, but there are so many great one-liners (usually from Theo, but Pre-Wayward Kerry had some good ones and Pilcher is always fantastic) and the immense depth of Pilcher's philosophies have really impressed me. Episode 9 got me right in "the feels" a couple times as I watched. Man, I felt bad for Kerry. What a rough life - before and after her abduction. What an episode! I'm still taking deep breaths and trying to recover, and I hope for heck's sake that somebody out there is reading this, which means, most likely, that you've also been watching. "Wayward Pines" has been a wild ride and it's a real shame that so few of my friends are giving it a chance.

One more show left, people. Next week, it's humans vs Abbies and things are bound to be crazy because there ain't enough room in this town for everybody... Thoughts? Comments? Predictions? Hit me with your hot takes in the comments section.


Until next week,

Work hard and be happy.