Amazon Prime's "The Wilds" Season 2 - Skip or Stream?
The mystery and the journey of The Unsinkable Eight have returned today to Amazon Prime’s The Wilds. Season 1 saw a group of nine young women live through a plane crash and attempt to survive on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean. They believed they were on their way to a female empowerment program in Hawaii. Instead, they are trying to survive and things aren’t easy. They struggle to find food, potable water, and shelter. One of the original members of the group dies on the first day from injuries sustained from the crash.
A revelation from the first season was that this entire event (the plane crash, the island, etc.) was staged by Gretchen Klein (Rachel Griffiths). The female empowerment program was a ruse to get young women signed up for this social experiment. Every aspect of the girls’ lives on the island is being monitored by Gretchen’s team and the mole within the group of girls.
Season 1 ended with a shocker: there is a separate island where a group of boys is living through the same experience. After a year and a half gap between seasons, the audience finally gets to meet the boys of The Twilight of Adam.
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Another cliffhanger of Season 1 is the fate of one of the girls, Nora (Helena Howard). She swam out to sea to save her sister, Rachel (Reign Edwards) who was being attacked by a shark. The question of Nora’s fate, who the boys are, and what Gretchen’s master plan is are what fans are most excited to learn about this new season.
Luckily, the premiere of The Wilds Season 2 finally answers some of these questions. Within the first few minutes, the shark attack and Nora’s safety are answered quickly. The show then immediately pivots to introducing the boys.
Like the girls from Season 1, the boys represent a wide variety of sexualities, monetary/social classes, races, and personalities. Some of them know each other from their lives before this. Step-brothers, classmates, and best friends are some of the dynamics that are coming into play. There are clear leaders that emerge on the island in the immediate aftermath of the plane crash.
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The second season of The Wilds is compelling, but very unbalanced. Season 1 saw the juggling of the girls’ lives before, during, and after the island. It proved to be a good use of time and the before timeline really helped to enrich the on-the-island plot. It was no easy feat to accomplish the time management in Season 1.
Unfortunately, the introduction of the boys proves too much to juggle and aspects of Season 1 are dropped in favor of the boys. The show now has to take even more timelines and stories into consideration. The boys’ lives before, during, and after the island have to be explained, but the girls’ time during and after the island are also a focus. It simply becomes too much. The boys feel like caricatures because their time is split so unevenly and the girls’ screen time is reduced to mostly montages.
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What made The Wilds Season 1 so special was the dynamics of The Unsinkable Eight. They were the audience’s entry point into this world and it’s a shame that their time on the island is being minimized. Especially because their scenes, no matter how fleeting, are so much more exciting. It’s not a knock to the boys, but because the audience isn’t getting to know them in the same developed way, their characterization feels weak. The audience deserved to get to spend meaningful time with The Unsinkable Eight, but that’s just not the case.
In a perfect world, The Wilds should run for three seasons. The first season remains the same, but the second season’s focus should have stayed on the girls. There’s no shortage of plot for them and easily could have filled out an entire season with the conclusion of their time on the island and their lives beforehand. The boys should have taken the focus in Season 3. (Amazon has not announced if The Wilds will return for a third season.) This would have allowed the structure of the first season to be replicated for the boys and given them the time to be fully-formed characters.
Skip or Stream?
Stream if you watched the first season because lingering questions are answered. Skip if you haven’t and watch Yellowjackets instead.
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