Spoilers here: Stop reading now\u00a0if you plan to watch the series!<\/p>\n
Flash forward 10 episodes, and we have our\u00a0answers. \u00a0We have learned that the town is really the brain child of a visionary scientist, who foresaw the end of humanity and created the town as a fortress and humanity\u2019s last refuge. \u00a0The town\u2019s residents were all cryo-frozen in 2015 and then reawakened 2000 years into the future. \u00a0The rest of humanity has meanwhile evolved into cannibalistic monsters (referred to as \u201caberrants\u201d or \u201cabbies\u201d) that hunt and kill anything on feet.<\/p>\n
In the final episode, the scientist, David Pilcher, reveals that he isn\u2019t done playing God. \u00a0He doesn\u2019t like it that Ethan Burke has \u201couted\u201d him and his operation to the rest of the townspeople. \u00a0He has decided that it is time to pull the plug on this \u201cbatch\u201d of humans by turning off the power to the protective fence. \u00a0Like many a screen villain before him, he listens to opera music in his opulent mountain lair and watches the progress of the cleansings. \u00a0His own henchmen turn on him and he is killed, but not soon enough to end\u00a0the destruction he has unleashed. The mutants swarm in and kill most of the town fairly quickly in a set of fast paced scenes that seem reminiscent of zombie apocalypse movies like \u201cWorld War Z\u201d. \u00a0Ethan Burke rescues some of the townspeople, who make it into the fortified complex that overlooks the city. \u00a0Ethan blows himself up in an elevator shaft to kill many of the \u201cAbbies\u201d and saves the others. \u00a0His son is conked on the head by debris, and awakens from a coma three years later.<\/p>\n
Ethan\u2019s son finds that things have come full circle to where they were at the beginning of the series. \u00a0The town seems to be back to normal, but this is illusory. In fact, a\u00a0cadre of cold-blooded fanatical youth have also survived, and managed to overpower the adults. \u00a0Everyone who survived the mutant apocalypse has been put back into cryo-freeze and a new batch of humans is living in terror under the malignant reign of these fanatical youth. \u00a0A statue to David Pilcher stands in a park where the bodies of three people dangle, hanged for trying to leave Wayward Pines.<\/p>\n
I\u00a0have to admit that I was left a bit crestfallen by the final twist at the end. \u00a0Did Ethan really sacrifice himself only to have the \u201cHitler Youth\u201d take over? \u00a0If this is the fate of humanity, is it worth saving? \u00a0These are the interesting questions that have theological implications as well. \u00a0Even as we humans\u00a0show brilliance in\u00a0the face of hostile natural forces, using\u00a0all of our cleverness and ingenuity to survive and thrive, we nonetheless\u00a0remain\u00a0our own worst enemies.\u00a0 Despite the spark of divinity\u2013that \u201cimage of God\u201d\u2013that is imprinted upon us, we are fallen creatures. \u00a0\u201cWayward Pines\u201d, like Holy Scripture, doesn\u2019t give an optimistic appraisal of our fortunes, when we are left to our own devices. \u00a0 The final questions for humanity remain open: Will we destroy ourselves? Will we play God, or rather seek the real one?<\/body><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I caught the finale of the Fox Miniseries \u201cWayward Pines\u201d, another entry in the interesting genre of the dystopian future. \u00a0The series began with solid characters and an air of mystery\u2013FBI agent Ethan Burke wakes up after a car accident, to find himself in the hospital of a small Idaho town. \u00a0He wanders around this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[194,195,192,190,193,191,189],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tv-shows","tag-dystopia","tag-ethan-burke","tag-fox","tag-m-night-shyamalan","tag-miniseries","tag-twist-endings","tag-wayward-pines"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}